The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar (15 page)

In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Scandinavian Norse grew restless. From Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the Vikings raided, colonized, and settled wherever they could. In the north of France, one of the earliest of the clan was Rollo, who led Norse invaders on a quest for new lands. His son Rognwald met the French king Charles, whom history calls Charles the Simple. He demanded land from Charles as well as Charles’s daughter in marriage. At the place of the meeting, the Norsemen built a castle. These Norse who settled in France became the Normans.

The St. Clairs (the French version of their name) were the single most important Norman family. This family owned the castle that was built at the treaty site in
A.D.
912. They, in fact, had taken their name from that of a saintly martyr who lived as a hermit near what was considered a holy well near the River Epte, north of Paris.
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The holy man was murdered by the order of a “cruel woman” whom he had rebuked. Today his statue depicts him holding his severed head in his outstretched hands. The “severed head” came to be another significant symbol among those privy to an “underground stream” of sacred knowledge.

After the murder of this holy man, the area surrounding the well became known as St. Clair, and the people who resided in the castle took the name as their own surname. The family that had descended from a Norse invader, Rollo, became the St. Clairs. It was the Normans who, for purposes of taxation and administration, introduced surnames into Europe by such censuslike recordings as the Domesday Survey.
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Europe had had no use for surnames since the days of Roman supremacy. The St. Clairs were related through marriage to William the Conqueror and were present in numbers at the Battle of Hastings, where William’s Norsemen took over England. William, too, had descended from a Norse family that had settled in France.

The nine Sinclairs, as they spelled the family name once they were established in England, were rewarded for their valor at Hastings with grants of land. One of the Sinclairs, Walderne, married well. His wife was Margaret, daughter of Richard, duke of Normandy. Walderne was given the title earl of Sinclair, and his son William founded what became the Roslin branch of the family, to which “Prince” Henry would later be born. Another Sinclair, Agnes, married the head of the Bruce clan, who would come to challenge England. The Bruce clan had changed their name from the French “De Brus” upon reaching England.
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For unknown reasons, the Bruce clan and the William Sinclair family had a falling out with their king and headed north to Scotland, where they allied themselves with Malcolm III. At the time, “kingship” had a different meaning than it does today. Scotland and England were made up of several important and powerful families who ruled alongside the king. Often these clans held more power and wealth than the king. Malcolm’s first wife was the widow of a Norse ruler in northern Scotland, and the marriage had been mostly a political alliance that Malcolm used to consolidate his own strength. The Normans were regarded as conquering imperialists around the world but never as a nation. After Malcolm’s death, his sons, Alexander and David, ruled by the power of their widespread loyalties in the north. They turned away from the Celtic ways to become feudal lords in the Norman style. This meant a new social structure, much more complex than that of the Celtic peoples. The social structure included taxation, which meant that the more lands the king could lay claim to through his lords, the more taxes he brought in to his own kingdom. Imported Normans were just what the king needed to keep this process growing. The distinction between Norman and Scot became blurred after two centuries.

In March of 1286 Alexander III, the reigning king of Scotland, attended a wild drinking bout with his knights.
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Although they pleaded
with him to stay and sleep off the effects of too much drink, he rode home in the dark and, in his intoxicated state, soon became lost. Somewhere along his ride, he fell from his horse and died of a broken neck, leaving no heir. For Scotland it was a fateful night, bringing about problems that would take centuries to heal.

The immediate result was a complicated battle for succession. The king of England was as eager as anyone to impose his will on the north. Norman families found themselves on different sides of the battlefield as a result of the alliances that normally kept the country together. Bishop Wishart of Glasgow and Bishop Fraser of Saint Andrews summoned a council of bishops, abbots, earls, and barons, and from this group a regency of six “guardians” was appointed, of which one would be picked as king. This did not stop friction between the guardian families, and in the process churches, schools, nunneries, and entire villages were burned. Military excursions from England led to a rise in nationalistic feeling for the first time among the amalgamation of peoples that were the Scots. With the French and the pope backing John Balliol, the Scots found their own interests were taking a backseat to foreign interests. Robert the Bruce of Carrick soon emerged as a symbol of the will of this newly inspired nationalism.

Robert the Bruce was of the French De Brus family, of Norman extraction. He opposed the choice of Balliol and in turn made enemies of many of the other Norman families, including that of John of the Red Comyn. Because Scotland was not a nation, some families allied themselves with either England or France. Most, though, were loyal only to their own families. Another very fateful night in Scotland’s early history resulted from a plan to get Robert the Bruce and John Red Comyn together to settle their differences. It was in February of 1306 that the two met at the church of the Minorite friars in Dumfries.
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This church was chosen because both sides felt that violence could be avoided in such surroundings. The Grey Friars church, however, would have no such calming effect on either opponent.

Only Bruce and Comyn entered the church; their men were instructed to wait outside. Robert the Bruce was the younger man, and early in his life Comyn had roughed him up in front of other Scottish leaders, an
insult not forgotten. History does not record just what went on in the darkened church, but soon Bruce rushed out saying that he had stabbed Comyn with his dirk, a short Scottish dagger, and thought he was dead. Roger de Kirkpatrick, a trusted friend of Bruce’s replied, “You think? Then I’ll make sure.” He rushed into the church to see the friars dragging the body closer to the altar. Other Bruce loyalists chased the holy men away while Kirkpatrick finished the job with his own dagger. The body was dripping blood on the altar of the church. Comyn’s uncle rushed into the fray only to be killed by Christopher Seton, a Bruce supporter.

Bruce now had two choices—retreat and live as an outlaw as a result of the excommunication that would surely follow or seize the moment, and the power that might be his, even if only for a brief time. He decided he had only one choice, to finish what he had started. His men were instructed to seize Dumfries Castle while he rode to Bishop Wishart for absolution. Five weeks later this bishop crowned Robert the Bruce king at the ancient Stone of Scone, a sacred unifying symbol of Scotland. The approval of the bishop was a calculated move on Bruce’s part to divide the Scottish Church and the Church in Rome, as well as draw a line separating the English in the south and the Scots in the north. The murder at Grey Friars served to make the cause of Bruce the cause of Scotland.

His problems were far from over despite the nationalistic feeling he mounted in his support. Edward of England marched against Bruce and Scotland, and Bruce and his close family were forced into hiding. As his wife had commented, Bruce was “king” in name only, and the early days after his crowning would support her prediction. Bruce traveled from island to island in the west, often going hungry, and dressing in peasant clothes. One fateful night he was trying to sleep in a cave. The war against England was going badly; Bruce had seen friends and family captured and killed. Lying awake in the dark cave was for Bruce a dark moment. He was not sure whether he could go on.

Looking up, he watched a spider swinging from his web. The spider kept trying to make it to the wall, but each time his momentum brought him close, only to stop him short of his goal. As the king of Scotland lay underneath, the spider went on trying. Eventually the spider swung wide enough to grab on to the wall. Robert the Bruce decided at that
moment that he, too, would keep trying. He emerged from hiding only to encounter the English in small skirmishes that he usually won, but an open battle would be fatal. Frustrated by his inability to draw Bruce into open combat, the king himself actually came to Scotland to fight beside his men. The aging Edward did not survive the hard traveling and died en route to meet the Scots. This gave the forces of Bruce and Scottish nationalism breathing room, and he capitalized on the time.

Bruce used the next few years to avenge his enemies in Scotland and to seize their estates and castles. In 1314 the English returned under the son of King Edward II to reclaim Scotland. Their army has been estimated to have been one hundred thousand men strong. Although their numbers could have been an exaggeration, they were better armed. The Scots were outmanned at least three to one and were believed to be outgunned.
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The English army was made up of powerfully armed and trained knights and experienced infantry. The Scottish forces were poorly financed and poorly armed. They were forced to rely on Gallgaels from the west, who carried only spears; Picts from the far north, who had barely emerged from the Stone Age; and hardy island warriors from the Orkneys, who often used homemade weapons. The best that they brought to the field were lightly armed horsemen.

When the English arrived it was in a column that stretched for two miles. Fearing such a show of power would cause his own forces to flee the battlefield, Bruce took a famous calculated risk. He accepted the taunting challenge made to the Scots by one heavily armed knight to send their best man into battle alone, to face the knight. Against the pleas of his horrified brother, Robert the Bruce rode out into the field. Described as a small figure on a small horse, he appeared to be no challenge to the opposing knight, who immediately charged him. To Bruce’s men, watching the larger knight on a larger horse, fully armored and wielding a battle lance, the fight appeared to be lost before it even began. Bruce, however, understood that he could use his size to his advantage. As the knight charged, Bruce stood his ground, only to make a quick sidestep as the English knight reached him. He deftly avoided the weapon thrust at him and turned to swing his own ax into the skull of his challenger. The knight, Henri de Bohun, fell to the ground dead.

To see the heavily outfitted knight fall so quickly before their lightly armored leader inspired the men, as Bruce had hoped it would. Bruce had counted on much more than inspiration. Once the battle started in earnest, their cunning plans were put into action. First the mounted knights were steered onto a field prepared with booby traps such as potholes and spiked balls. As the knights’ horses fell to the ground, primitive Highlanders were there to finish the job with their spears. Still the English had forces to spare and several attacking at the same time. At one point all the Scottish forces were engaged when a new flank of English knights appeared on the scene. Just as this fresh force appeared, one that could turn the tide against the Scots, their own secret weapon rode out. The English were opposed and then beaten by three hundred knights who had been previously held off the field. This superior force was commanded by Thomas Randolph. Legend says Randolph lost only one man in his attack that sent the English running and saved Scotland.
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The tide had truly turned in favor of the Scots. The next day, the Feast of John the Baptist, Bruce’s force caught up to the retreating army of Edward II. Bruce had been against chasing the English, since he felt his soldiers were not strong enough to engage the enemy again, but one of his knights, Alexander Seton, whom history describes as a deserter but who was more likely a spy, told Bruce that the English would surrender. Some did surrender, others fought and were defeated. The result of the defeat for the English was that Scotland had achieved its independence.

After the Battle of Bannockburn, many Scottish families allied themselves to Bruce and to each other. Setons, Grahams, and the Sinclairs were the most prominent. They united under the banner of nationalism. The same nationalism served to divide the bishops of Scotland, who were forced to stand on the side of the papacy or the side of their countrymen. Bishop Wishart, who crowned Bruce at the Stone of Scone, and Bishop William Sinclair were two who stood fast despite their resulting separation from the Church.

The cause of Scotland became the cause of the Sinclairs, and the history of the Sinclair family would now be tied firmly to the unfolding
history of a revolutionary Scotland. The Sinclair and Bruce families were related through various marriages that furthered their alliance. The alliance would also bring Sinclair more wealth. William Sinclair was rewarded for his stand with Robert the Bruce with additional lands near Edinburgh and in Pentland. His son William married Isabel, the daughter of Malise, the earl of Orkney, bringing even more land to this powerful family. William’s second son was Henry, who became the first Sinclair to bear the title earl of Orkney and the Sinclair who would sail with Zeno to Nova Scotia. It was the inaccurate genealogist Father Hay who later called Henry’s grandson a prince, although there is no recorded reason for this designation outside Zeno’s letters.
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Did the rushed Father Hay genealogy have another source to which Zeno was also privy?