What is a legend? A legend is a story on a more essential level than mere
fact. A legend plays a tune that the listener wants to hear. What is
history itself, but a story selected and edited to in an attempt tell a
fundamental truth about the past? Is history is ever retold exactly as it
happened?
There are many historically stories and legends that persevere. The Knights
Templar as legends appear to live evermore. The Knights play their parts in
other myths, they taunt us down thought the centuries, causing us finally to
suppose that something in the clutter of dates, real and invented details
are the truth. Not simple truth but truth of the highest order. Over the
intervening centuries that there may not a shred of evidence but someone has
invented a detail and in one flash of insight created a new fact.
Alisdair Rosslyn Sinclair's death is a legend in the making. It is
dramatically correct and it has crime novel aspects. It is, however, a
partially documented, and some of the more improbable components were
provided by the police, Israeli hospitals and laboratories, the wild
explanations on the Internet being are no less credible than the official
version. The authorities accuse a man of being a smuggler, although they are
not certain what he was smuggling. It could have been drugs or explosives,
without evidence, and only on his own admission. If Mr. Sinclair had been a
smuggler, organized and purposeful enough to move contraband
internationally, and if he had been successful, would he have been likely to
admit the crime to law enforcement on the strength of his having hidden
ostensibly legal money in his luggage? .
How many drug smugglers are stupid enough to admit a crime for which there
is no evidence?
Robert (James) Sinclair, Alisdair's brother, is referenced in a Colin Grant
interview in The Jerusalem Post that he and his brother had grown up proud
of their heritage, told the stories of Knights Templar and the Sinclair
destiny by their father. When they were lads the boys were taken to Rosslyn
Chapel a number of times and Robert (James) presumes that the Templar
tradition is why Alisdair decided to visit Jerusalem in the first place.
Alisdair Rosslyn Sinclair was a descendant of one of the original Knights
Templar who captured the city of Jerusalem during the first Crusade of 1099.
Say the authors of 'The Second Messiah'. No proof is offered just a bald
faced statement.
Mr John Ritchie, is reported as claiming to speak for modern Knights
Templar, Ritchie is a journalist who works for Reuters, is alleged to have
said, "The modern order has 100 members...We are currently involved in an
attempt to remove control of the holy sites of Jerusalem from the Israeli
Government. We believe they should be administered by the United Nations and
are working with the UN and NATO to achieve that goal."
What? The Scottish Knights Templar "currently involved in an attempt to
remove the holy sites from Israeli control and are currently working with
the UN and NATO to achieve that goal."
It is hard for me to imagine that Mr Ritche, a responsible writer would make
this statement. A group of a hundred are working with the UN and NATO. It
makes you wonder what part of the UN and NATO. We should throw in the Girl
Guides.
I wrote both preceptor@PrinceHenryMTS.org and Templar@church.prestel.co.uk.
"Dear Sirs
I read this and wondered if it were true?" and quoting the above.
The answer has come in the form of silence.
Tracing the modern Order of the Knights Templars through the web we come to
the site where swathed on a background of Sinclair tartan we find these
statements.
"This is a brief history of Prince Henry and the Templars by the renowned
family historian and scholar, Niven Sinclair."
"In 1118 AD the Templars were established to protect the Christian Pilgrims
as they travelled to the Holy Land in Jerusalem. "
In The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple, Malcolm Barber
writes "In 1118, during the reign of Baldwin II, Hugues de Payens, a knight
of Champagne, and eight companions bound themselves by a perpetual vow,
taken in the presence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to defend the Christian
kingdom. Baldwin accepted their services and assigned them a portion of his
palace, adjoining the temple of the city; hence their title "pauvres
chevaliers du temple" (Poor Knights of the Temple). Poor indeed they were,
being reduced to living on alms, and, so long as they were only nine, they
were hardly prepared to render important services, unless it were as escorts
to the pilgrims on their way from Jerusalem to the banks of the Jordan, then
frequented as a place of devotion."
Niven Sinclair goes on "The Scots won the battle, largely due to the
intervention of the Knights Templar on the side of King Robert the Bruce,
assisted by Sir William Sinclair and his two sons, William and Henry.
In appreciation of the role played by the Templars at the Battle of
Bannockburn, and in an effort to disguise the presence of the Templars
within his kingdom, he created the Royal Sovereign Order of Scotland. Robert
the Bruce also appointed William Sinclair as the Grand Master of the Crafts
and Guilds of Scotland...........
In this hereditary chain, Prince Henry Sinclair became the Grand Master of
the Crafts and Guilds of Scotland, as well as being a Knight Templar,
pledged to protect the Christian ideals. He was known as Henry "the Holy"
St. Clair. He was a true leader and was chosen as the Commander of a Templar
inspired expedition to the New World in 1398. The Templars had found a
temporary refuge in Scotland, but Scotland had neither the space nor the
scope to accommodate them. They wanted a new land where their ideals could
take root and flourish. They knew about the New World. Trade was already
taking place. The New World beckoned." Militi Templi Scotia Internet site
"Henry the Holy" St. Clair" " was a claim made by Fredrick J. Pohl.
In an article 'Holy Knights, Holy Grail' that was published in Treasure
Quest
Magazine Ed Schroeder wrote
"Legend has long held, and recent archaeological finds prove, that many of
the Knights Templar settled in Scotland, after being forced out of France.
It is said that the Templars fought along side Robert the Bruce and were
instrumental in helping him defeat the English armies sent by King Edward.
The Knights were befriended by Prince Henry St. Clair, the Third Lord of
Roslin. With the help of the Templars the Scottish Prince built a new
castle, Roslin, meaning the Blood of Christ. The castle, which exists today
has hundreds of Templar and Holy Grail symbols etched in its stone work,
even St. Clair's tombstone has a Templar symbol. Andrew Sinclair a direct
descendent of Henry St. Clair has researched his ancestor extensively and
says that St. Clair and the Knights Templar tried to found a new Jerusalem
in the New World, landing first in what is now Nova Scotia (New Scotland)
and then in New England. Enter the mystery of Oak Island and the money pit."
I do not know how Roslin comes to mean Blood of Christ.
In fact I have difficulty with Roslin and Rosslyn
Another mystery, and of course a new myth, oh my!
Steve Jackson writes in an article, 'North America, Oak Island and the
Templars'
"A slightly new myth has risen around the Templar Knights. This comes from a
couple of directions. The first (and most lucid) is based on Andrew
Sinclair's book, "The Sword and the Grail". Basically, at the time of the
persecution, Sinclair proposes that the last of the Templars fled with the
treasure to Scotland. There they took part in the foundation of the St.
Clair family (later changed to Sinclair). The Sinclair's built Rosslyn
Chapel (mentioned and detailed in several sources as a possible link between
the Temple and Freemasonry). This becomes, either temporarily or, is still,
the resting place of the Holy Grail, which is part of the Templar treasure.
Then, along come a pair of Venetian's, the brother's Zeno.
The Sinclairs, who have become by now the Grand Masters of the Order, want a
new land to set up the perfect Templar government. So with the money and
military might of the Templars and the navigational and sailing abilities of
the Zeno's, they set out to the west. The evidence is mostly contained in
the Zeno Narrative and a map attributed to Vopell and Vavassatore which
shows Nova Scotia (New Scotland) with the figure of a crowned knight. This
is also further supported by evidence of European visitors in New England.
This includes the Newport Tower in Newport, Rhode Island and, the Westford
Knight (a carving of the figure of an armoured, European knight, including a
cruciform sword, a common Templar emblem on graves)".
On the Official International Website of the ORDO SUPREMUS MILITARIS TEMPLI
HIEROSOLYMITANI
The Magistral Grand Priory of The Holy Lands (Notre Dame, Saint Mary of
Magdalene)
"The candidate must be unmarried and free from all obligations. He should
have made no vow, nor entered any other Order; and he must not be in debt.
note: Eventually the competition for admission became so great from eligible
candidates that a very high fee was exacted from those who were to be
monk-warriors of the Temple." Translation of the Original Requirements and
Investiture Ceremony of a Knight of the Temple By H.E. The Baron of
Richecourt KGCTJ
Here we are presented with a problem. Templars were monks they were bound
by vows. One vow was the vow of chastity. This vow "forbids all voluntary
sexual pleasure, whether interior or exterior:........ Strictly speaking, it
differs (though in ordinary language the expressions may be synonymous) from
the vow of celibacy (or abstinence from marriage),....."The Catholic
Encyclopedia, Volume III
Un married monks with two sons? The plot get thicker and thicker.
Poor Alisdair Rosslyn Sinclair he is dead and we can not even get the name
of his brother correct
Sinclair
Whose comments, as always, are his alone and represent total confusion.
If anyone is still interested their is more and we will get to Dolly!
----- Original Message -----
From: <CookSLC@aol.com>
To: <sinclair@quarterman.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: Masons, Muslims, Templars, Jews, Henry and Dolly.
> srstclair@alltel.net writes:
[ This is the Sinclair family discussion list, sinclair@quarterman.org
[ To get off or on the list, see http://sinclair.quarterman.org/list.html