ABSTRACT
On Friday 13 October 1307 the Knights Templar were arrested throughout France in dawn raids ordered by King Philip IV the Fair. No similar activity took place in England. Although the Templars had been established in England since the reign of Henry I, they were not as deeply insinuated into the finances of the crown there as was the c ase in France, and not, therefore, so tempting a target. Moreover, the Templars appear to have retained a positive image in England even after the fall of Acre in 1291. The recently deceased king of England, Edward I, had been a comrade in arms with Templar knights during his own sojourn to the Holy Land following the failure of louis Ix’s crusade to Tunis in 1270, and he corresponded with Jacques de Molay, master of the order, by way of the master of the Temple in England, William de la more, as late as 1304. 1 Nevertheless, it is remarkable that Edward II resisted the pressure to follow the lead of the French for some considerable time to come. 2 It is more remarkable still when one considers that edward, not yet crowned, had been on the throne for a mere three months at the time and that he was betrothed to Isabelle, Daughter of Philip IV. Although in the end he would gradually facilitate the suppression of the order in England, Edward II clearly disbelieved the charges against the Templars. Bowing to the inevitable, he ultimately profited from the situation both financially and politically, but taken in its entirety, his conduct throughout the trial of the English Templars reflects well on a much maligned king.
