The Legacy of the Knights Templar

Scotland: Bannockburn and The Scots Guard

We know that Templars fought in the Anglo-Scottish wars. 

When Edward I defeated the Scots under William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk [1298] the only recorded deaths of note on the English side were both Templars.

The English Master of Templars, Brian de Jay, and the Scottish Masters of Templars John de Sawtrey were both cut down as they pursued the fleeing Scots through the Forest of Callendar. 

'Edward's lieutenant in Scotland, John de Segrave, set out to raid into a Scottish-held part of Lothian to the west of Edinburgh. On 24th February 1303 near Roslyn the leading brigade of Segrave's poorly co-ordinated force was surprised and routed, with serious casualties, by a Scottish mounted force, whose leaders, it is thought, included William Wallace.' - Stirling Bridge and Falkirk 1297-1298 - William Wallace's Rebellion, Pete Armstrong

According to the authors of the 'Hiram Key' - 'There was a battle between the Scots and the English at Roslyn in 1303, which was won with the support of Templar knights, led by a St. Clair.'

"Scotland...was at war with England at the time [1307], and the consequent chaos left little opportunity for implementing legal niceties. Thus the Papal Bulls dissolving the Order were never proclaimed in Scotland - and in Scotland, therefore, the Order was never technically dissolved." "Many English and, it would appear, French Templars found a Scottish refuge, and a sizable contingent is said to have fought at Robert Bruce's side at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. According to legend - and there is evidence to support it - the Order maintained itself as a coherent body in Scotland for another four centuries." - Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

"There has been speculation about the presence of Templar knights at Bannockburn. ...In Scotland, as early as October 1309, John de Segrave, the Bruce's lieutenant, was ordered to round up Templars still at large in that country. It is quite possible that former Scottish Templars fought in the ranks of King Robert's army, but they would not have done so under the Templars famous 'Beauseant' banner." - Bannockburn 1314 - Robert Bruce's Great Victory, Pete Armstrong

As a means of 'friend or foe' identification in battle, in medieval times individual Scots frequently wore a St. Andrews cross patch; English a cross of St. George. Surviving accounts describe these patches sown above the heart. Templar's were visually recognised by a white robe with a red cross over the heart. 

In 1298 at the Battle of Falkirk the Templars who fought for the English. 

At Roslyn 1303 the Templars fought alongside William Wallace against the English.

At Bannockburn in 1314 Templars were fighting on the Scots side against the English.

"At the bloody Battle of Verneuil in 1424, the Scottish contingents had acquitted themselves with particular bravery and self-sacrifice. Indeed, they were virtually annihilated, along with their commander, John Stewart..." "The new French army created by Charles VII in 1445 consisted of fifteen 'compagnies d'ordonnance' of 660 men each - a total of 9000 soldiers. Of these, the Scottish Company - the 'Compagnie des Gendarmes Ecossaise'...was explicitly accorded premier rank over all other military units and formations, and would, for example, pass first in all parades. The commanding officer of the Scottish Company was also granted the rank of 'premier Master of Camp of French Cavalry'." "In 1474, the numbers were definitely fixed - seventy-seven men plus their commander in the King's Guard, and twenty-five men plus their commander in the King's Bodyguard. With striking consistency, officers and commanders of the Scots Guard were also made members of the Order of St Michael, a branch of which was later established in Scotland. "The Scots Guard were, in effect, a neo-Templar institution, much more so than such purely chivalric orders as the Garter, the Star and the Golden Fleece."

"The nobles comprising the Guard were heirs to original Templar traditions. They were the means by which these traditions were returned to France and planted there, to bear fruit some two centuries later. At the same time, their contact with the houses of Guise and Lorraine exposed them in France to another corpus of 'esoteric' tradition. Some of this corpus had already found its way back to Scotland through Marie de Guise's marriage to James V, but some of it was also to be brought back by the families constituting the Scots Guard. The resulting amalgam was to provide the true nucleus for a later order - the Freemasons [Scottish Rites]." "As late as the end of the sixteenth century, no fewer than 519 sites in Scotland were listed by the Hospitallers as 'Terrae Templariae' - part, that is, of the self-contained and separately administered Templar patrimony." - Baigent & Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge

"c.1560. When the Knights-Templars were deprived of their patrimonial interest through the instrumentality of their Grand-Master Sir James Sandilands, they drew off in a body, with David Seton, Grand Prior of Scotland, at their head." - A History of the Family of Seton

"At the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, John Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, was killed on the field. When his body was recovered, he was reportedly wearing the Grand Cross of the Order of the Temple - not a recent device supposedly, but one dating from before 1307." Holy Blood Holy Grail quoting from Waite, New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry.