upon the closed doors, which are immediately thrown open, and the Lord Mayor for the time being makes over his sword of state to the royal sovereign, who is graciously pleased to return it. Such is the custom even to the present day, and such it has been for many centuries. When the Spanish Armada was driven from our shores, and good Queen Bess proceeded to St. Paul's to give thanks for so great a deliverance, the same ceremony was enacted. And Cromwell, some years later, when he and his Parliament dined in the City in state, allowed the old custom to be carried out, with this difference the sword was delivered up to the speaker instead of to the king. Queen Anne, after Marlborough had humbled France at Oudenarde, Blenheim, Malplaquet, and Ramillies, went through the same ceremony, when she too went to return thanks at St. Paul's. In the dirt-begrimed niches, two on either side of the archway, are statues representing Queen Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., and Charles II. And on the gate above, in more recent times, were put up ornaments of another description. Here, for the edification of his majesty's liege subjects, the mangled remains of Thomas Armstrong, one of the Rye-house-plot conspirators, were displayed. And here, too, might be seen, a little later, dangling in the wind, the quarters of Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, who attempted the life of William III. The last mementos of this kind appeared in the year 1745, when the heads of several of the unfortunate followers of the so-called Pretender were placed upon the Bar, a grim and unedifying spectacle one would fancy for businessBut people in those days thought otherwise; for Walpole, in a letter to Montague, says, 'I have been this morning to the Tower and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a look.' It was here too that old Johnson, a true Jacobite at heart, stood with Goldsmith, and, pointing to the heads that still disfigured the gateway, exclaimed with some hidden humour, Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis !'

men.

And now we are standing within the precincts of the Temple, the site where stood, so many years ago, the Preceptory of the Knights Templars. How different the association that attaches to the word Templar' in the present day to that left on our minds when we contemplate the history and derivation of the name! Now, when we read of the Temple or speak of the Templars, we picture to ourselves leading counsel learned in the law, with fusty wigs and silk gowns, eating their dinners in the old hall, or browbeating witnesses at Guildhall or Westminster, and briefless barristers sitting in dirt-begrimed chambers, waiting with anxious ear for the knock of their first client. Such is the Templar of the nineteenth century. But the Templars of history, the Templars of former days, who appear to us dim and indistinct through the mists of centuries, are

mighty heroes who cleaved their way through Turkish legions and infidel hordes in defence of a beloved and consecrated prize, the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem; men who sacrificed everything, even life itself, to the one absorbing idea-the exaltation of the cross. The latter association, no doubt, is as much coloured by time as the former is made ridiculous by familiarity. But still it will be interesting to trace the history of the Temple through all its varied changes, and to place before our eyes in truth and verity the doings of that ancient order, that has by its exploits given such a romance to chivalry and shed such a halo of glory round the city of the great king. Centuries have passed since the founder of the order first realised his pious ideas and consecrated himself to an unknown and untried task. Centuries have passed of war and tumult, of social change and political convulsion, yet the name of Knight Templar is still familiar to our ears, the memory of Ascalon and Acre is still living and green. Time, the destroyer of most things, has failed to obliterate from our minds the mighty deeds of these once pious and self-denying soldiers of the Church. Would that she could obliterate altogether from the pages of history the ignominious fall and cruel end of their less worthy descendants.

We have two different accounts of the foundation of this order. According to one it was founded by Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, with the concurrence of Pope Paschal II., in the year 1117. According to the other, the fraternity was instituted by two crusaders, Hugh de Paganis and Godfrey de St. Omer. Whichever account is the true one, and no doubt both may lay claim to some portion of truth, it is certain that at first the brotherhood consisted of only seven members, although afterwards it swelled into a mighty band, that included within its circle the first nobility and the bravest warriors in Christendom. The origin of the name Templar is explained to us by an heraldic manuscript now extant in the British Museum. It says they were called Templars for that they were placed in a house adjourning or near to the Temple of Jerusalem by vow and profession to bear and wage war against the pagans and infidels, and keep from spoil and profanation the sacred sepulchre of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.' They appear to have been lodged within the enclosure of the Temple on Mount Moriah, amidst that magnificent assemblage of buildings partly erected by the Christian emperor Justinian in the sixth century, and partly by the Mussulman caliph Omar in the seventh. They began their career in all humility and self-denial, calling themselves 'poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ; subsisting on alms, and allowing themselves only one horse between two knights. How little these poor soldiers of the cross imagined when living thus in such humility that in after years their descendants would ruffle it amongst the proudest and gayest in all the courts of Europe, and become possessors of 16,000 manors!

Three great objects the founders had in view when they first called together their small band of followers. They were to protect the pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land, to entertain them and defend them when there, and to shield the sepulchre of Christ from all violation. In order to retain such valuable allies, King Baldwin granted them many privileges, and allotted them land for their maintenance.

For a certain time they appear to have been restricted as to their number, but at the Council of Troyes this restriction was taken off. By this council, which was held in the year 1228, the order was confirmed, and was subjected to the discipline drawn up by St. Bernard, and a white habit was assigned them by Pope Honorius II. From this time their wealth, power, and influence began to increase and grow rapidly. Pope Eugenius III. allowed them the privilege of wearing red crosses on their cloaks as a mark of distinction. Spenser's Red-cross Knight, in his Faerie Queene, was evidently intended as a representation of a Knight Templar:

'And on his breast a bloodie cross he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living, ever him ador'd.

Upon his shield the like was also scor'd;

For soveraigne hope which in his helpe he had.
Right faithful, true, he was in deede and word;
But of his cheere did seem too solemne sad,
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.'

They not only increased their numbers from units to hundreds at Jerusalem, but branches of their confraternity settled and spread all over Christendom.

A century before this, in 1118, the order first settled in London, not here where we are now standing on the banks of the Thames, but near Oldbourne as it was then called, our present Holborn, on the site of the present Southampton Buildings. Here, more than a century ago, when the ground was dug up, were discovered the remains of the original Temple Church, built in a circular form like the church the knights reared afterwards on their new site, and which still remains as the entrance chapel to the present Temple Church. Ten years after their settlement in London, Hugh de Paganis, the founder of the order, visited England with four fellow knights, in order to recruit his small band of followers, and to create throughout Christendom an interest in his new society. He returned to Jerusalem with three hundred companions who had devoted themselves to the defence of the cross. Before he left this country he placed a Templar, designated the Prior of the Temple, at the head of the order in London, with supreme power over all the preceptories throughout the kingdom. From this time for half-a-century onward, the Knights of the Temple nobly carried out the glorious purpose

for which they were founded. On the sunny plains of Palestine they fought with all that heroic chivalry that has lent such a lustre to their name, and left on many a well-remembered field the mangled remains of hundreds of their brotherhood. At last the end drew near. On the banks of the river Jordan, a river so associated with all that they held most dear, in the year 1179 they met the mighty hosts of Saracens, led by the renowned Saladin in person, and after a terrific and prolonged struggle, the crescent waved victorious over the cross. On that day the fate of Jerusalem was sealed, although it was not finally taken until 1186. Before its final fall, the venerable Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem, came over to England to make one last and vain effort, as it proved, to obtain sufficient help still to preserve the sacred capital of Palestine. He offered the crown of Jerusalem to Henry II. if he would only come over and assist in its defence; but it was not to be; and Heraclius returned in disgust to the Holy Land, in time to share in the feeling of bitter shame and remorse that pervaded the Christian warriors when they had to forsake the land they had so long defended with their blood. Jerusalem had fallen. The Holy Land was trodden under foot by the exultant infidel. The object of their mission was gone, and the order could hardly find a resting-place wherein to rally its broken and decimated band of followers. Yet in this evil hour, on the morrow of their great defeat, when the sun of their glory seemed set for ever, they were more to be envied, far more to be admired, than when in after years their gorgeous palaces and rich domains were to be found scattered in countless numbers throughout every country in Christendom. But we must return for a moment to the history of their order in London. When Heraclius visited England in 1184, the Templars had removed from their old Preceptory in Holborn to their new buildings in Fleet-street, on the site of the present Inner Temple. The venerable archbishop consecrated their new church for them, as well as that belonging to the Hospital of the Knights of St. John at Clerkenwell. The church was dedicated to the blessed Virgin, and built after the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. As I have already stated, it still remains to remind us of the happiest period in the history of this famous brotherhood.

Around this consecrated building the order raised its new Preceptory, and here they lived for many years according to the strict rule laid down for them by St. Bernard. Before entering the fraternity, each member had to declare that he had already been a knight, that he was neither married nor betrothed, that he had never taken vows in any other order, that he was free from debt, and in sound health. On his admission by the Master of the Temple, each knight made use of the following formula before the assembled brotherhood: Sir, I am come before God, and before you and the brethren, and pray and beseech you, for the sake of God and our

dear Lady, to admit me into your society and the good deeds of the order, as one who will be all his life long the servant and slave of the order.' After this declaration, the Master admonished him as to the life of self-denial and hardship he would have to lead; upon which the candidate bound himself by the most solemn asseverations to be obedient to the head of the house and chief head at Jerusalem, to observe the customs of the order, to live in chastity, to help with all his powers to conquer the Holy Land, and vowed never to be present when a Christian was unjustly and unlawfully despoiled of his heritage. He was then admitted, and assured of bread and water, and the poor clothing of the order, and labour and toil enow.' The white mantle with the red cross was thrown over him; he received the kiss of peace from the master and the chaplain, and was furnished with the arms and equipments of the order. Such was the form of admission for each Knight Templar. Besides the knights, there were other classes attached to the order of an inferior degree; but although inferior, many illustrious and great men were proud to enter them, and amongst them we find no less a person than Pope Innocent III. For many years after their foundation in England, the members of the order appear to have acted in conformity with the rigorous rules laid down for them; and certainly the punishment inflicted on those of their members who proved refractory was sufficiently severe. They were imprisoned in a small stone chamber built in the thickness of the wall that surrounded the chapel, only four and a half feet in length. Cooped-up in this narrow cell, with hardly food sufficient to support bare existence, they were not denied the consolations of religion. An aperture was made in the wall, through which the unfortunate prisoner could hear the voices of the brotherhood below, as it chanted the daily service in the chapel. Besides the punishment of imprisonment, offenders were publicly scourged on the bare back by the master before the assembled brethren. One Knight Templar, by name Valaincourt, who, having deserted the order, had returned and sought readmission, was condemned to eat for a year on the ground with the dogs, to fast four days in the week on bread and water, and every Sunday to be scourged in the chapel.

Such was the rigorous discipline of the order at the commencement of its career; but prosperity proved a greater enemy to this fraternity than ever adversity had done. Soon after the final fall of Jerusalem, the wealth, influence, and power of the order, as I have already stated, increased, not only in England, but throughout Christendom. At their Preceptory in London, on the spot familiar to every citizen, kings and ambassadors were feasted, parliaments and general councils were held. Besides the large gifts bestowed upon the order, vast treasures were committed to its custody, and it was considered the safest guardian of wealth and pro