THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS AUTHORED BY A CHRISTIAN RESEARCHER. WHILE VOXFUX MAY NOT AGREE WITH OR SUPPORT ANY OF THE CONCLUSIONS OR BELIEFS OF THE AUTHOR THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE DOES CONTAIN ACCURATE INFORMATION REGARDING HISTORICAL EVENTS INVOLVING THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS, FREEMASONRY AND GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS LINKED TO THEM.

MODERN-DAY KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

IN THE HOLY LAND

 

PART I

RITUAL KILLING OF THE DIVINE KING

 

The assassination mystery unraveled by Barry Chamish's online book, Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin, links it to the modern Knights Templar.  This is no surprise to those who are aware of the designs which the modern Freemasons have on the Holy Land, i.e., to seize the Temple Mount and recreate Jerusalem as a Masonic city from which to rule the world.  To appreciate the enormous political ambition and power of modern Freemasonry, you will want to read Barry's update on the Rabin assassination.  It seems that the coroner who presided over Yitzhak Rabin's autopsy also conducted another autopsy on one Alisdair Rosslyn Sinclair -- a blue blood Knight Templar who would have been a front runner in the Merovingian campaign for election as King of Jerusalem.    

RABIN'S LAST DOCTOR by Barry Chamish

    We now enter the realm of the truly bizarre as we look at the doctor who last examined Yitzhak Rabin, the State Pathologist, Dr. Yehuda Hiss. Israelis know too well that their government's coroner is corrupt. In September 1999, Judge Ruth Orr overturned a conviction against a Jewish resident of Judea and Samaria for the shooting murder of an Arab boy because she accused Dr. Hiss of forging the forensic evidence against him. It was the second time in a year that a murder conviction was overturned because Hiss had falsified an autopsy for political purposes. He had earlier been caught doctoring the facts to secure a wrongful rap against the parents of a murdered child.
    His biggest fabrication of all occurred after the country's most ghastly scandal was proven. In the first decade of Israel's existence, the Labor government kidnapped over 4500 babies, mostly of new Yemenite immigrant parents, and sold them off for adoption and medical experiments, mostly abroad. Through the efforts of Yemenite groups fighting to expose this crime, three years ago one mother, Margalit Omeisse was reunited with her daughter Celia Levine, given up for adoption to a California couple almost half a century before. Besides looking like twins, the Hebrew University genetics laboratory proved they were mother and daughter by DNA testing. Dr. Hiss retested the two for the government and lo and behold, found that Hebrew University was wrong.
    And that's why his nickname in certain circles is Dr. Coverup.
    People started calling him that about a year after the Rabin assassination. He conducted a partial autopsy of Rabin and concluded he was shot twice in the back from medium range. In 1996, Rabin's hospital records were uncovered and over ten doctors and nurses signed very different accounts of Rabin's demise. He was actually shot three times, twice from point blank range and once frontally in the upper chest. On top of that, Rabin's spine was shattered and Hiss categorically reported that it wasn't. Because the patsy Yigal Amir never shot from point blank range or from the front, and because the assassination film proved Rabin's spine could not have been broken since he kept right on walking after the shot to his back, somebody must have asked Hiss to alter the medical facts. So he did and then the government's commission of inquiry into the murder adopted Hiss's lies as the official version of Rabin's death.
    So we knew that Hiss was corrupt and that he molded his reports to fit government orders. What we didn't know was that he is also genuinely ghoulish. Avi and Nitzana (Darshan) Leitner are Yigal Amir's attorneys. They also represent another victim of Dr. Hiss, the family of Alisdair Sinclair.
    On April 14, 1998, 47 year old Alisdair Sinclair, was stopped by customs officials at Ben Gurion Airport on his way out of the country after a six day stay. They found 9000 Deutsche marks in a false bottom of his handbag and he was arrested without charge. The police thought the false bottom suggested something illegal though hiding a large amount of money is a legitimate means of thwarting theft.
    At the airport police station, Sinclair was found strangling on his shoelaces. He was rushed to hospital and pronounced dead. From there his body was transferred to the Abu Kabir Institute For Forensic Medicine and straight into the paws of Dr. Yehuda Hiss, who conducted an autopsy which concluded that Sinclair had killed himself.
    After that, there was a problem with the body. Sinclair was unmarried, his parents weren't alive and he had been living a rather rootless life in Amsterdam dealing in vintage guitars and strumming them at local pubs. It took three days to track down his family in Scotland and the police offered to bury him in Israel. The family refused and paid about $5000 to fly the corpse home.
    On May 13, another autopsy was conducted, at the University of Glasgow and guess what? The hyoid bone at the base of the tongue was missing and so was the heart. Both were removed by Dr. Hiss. But why? No problem guessing why the hyoid bone was gone. It would reveal that Sinclair did not hang himself but was strangled by other means.
    But the heart..? Avi Leitner can only say, "Our best guess is that Hiss is involved the black market trade in human organs. We can't prove that yet, but it seems the most likely motive for removing a healthy heart."    

Incredibly, a most unlikely source provides an even spookier motive. But let's get on with the story first.

    The Sinclair family started investigating Alisdair's recent life and none of his friends thought him remotely suicidal. Nor did they understand why he was arrested for carrying perfectly legal currency in the first place.
    Israel police explained that they suspected he was a drug dealer and under interrogation he admitted to have smuggled in thousands of Ecstasy pills the week before, though he did not know who bought them. Alisdair's brother James, of Selkirk, Scotland mocked the police version, noting accurately, that since he wasn't caught with drugs, he had no reason whatsoever to confess to the supposed crime.
    Enter the British government. Tel Aviv embassy official Suad Andraus was furious, stating, "People don't just die in lockup." The British authorities demand that Dr. Hiss explain what he did with the heart and then return it immediately.
    Hiss explained that as a drug smuggling suspect, the heart would have shown "signs of longterm drug abuse." Fine, so why didn't he return the heart with the rest of the body? According to Hiss: "It's true we didn't inform the family in Scotland that the heart was missing. Frankly, we didn't want to upset them."
    How thoughtful, and returning the body without the heart wasn't in the least bit upsetting???? Hiss complied to the second demand and turned over the heart to the Sinclair family, or at least a heart. A not very convincing heart, at that. The Sinclair Family demanded DNA proof that this was Alistair's heart but Dr. Hiss refused, citing the $6000 cost of the test. The Sinclairs found the cost prohibitive as well but this time, the British authorities did not press the issue or conduct their own tests.
    A frustrated James Sinclair expressed his disgust with the inconsistencies of his brother's strange demise.
    Alisdair never had a police record and it is unlikely that he would turn to drug smuggling. And he repeats, "Why would he admit to anything if his bloody suitcase was empty? My brother was an intelligent, well read man. He wasn't daft."
    Currently, the Israeli Police are conducting DNA tests and James is awaiting the results, clearly unaware that if Dr. Yehuda "Coverup" Hiss has his hands in the testing, the findings will be as honest as those of the Rabin assassination.
    And now a most unexpected motive for the whole affair. It was published in the Jerusalem Report, a staid, establishment newsmagazine which is used as a fount of disinformation on behalf of the country's Labor Party. This peculiar passage may be of interest to those questioning Britain's early and deep interest in Zionism, their reverance for Chaim Weizmann, the Balfour Declaration, The British-Israel Society, the
Round Table policies of Cecil Rhodes and Lord Milner and the like.

    "According to Alisdair's brother James, family lore has it that the Sinclairs are descended from the crusading Knights Templars, who journeyed to Jerusalem in the mid-1300s in search of holy artifacts from Herod's Temple to bring back to Scottish hero Robert Bruce. Alisdair himself, says James, was particularly proud of his middle name, Roslyn, the name of a chapel in Scotland whose floor plan is said to be based on Herod's Temple. James mentions these details in attempting to reconstruct his brother's motive for travelling to Israel."

    How does this Medieval history explain Alisdair Sinclair's missing heart? Whether it does in some way or not, one thing is certain: The doctor who last examined Yitzhak Rabin is one very, weird sicko.

Rabin's Last Days 

October 25: Law Would Cut Off Aid If Arafat Declares State.

Should The PLO unilaterally declare a state, US aid to the Palestinians would be cut off under a new law Congress is on the verge of enacting. The requirement was added at the urging of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The legislation, the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act, is contained in the foreign aid bill that made its way through a House-Senate conference committee just after midnight yesterday.

Rabin was in Washington for barely a day and two of the most significant pieces of legislation since the Oslo Accord were signed into law. The first declared Jerusalem as Israel's official capital, the next would essentially stop diplomatic recognition of the Palestinian Authority if it declared a Palestinian state.
     Rabin is putting the brakes on the Oslo process. He coordinated a strategy with AIPAC to prevent the division of Jerusalem and the declaration of a Palestinian state. He has now, without a shadow of doubt, declared war on Clinton (CFR), Christopher (CFR), Kissinger (CFR), Peres, Beilin, the UN and all Arab leaders, especially his other "peace partner" King Hussein of Jordan.
     Rabin had been in the NWO game for over two decades. He must have realized the consequences of his actions. He must have known there would be mortal retaliation. For whatever the reasons, Rabin decided to die a hero's death, defending his nation against raw evil.

October 26: Barak Meets Crown Prince Hassan. Interior Minister Ehud Barak met yesterday in Amman with Crown Prince Hassan and with the Jordanian Chief of General Staff, Gen. Marii. Barak, who visited Jordan when he was still chief of general staff, was invited by Hassan to visit Jordan as a minister. The trip was organized suddenly yesterday morning, and Hassan dispatched the Royal Black Hawk helicopter to fly Barak from the border to Amman. . .no details of the two hour meeting were divulged.

Jordan again! First Shahal met the Jordanian security establishment, then two days later Barak was rushed to Amman for reasons not disclosed. What possible reason could the Crown Prince of Jordan have had for an emergency meeting with a mere Interior Minister? This is the time to remind readers of Barak's close ties to the CFRers such as Kissinger, Edgar Bronfman, Lawrence Tisch and Warren Christopher and to recall the Jordanian royal family's membership in numerous secret societies ie. King Hussein and Rabin were both high degree Masons. One must not rule out the possibility in Rabin's case of ritual as well as political assassination.


ALISDAIR SINCLAIR

Alisdair Rosslyn Sinclair, whose surname is derived from Saint-Claire, is a descendant of one of the original Knights Templar who captured the city of Jerusalem during the first Crusade of 1099.  According to Masonic authors of The Second Messiah:

"The [original Knights Templar] of whom little is known are believed to have been representatives of the ruling families of Champagne, Anjou, Gisors and Flanders. The leader of the Templars was Hugues de Payen, a middle-ranking noble-man in Champagne who married Catherine St Clair, the niece of his crusading partner Baron Henri St Clair of Roslin, in 1101." [Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, The Second Messiah, Element Books, Inc., 1998, p. 74]

The Sinclairs are recognized as "hereditary grand masters of Scottish Masonry" and rank high among the "sacred" Merovingian families deemed worthy to assume the throne of Jerusalem. These deluded power elites base their fabricated claim on the blasphemy that Jesus Christ sired children, whose descendants intermarried with the bloodlines of the thrones of Europe, infusing them with the holy blood of Christ.

"There are at least a dozen families in Britain and Europe today--with numerous collateral branches who are of Merovingian lineage. These include the houses of Hapsburg-Lorraine (present titular dukes of Lorraine and kings of Jerusalem), Plantard, Luxembourg, Montpezat, Montesquiou, and various others. According to the 'Prieure documents,' the Sinclair family in Britain is also allied to the bloodline as are various branches of the Stuarts. And the Devonshire family, among others, would seem to have been privy to the secret. All of these houses could presumably claim a pedigree from Jesus; and if one man, at some point in the future, is to be put forward as a new priest-king, we do not know who he is."  [Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood Holy Grail, pp. 409-410]

The cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 -- which Gnostics considered to be the "Molecular Logos" -- occurred at Geron Biomed, the commercial arm of the Roslin Institute in a village in Scotland, which is also the site of a very famous Knights Templar shrine, the Rosslyn Chapel.  The village of Roslin, site of the sheep cloning experiment, is also near Rosslyn Castle, which was the home of the St Clairs [Sinclairs] who funded the building of Rosslyn Chapel around 1450.  For more information on Rosslyn, please read our report on The First Human Embryo Cloned.  

The Grand Master of the PrieurŽ de Sion from 1984 until at least 1988, and probably longer, was Pierre Plantard de Saint-Claire.  Pierre Plantard de Saint-Claire's son, Thomas, is considered the most likely candidate in the Merovingian lineage to ascend the throne of Jerusalem as world ruler.  (See: The Merovingian Dynasty: Identity of the False Christ]

The importance of the Sinclair family is evident in The Labyrinth of the Grail, a synopsis of which shows the Sinclair's historic and esoteric leadership of the Merovingian cult.  In our view, there is a great probability that the Antichrist will come from this bloodline. 

Politically speaking, Alisdair Sinclair may have been eliminated to make way for Thomas Plantard de Saint-Clair as the Merovingian Christ.  However, the rationale behind the bizarre removal of the heart of Alisdair would seem to be related to the Templar superstition. Another theory comes from an interesting study in pre-Christian superstition which is being revisited upon civilized society through the most outrageous acts of barbarity:

Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare 

"Sir James Frazer writing in The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, explains that when the 'divine king' is murdered by one who is himself stronger or craftier, the powers of 'divinity' which were the king's are 'Sympathetically' and 'Contagiously' transferred from the vanquished to the victor." 

The highly irregular circumstances surrounding of the demise of one of the Sinclair pedigree bears the earmarks of ritual murder.  We will now take flight into the irrational world of the Knights Templar for a precedent which may present clues as to why. . . 

ROBERT THE BRUCE 

In The Temple and The Lodge, by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, we read of the strange request of Knight Templar and descendant of the Kings of Scotland, Robert the Bruce that, upon his death, his heart be removed and taken to Jerusalem to be buried in the Knights Templar Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Robert the Bruce's heart was transported by none other than Grand Master of the Scottish Templars, Sir William Sinclair, and a few other knights who never made it to Jerusalem.  In Spain, Robert the Bruce's heart was thrown into a battle against the Moors and saved the day, but William Sinclair and most of the other knights died.

"In 1329, Bruce died, to be succeeded, as he had arranged, by his grandson, Robert II, the first of the Stuart dynasty. Before his death, he had expressed the wish that his heart be removed, placed in a casket, taken to Jerusalem and buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1330, therefore, Sir James Douglas, Sir William Sinclair, Sir William Keith and at least two other knights embarked for the Holy Land. . ." [Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, The Temple & The Lodge, Arcade Pub., 1989, p. 39]

We find in The Hiram Key an explanation for removing Bruce's heart to Jerusalem:

"Before dying [Robert the Bruce] had taken a vow to go to Jerusalem and fight the Saracen and as a mark of respect his embalmed heart was taken by Sir William St Clair and Sir James Douglas on a last crusade to Jerusalem, but unfortunately they were killed in battle in Andalusia en route. Bruce's heart never reached the Holy City and was returned to be buried in Melrose Abbey whilst Sir William was buried at Rosslyn." [Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key, Element Books, 1996, pp. 300-01]

The Knights Templars had occupied Jerusalem until 1291, when the Holy Land fell to the Saracens.  Following the dissolution of the Knights Templar in 1312 and death of their Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, in 1314, many fugitive knights fled to Scotland, which was not under Papal control and where they were welcomed by the St Clair family. It was during this period that Robert the Bruce rose to prominence as the central figure in Scotland's struggle for independence from England's domination and  restoration of the Celtic religion.  According to The Temple and The Lodge and other Masonic literature, Robert the Bruce was well-connected to the sacred Merovingian bloodline:

". . . Scotland, under the aegis of the Dalraida king, Kenneth MacAlpin, became a unified Celtic kingdom. Around 850, Kenneth was installed at Scone, as monarch of all Scotland. . .Under Kenneth MacAlpin's descendant, David I, the feudal Kingdom of Scotland finally emerged in 1124. . .David himself was thoroughly Celtic, the son of the Celtic king, Malcolm III. . .Among King David's entourage was a Norman knight, Robert de Brus. . .Although the Robert de Brus of King David's time was of Norman (and possibly Flemish) descent, his great grandson married David's great-granddaughter, the niece of the Celtic kings Malcolm IV and William I. The Robert Bruce who was later to figure so prominently in Scottish history could thus claim blood descent from the ancient Celtic royal house, and eventually back to Kenneth MacAlpin of the Dalraida."  [The Temple & The Lodge, pp. 18-20]

It seems that by 1300, the Scots could not agree on a ruler and so King Edward I of England was invited to arbitrate among the warring claimants to the throne.  Edward appointed John Balliol, the grandfather of Robert Bruce, also known as 'the Competitor,' and then annexed Scotland to Great Britain. The Scots rebelled but were defeated by Edward who exiled Balliol and proceeded to dismantle the Celtic institutions.

". . .Edward embarked on a systematic campaign to eradicate all vestiges of political and religious, of the old Celtic kingdom. The Stone of Scone, most archaic and sacred of Celtic talismans, was accorded special attention. At Edward's behest, the inscription on it was erased and the stone itself removed from Scone and brought to London. The great seal of Scotland was smashed and coffers of royal records were confiscated. Edward appointed himself, in effect, an ad hoc defender of the faith -- the archetypal Christian king, promulgating the rule of Rome. To bolster this image, it was profitable to emphasise the pagan aspects of the old Celtic kingdom, which were portrayed as heretical, if not pagan and satanic. By disseminating rumours of sorcery and necromancy, Edward was able to show moral and theological justification for his crusade to annex Scotland." [The Temple & The Lodge, p. 26]

Just a few pages earlier, Baigent and Leigh sheepishly admitted that the Celtic religion which Robert the Bruce sought to restore "may even have included ritual human sacrifice." [p. 19]  The Scottish rebellion against England was led by William Wallace, hero of the contemporary movie Braveheart.  The Temple and The Lodge describes the ascent of Robert the Bruce to power via ritual human sacrifice:

"It was against this turbulent background that the figure of Robert Bruce suddenly emerged, fomenting rebellion in the south. . .Wallace was knighted by a prominent Scottish earl - possibly Bruce himself - and in 1298 was elected sole Guardian of the country. . . Following his defeat at Falkirk, Wallace was forced to resign as Guardian, but this did not terminate the revolt. In the autumn of 1298, the rebels appointed John Comyn and Robert Bruce to preside as joint Guardians and continue the struggle. They, however, soon fell to squabbling among themselves, and the friction between them . . . deflected them from concerted action against the British. . .  

". . . Wallace was dead, and Comyn firmly under the English thumb. But in March 1302, a year before Wallace's capture, Bruce's father had died, leaving Bruce with a direct claim to the throne. Three months later, in June, he had concluded a secret agreement with the Bishop of Lamberton . . . It is now generally accepted that the agreement involved plans for an independent Celtic Scotland, over which Bruce, supported by Lamberton, would preside as monarch. Before any such project could be implemented, however, something had to be done about John Comyn.  

"The Comyn family, which included the earldoms of Buchan and Monteith, was an old one, and could match the Bruces in power and prestige. . . On 10 February 1306, at the church of the Grey Friars in Dumfries, Bruce, with his own hand, murdered his adversary. Comyn was stabbed with a dagger and left to bleed to death on the church's stone floor. According to several accounts, he did not die immediately and was carried to safety by the monks, who sought to minister to his wounds. Bruce, hearing of this, returned to the church, dragged him back to the altar, and there slaughtered him...

 

"There are aspects of Comyn's murder that cannot be explained entirely by the betrayal of a pact, or by the long-standing antipathy between Bruce and himself. . . .it appears to have been carefully premeditated, perhaps even rehearsed . . . Nor is it possible to ignore the setting of the murder. Churches, after all, were deemed to be sacred ground. . . it bears the unmistakable stamp of ritual killing -- an almost ceremonial killing of one candidate for a throne by another, on consecrated ground, in accordance with archaic pagan tradition. Nobody at the time could have been unaware of the powerful symbolism inherent in Bruce's act -- a symbolism so powerful, indeed, as to transcend the act itself." [The Temple & The Lodge, pp. 26, 28-30]

In 1314, the Battle of Bannockburn was won when a Templar force led by Sir William St Clair came to Bruce's aid and this victory settled the issue of Scottish independence.  Scotland remained an independent kingdom for the next 289 years, when King James VI acceded to the throne of England and united the two kingdoms in 1603.  In 1320 the Declaration of Arbroath proclaimed the independence of Scotland, insinuating that the Scots were descended from the Israelites previously in bondage in Egypt.

"On 6 April 1320, an extraordinary document -- the so-called Declaration of Arbroath -- was issued. It took the form of a letter commissioned and signed by eight earls and thirty-one other nobles, including representatives of the Seton, Sinclair and Graham families. This letter adumbrated the legendary history of the Scots from their alleged origins in Scythia and their conversion there by St Andrew. It described Robert Bruce as their deliverer and hailed him (with biblical comparisons traditionally dear to the Templars) as 'a second Maccabaeus or Joshua'. . ." [p. 38]

Other Scottish nobility and signatories of the Declaration of Arbroath include Clans Leslie, Stewart, Monteith, Robertson and Bruce. Please read our report on The British-Israel Conspiracy for information on modern descendants of the "sacred" families who currently promote the British-Israel deception.

"In 1322, Edward II launched his last, rather half-hearted, expedition against Scotland. It came to nothing, and Bruce retaliated with incursions into Yorkshire. In 1323, the two countries concluded what was supposed to be a thirteen-year truce, which lasted only for four. In the mean time, Bruce had become embroiled in a new squabble with the Papacy, then in the throes of its own schism, the so-called 'Avignon Captivity'. For some time, Edward of England had longed to rid the Scottish Church of its powerful nationalist bishops -- prelates such as Lamberton of St Andrews, Wishart of Glasgow and William Sinclair of Dunkeld (brother of Sir Henry Sinclair of Rosslin, signatory of the Arbroath Declaration). To this end, the English king had badgered successive popes not to consecrate any new native-born bishops into the Scottish Church. In the Avignon-based Pope John XXII he found a sympathetic ear. Bruce, however, aligned himself with his own bishops in defying the Pontiff's wishes and in 1318 he was again excommunicated, along with James Douglas and the Earl of Moray. A year later, the Pope demanded that the bishops of St Andrews, Dunkeld, Aberdeen and Moray appear before him to explain themselves. They ignored him and, in June 1320, were also excommunicated. Throughout the course of this row, the Pope had persisted in refusing to recognise Bruce as king, pointedly referring to him only as 'ruler of the Kingdom of Scotland'. It was not until 1324 that Pope John XXII relented and Bruce was finally acknowledged monarch in the Church's eyes." 

It is noteworthy that Pope John XXIII was the Roman pontiff who, on June 24, 1961 would lift the ban of the Catholic Church on Freemasonry. June 24 is the feast of St John the Baptist whom Masons consider to be the messiah rather than Jesus Christ. Knight and Lomas state regarding this feast and the liberation of Scotland cum Masonic religion: "A point of Masonic interest concerning the Battle of Bannockburn is that it was fought on the day with the longest daylight in the year -- a day still celebrated by all Freemasons as the Feast of St John the Baptist." [The Hiram Key, p. 299]   

The Temple & The Lodge describes the transport of Robert the Bruce's heart to Jerusalem for burial in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

"In 1329, Bruce died, to be succeeded, as he had arranged, by his grandson, Robert II, the first of the Stuart dynasty. Before his death, he had expressed the wish that his heart be removed, placed in a casket, taken to Jerusalem and buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1330, therefore, Sir James Douglas, Sir William Sinclair, Sir William Keith and at least two other knights embarked for the Holy Land, Douglas carrying Bruce's heart in a silver casket hung around his neck. Their itinerary took them through Spain, where they made the acquaintance of King Alfonso XI of Castile and Leon, and accompanied him on his campaign against the Moors of Granada. On 25 March 1330, at the battle of Tebas de Ardales, the Scots, riding in the vanguard, were surrounded. According to the fourteenth-century chronicle, Douglas removed from his neck the casket containing Bruce's heart and hurled it into the attacking host, crying:

Brave heart, that ever foremost led,
Forward! as thou wast wont.
And I Shall follow thee, or else shall die!

"Whether Douglas, in the heat of battle, had either time or inclination to compose his thoughts into verse is, one suspects, questionable. Having hurled Bruce's heart at the foe, however, he and his fellow Scots did proceed to follow it, charging headlong into their adversaries. All of them died, with the exception of Sir William Keith, who had broken his arm prior to the battle and so did not participate in it. He is said to have retrieved the heart from the field, miraculously intact in its casket, and to have brought it back with him to Scotland. It was buried in Melrose Abbey, under the east window of the chancel. Early in the nineteenth century, Bruce's grave at Dunfermline Abbey was opened. According to popular traditions prevalent in the age of Sir Walter Scott, he was found with his leg-bones carefully crossed immediately under his skull. In fact, this was not so; there was, apparently, nothing unusual about the corpse. But the traditions are indicative. It is clear that someone had a vested interest in linking Bruce with the Masonic skull-and-crossbones."   

PART II:

Modern-Day Knights Templar in the Holy Land