Jacques de molay
In this day almost 700 years ago Jacques de Molay was burned at cthe stake.
From Templarhistory.com
On March 18th, 1314 de Molay was led out before the people to publicly confess his and the order’s sins. He recanted his earlier confession…s and said the only crime he was guilty of was lying about his Brethren to relieve his own tortures. He was then taken to an island on the Siene and burned along with Geoffrey de Charney the Preceptor of Normandy.
There are many accounts of de Molay’s dying words, but the 19th century historian, Charles Addison; perhaps one of the foremost Templar scholars records them as follows:
“To say that which is untrue is a crime both in the sight of God and man. Not one of us has betrayed his God or his country. I do confess my guilt, which consists in having, to my shame and dishonor, suffered myself, through the pain of torture and the fear of death, to give utterance to falsehoods imputing scandalous sins and iniquities to an illustrious Order, which hath nobly served the cause of Christianity. I disdain to seek a wretched and disgraceful existence by engrafting another lie upon the original falsehood.”
– Charles Addison Knights Templars
Many latter day writers have claimed that de Molay in his dying breath summoned both the King of France and Pope Clement to meet him in a tribunal before God within the year. True to the claim both men did indeed die within that time.
Whether a statement made by the Last Grand Master or an apocryphal account of Divine justice served, it will forever remain part of the Mythos surrounding Grand Master Jacques de Molay.