pose there can be any societies that support themselves by the badness of their morals, or who make a law to enforce the practice of impudence and obscenity. Every society endeavours to render itself respectable to those who are desirous of becoming members of it. Absurd, however, as these accusations appear, above one hundred knights were put to the rack, in order to extort from them a confession of their guilt. The more obstinate perished in the hands of their tormentors. Several, in the violence of their agonies, acknowledged whatever was desired of them. Forged confessions were imputed to others; and Philip, as if A. D. 1311. their guilt had now been certain, proceeded to a confiscation of all their treasures. But no sooner were these unhappy men relieved from their tortures, than they disavowed their forced confessions; exclaimed against the forgeries; justified the innocence of their order, and appealed to the many gallant actions performed by them, as a full apology for their conduct. Enraged at this disappointment, and thinking himself bound in honour to proceed to extremities, Philip ordered fifty-four Templars, whom he branded as relapsed heretics, to perish by the punishment of fire in his capital. Great numbers expired, after a like manner, in different parts of the kingdom: and when the tyrant found that the perseverance of those unhappy victims, in justifying to the last their innocence, had made deep impression on the minds of the people, he endeavoured to overcome the constancy of the Templars by new inhumanities. John de Molay, the grand-master of the order, and another great officer, brother to the sovereign of Dauphiny, were conducted to a scaffold, erected before the church of Notre Dame, at Paris. A full pardon was offered them on one hand, a fire destined for their execution was shewn them on the other. But these gallant noblemen persisted in the protestation A. D. 1312. protestation of their own innocence and that of their order; and as the reward of their fortitude, they were instantly hurried into the flames by the public executioner. In all this barbarous injustice, Clement V. who then resided at Poitiers, fully concurred: and, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, in a general council held at Vienne, without examining a single witness, or making any enquiry into the truth of facts, he abolished the whole order. The Templars all over Europe were thrown into prison; their conduct underwent a strict scrutiny, and the power of their enemies still pursued and oppressed them. But no where, except in France, were the smallest traces of their guilt pretended to be found. Some countries sent ample testimony of their piety and morals: but as the order was now annihilated, their lands in France, Italy, England, and Germany, were given to the Knights Hospitallers. In Spain, they were given to the knights Calatrava, an order established to combat the Moors". A. D. 1314. Philip, soon after the suppression of this order, revived his quarrel with the count of Flanders, whose dominions he again unsuccessfully attempted to unite to the crown of France. The failure of that project, together with some domestic misfortunes, threw him into. a languishing consumption, which carried him off in the thirtieth year of his reign, and the forty-seventh of his age. He was certainly a prince of great talents; and notwithstanding his vices, France ought to reverence his memory. By fixing the parliaments, or supreme courts of judicature, he secured the ready execution of justice to all his subjects; and, though his motive might not be the most generous for calling in the third estate into the national council, he by that measure put it in the power of the French nation to have established a free government. 8. Puteau. Hist, de la Condemnat. de Templars. Nic. Gartler. Hist. Templar. Steph. Faluz. Vit. Pontif. Avenion. 9 Id. ibid. Rymer, vol. iii. Vertot. Hist. Ches. Malik, tom. 3. Lewis Lewis X. surnamed Hutin, the son and successor of Philip the Fair, began his reign with an act of injustice. At the instigation of his uncle, the count of Valois, he caused his prime minister Marigny to be executed, on account of many pretended crimes, and magic among the rest; but in reality on account of his supposed riches, which were confiscated to the crown. A. D. 1315. But neither the confiscation of Marigny's effects, nor of those who were styled his accomplices, being sufficient for the king's wants, he extorted money from the nobility, under various pretences: he levied a tenth upon the clergy: he sold enfranchisements to the slaves employed in cultivating the royal domains; and when they would not purchase their freedom, he declared them free, whether they would or not, and levied the A. D. 1316. money by force'! He died, like his father, after an unsuccessful attempt upon Flan ders. On the death of Lewis X. a violent dispute arose in regard to the succession. The king left one daughter, by his first wife, Margaret of Burgundy, and his queen, Clemence of Hungary, pregnant. Clemence was brought to bed of a son, who lived only eight days. It had long been a prevailing opinion, that the crown of France could never descend to a female; and as nations in accounting for principles which they regard as fundamental, and as peculiar to themselves, are fond of grounding them on primary laws rather than on blind custom, it had been usual to derive this maxim (though, according to the best antiquarians, falsely) from a clause in the Salian Code, the body of laws of an ancient tribe among the Franks. In consequence of this opinion, and precedents founded on it, Philip V. surnamed the Long, brother to Lewis X. was proclaimed king; and as the duke of Burgundy made some opposition, and asserted the right of his niece, the states of 10. Le Gendre. Dupleix. the the kingdom, by a solemn and deliberate decree, excluded her, and declared all females forever incapable of succeeding to the crown of France". The A. D. 1317. wisdom of this decree is too evident to need being pointed out. It not only prevents those evils which necessarily prooceed from female caprices and tender partialities, so apt to make a minister from love, and degrade him from whim, but is attended with this peculiar advantage, that a foreigner can never become sovereign of France by marriage; a circumstance always dangerous, and often productive of the most fatal revolutions. The reign of Philip the Long, and also of his brother Charles IV. surnamed the Fair, were both short; nor was either distinguished by any memorable event. Charles left only one daughter, and consequently no heir to the crown; but as his queen was pregnant, Philip de Valois, the next male heir, was appointed regent, with a declared right of succession, if A. D. 1328. the issue should prove female. The queen of France was delivered of a daughter: the regency ended; and Philip de Valois was unanimously placed on the throne of France. This prince was cousin-german to the deceased king, and incontestably the nearest heir-male descended from a male: but Edward III. as we shall soon have occasion to see, took up the dispute upon other grounds. In the mean time I must make you acquainted with the more early part of the reign of that illustrious monarch. 11. Mezeray. Du Tillet. P. Henault. P. Daniel. LETTER LETTER XL. ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, AND SPAIN, DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD III. THE reign of Edward III. my dear Philip, opens A. D. 1327. a wide field of observation, and involves whatever is great or interesting in the history of Europe during that period. But before we enter on the foreign transactions of this prince, I must inform you of the domestic; and for this purpose, it will be necessary to recapitulate a little. You have already been witness to the miserable death of the second Edward, by the inhuman emissaries of Roger Mortimer the queen's gallant, who was become the object of public odium. The hatred of the nation daily encreased both against him and queen Isabella. Conscious of this, they subjected to their vengeance whomsoever they feared, in order to secure their usurp ed power. The earl of Kent, the young king's uncle, was iniquitously condemned and executed; the earl of Lancaster, Kent's brother, was thrown into prison; and many of the prelates and nobility were prosecuted under different pretences'. These abuses could not long escape the observation of a prince of so much discernment as young Edward, nor fail to rouse his active spirit against the murderer of his father, and the dishonourer of his mother. But he was besieged in such a manner by the creatures of Mortimer, that it became necessary to conduct the project of bringing that felon to justice with as much secrecy and caution as if he had been forming a conspiracy against his sovereign. He communicated A. D. 1330. his intentions, however, to some of the nobility, who readily entered into his views; and they surprised the usurper in the castle of Nottingham, and 1. W. Hemming. T. Walsingham. dragged |