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Knight of Jerusalem
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the request of the king, and in consideration of other lands being granted to him by his sovereign, remised and released all his right and title therein to Lancaster. * This earl of Lancaster was cousin-german to the English monarch, and first prince of A the blood; he was the most powerful and opulent subject of the kingdom, being possessed of no less than six earldoms, with a proportionable estate in land, and at the time that the Temple was added to his numerous other possessions he was at the head of the government, and ruled both the king and country as president of the council. In an antient MS. account of the Temple, formerly belonging to lord Somers and afterwards to Nicholls, the celebrated antiquary, apparently written by a member of the Inner Temple, it is stated that the lawyers "made composition with the earl of Lancaster for a lodging in the Temple, and so came hither, and have continued here ever since." That this was the case appears highly probable from various circumstances presently noticed.
The earl of Lancaster held the Temple rather more than six years and a half.
When the king's attachment for Hugh le Despenser, another favourite, was declared, he raised the standard of rebellion. He marched with his forces against London, gave law to the king and parliament, and procured a sentence of attainder and perpetual exile against Hugh le Despenser. The fortune of war, however, soon turned against him. He was defeated, and conducted a prisoner to his own castle of Pontefract, where king Edward sat in judgment upon him, and sentenced him to be hung, drawn, and quartered, as a rebel and a traitor. The same day he was clothed in mean attire, was placed on a lean jade without a bridle, a hood was put on his head, and in this miserable
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condition he was led through the town of Pontefract to the place of execution, in front of his own castle. *
A few days afterwards, the king, whilst he yet tarried at Ponfract, granted the Temple to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, by a royal charter couched in the following terms:--
"Edward by the grace of God, king, &c., to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, justiciaries, &c. &c., health. Know that on account of the good and laudable service which our beloved kinsman and faithful servant Aymer de Valence hath rendered and will continue to render to us, we have given and granted, and by our royal charter have confirmed to the said earl, the mansion-house and messuage called the New Temple in the suburb of London, with the houses, rents, and all other things to the same mansion-house and messuage belonging, formerly the property of the Templars, and afterwards of Thomas earl of Lancaster, our enemy and rebel, and which, by the forfeiture of the same Thomas, have come into our hands by way of escheat, to be had and holden by the same Aymer and the heirs of his body lawfully begotten, of us and our heirs, and the other chief lords of the fee, by the same services as those formerly rendered; but if the said Aymer shall die without heirs of his body lawfully begotten, then the said mansion-house, messuage, &c. &c., shall revert to us and our heirs." †
Rather more than a year after the date of this grant, Aymer de Valence was murdered. He had accompanied queen Isabella to the court of her father, the king of France, and was there slain (June 23rd, A.D. 1323) by one of the English fugitives of the Lancastrian faction, in revenge for the death of the earl of Lancaster, whose destruction he was believed to have compassed.
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[paragraph continues] His dead body was brought over to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey at the head of Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster. He left no issue, and the Temple, consequently, once more reverted to the crown. *
It was now granted to Hugh le Despenser the younger, the king's favourite, at the very time that the act of parliament (17 Edward II.) was passed, conferring all the lands of the Templars upon the Hospitaliers of St. John. † Hugh le Despenser, in common with the other barons, paid no attention to the parliament, and held the Temple till the day of his death, which happened soon after, for on the 24th of September, A.D. 1326, Queen Isabella landed in England with the remains of the Lancastrian faction; and after driving her own husband, Edward the Second, from the throne, she seized the favourite, and caused him instantly to be condemned to death. On St. Andrew's Eve he was led out to execution; they put on him his surcoat of arms reversed, a crown of nettles was placed on his head, and on his vestment they wrote six verses of the psalm, beginning, Quid gloriaris in malitiâ. ‡ After which be was hanged on a gallows eighty feet high, and was then beheaded, drawn, and quartered. His head was sent to London, and stuck upon the bridge; and of the four quarters of his body, one was sent to York, another to Bristol, another to Carlisle, and the fourth to Dover. §
Thus perished the last private possessor of the Temple at London.
The young prince, Edward the Third, now ascended the throne, leaving his parent, the dethroned Edward the Second, to the tender mercies of the gaolers of Berkeley Castle. He seized the
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[paragraph continues] Temple, as forfeited to him by the attainder of Hugh le Despenser, and committed it to the keeping of the mayor of London, his escheator in the city. The mayor, as guardian of the Temple, took it into his head to close the gate leading to the waterside, which stood at the bottom of the present Middle Temple Lane, whereby the lawyers were much incommoded in their progress backwards and forwards from the Temple to Westminster. Complaints were made to the king on the subject, who, on the 2nd day of November, in the third year of his reign, wrote as follows to the mayor:
"The king to the mayor of London, his escheator * in the same city.
"Since we have been given to understand that there ought to be a free passage through the court of the New Temple at London to the river Thames, for our justices, clerks, and others, who may wish to pass by water to Westminster to transact their business, and that you keep the gate of the Temple shut by day, and so prevent those same justices, clerks of ours, and other persons, from passing through the midst of the said court to the waterside, whereby as well our own affairs as those of our people in general are oftentimes greatly hindered, we command you, that you keep the gates of the said Temple open by day, so that our justices and clerks, and other persons who wish to go by water to Westminster, may be able so to do by the way to which they have hitherto been accustomed.
"Witness ourself at Kenilworth, the 2nd day of November, and third year of our reign." †
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