Dudeney wrote puzzles all throughout his life, most of which continue to have a strong influence on puzzling in the modern era, and a selection of some of his most impressive pieces can be found in the pages that follow. His puzzles were marked by a certain gentleness, which comes through clearly in this puzzle.

Tommy: “How old are you, mamma?”
Mamma: “Let me think, Tommy. Well, our three ages add up to exactly seventy years.”
Tommy: “That’s a lot, isn’t it? And how old are you, papa?”
Papa: “Just six times as old as you, my son.”
Tommy: “Shall I ever be half as old as you, papa?”
Papa: “Yes, Tommy; and when that happens our three ages will add up to exactly twice as much as today.”
Tommy: “And supposing I was born before you, papa; and supposing mamma had forgot all about it, and hadn’t been at home when I came; and supposing–”
Mamma: “Supposing, Tommy, we talk about bed. Come along, darling. You’ll have a headache.”

Now, if Tommy had been some years older he might have calculated the exact ages of his parents from the information they had given him. Can you find out the exact age of mamma?

If you want to do the puzzle, stop here.

No, really.

I mean it.

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.

.

.

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The age of Mamma must have been 29 years 2 months; that of Papa, 35 years; and that of the child, Tommy, 5 years 10 months. Added together, these make seventy years. The father is six times the age of the son, and, after 23 years 4 months have elapsed, their united ages will amount to 140 years, and Tommy will be just half the age of his father.

Riddle 25 of the Exeter Book has become well-known. See what you make of it…

I am a wondrous creature: to women a thing of desire; to neighbours serviceable. I harm no city-dweller, except my slayer alone. My stalk is erect and tall – I stand up in bed – and shaggy down below (I won’t say where). Sometimes a countryman’s comely daughter will venture, proud girl, to get a grip on me. She assaults my redness, plunders my head, and fixes me in a tight place. The one who afflicts me so, this woman with curly locks, will soon feel the effect of her encounter with me – an eye will be wet.

Faire Maidens by Wolfrage

Most Western histories of chess are happy to state that the game was invented in India in the 6th century AD, and that xiangqi then travelled from India to China, possibly carried along the silk trade routes. On the other hand, there do seem to be references to xiangqi in very early Chinese literature. These documents date back to the culturally famous Warring States period, 480BC to 221BC.

During this period, the setting for a lot of myths, legends and romantic tales in China, a succession of kingdoms struggled together in a series of savage battles. The wars eventually led to the triumph of the Chin people and the establishment of their realm, China. It would make sense that a game so clearly based on a battle would arise out of a time like this, and the pieces that the game uses do represent the major standard troop types used during the period. This is particularly true of the Chariots, which faded out of standard Chinese war practice soon after the period closed.

Orthodox opinion amongst Western, Indian and Middle Eastern chess historians tends to be that this earlier game was in fact related to wei-qi, known as Go in Japan. Wei-qi/Go is the game which holds the actual position of world’s oldest known board game. It remains a very highly-paid sport game in the Far East, but there are key differences to chess-type games. One of the greatest is that in wei-qi, there is only one type of piece, and it cannot be moved once placed on the board.

The fact remains that the early game described in Chinese literature appears to be much closer in nature and play style to xiangqi than to wei-qi. This presents the interesting possibility that chess may have originally travelled to India from China rather than vice-versa, and from there to the middle east and up into Europe. This would make xiangqi – at least in its early ancestral form – the original Chess game.

Playing Chess at the Temple, by Rosino

Many western chess historians are dismissive, generally taking the suggest as some sort of obscure insult. There have been claims that as xiangqi just cannot be the origin of chess, it must be a case of parallel evolution – the same ideas sparking the same sort of game with the same sort of moves just by accident. Occam’s razor however clearly suggests that such similar games arising coincidentally is unlikely – the games have enough in common that a historical link of some sort seems certain. Comparing early xiangqi and early forms of Chaturanga, the similarities are even clearer, sharing similarities which have been dropped entirely from Chess. We may never know for certain, of course – the controversy will continue as long as there are professional historians earning money from the topic.

Even the game’s name is the source of much argument and debate. Read literally, it means ‘The Elephant Game’ – which has often been used as a supporting argument for the Indian origin theory. There is a piece in the game called The Elephant, and Elephants are a big part of Indian culture. The Western bishop too, which was added in the 15th century, is still an Elephant in Indian, Russian and Spanish chess. However, it’s not clear-cut – elephants do seem to have existed in China at one point, as many legends refer to them. They may even have been used as war beasts.

Another argument on the Chinese side is that the word ‘xiang’ originally held a different meaning. When it is linked with another Chinese character, its meaning becomes that of a constellation of stars. Some scholars have suggested that this may mean the game had some astrological origins, and may even have been used in divination. It is known for certain that Chinese writing started this way, an offshoot of a system of divination that involved heating tortoise shells to cracking point and then reading the lines and patterns formed. Another piece of evidence to back this notion up is the weakness of the xiangqi Elephant piece, which is very odd compared to the overwhelming strength of elephant cavalry on early battlefields. A degree of linguistic confusion might explain the discrepancy.

Both sides claim to be proven of course, and there’s no real way to tell. I’m keeping an open mind. One thing though is certain – most Chinese people will be delighted if you tell them you support the view that Chess is a Chinese invention. Like most nations, they love to think that they invented just about everything! On the other hand, Western and Indian chess fans may be less pleased, even though the Chinese origin theory is becoming more acceptable.

The mystery of the Man in The Iron Mask has been a focal point for both doe eyed romantics and serious historians since the 17th century, generating countless theories about the identity of the masked prisoner. The interest continues even to this day, as evidenced by Di Caprio’s movie. But the world is still no closer to discovering who this tragic figure was, and as the years pass, the chances of discovering of his (or her) true identity continues to fade.

Little is known about the prisoner. What little that exists in French official documents paints a deliberately sketchy picture: he was arrested in 1669, and was imprisoned first in Pignerol, a fortress high in the French Alps. He was transferred in 1681 to Exiles, which lay close to Pignerol, and in 1687 he was moved yet again to the southern French coastal island of Saint Marguerite. His stay on the island lasted eleven years until he was sent to the Bastille in Paris. Finally, the prisoner died in 1703, an undoubtedly welcome release.

Throughout his entire imprisonment, there were reportedly only two instances of witnesses outside of prison officials actually seeing the prisoner. During his move from Exiles to Saint Marguerite, the prisoner was seen wearing a steel mask. With the move to the Bastille, this cumbersome disguise was replaced with a more humane mask of black velvet. It has also been discovered through official correspondence between a government minister and Saint Mars, the prisoner’s jailer, that the prisoner was not to communicate with anyone, be it by writing or speaking. If he did, he was to be executed on the spot.

What terrible secret could this man have possessed that demanded such secrecy? Historians have wondered why he was even kept alive: if the knowledge he held was of such danger to the King and government, wouldn’t it have been politically safer simply to kill him? And why such a concern over people seeing his face?  Did he resemble someone well known to the French populace, which would have to make him famous indeed, considering the primitive state of print media during the 17th century?  Once again, simply killing him — an option not in disuse in the French court of the time — would have made more sense.

The mystery of the Man in The Iron Mask is as unknowable now as it was three hundred years ago. What is known is that a man paid a horrible price for an alleged crime — or deadly secret — that history can only guess at.

THE STRANGE PART

Saint Mars, the man appointed to jail the mysterious prisoner, held that position from the first day of his incarceration until the prisoner breathed his last in 1703. Given the usual turnstile approach to political appointments, this constancy is intriguing.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Louis XIV

Many fingers point towards the King of France. The masked prisoner could have been the twin brother of Louis, rumoured to have been conceived first but unfortunately born last. His true identity hidden from the twin to clear up any messy succession procedures, Louis would have imprisoned him once he discovered who he was. Other theories feel that he could have been an elder brother, the result of an extramarital affair of Louis’ mother. Another theory states the prisoner was an attending doctor at Louis XIII’s autopsy, who unfortunately discovered the late king incapable of siring children, thus endangering Louis XIV’s own right to the throne. Following the same thread, the prisoner could have been the true father of Louis, recruited due to the previous king’s inability in the bedroom, hidden to stave off political turmoil.

Count Antonio Matthioli

He may have been the prisoner, wearing the mask for the most pointless of reasons: because it was the fashionable thing to do in Italy at the time.

Louis Oldendorff

A Lorraine nobleman, Oldendorff was the leader of the Secret Order of the Temple. The rules of this society would not allow them to replace him while he still lived. After he died, another man was made to wear the mask, thus maintaining the  illusion of Oldendorff’s imprisonment, and keeping the Order from selecting a new leader.

Also suspected to be the prisoner: Richard Cromwell; the Duke of Monmouth; Vivien de Bulonde

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Hidden Daughter of Louis XIII and Anne

Terrified of not having a son, the elder Louis may have hidden his newborn daughter and replaced her with an infant boy changeling. When she discovered her identity, Louis XIV (the changeling) had her imprisoned.

Moliere

As beloved as the playwright was both by the French public and Louis XIV, Moliere made many enemies because of his lack of religious beliefs and disdain for the French establishment. He especially angered the Company of the Holy Sacrament, a strong and influential Catholic group. The theory follows that Moliere’s death was staged in 1673, with the playwright becoming The Man In The Iron Mask as punishment.

Nicholas Fouquet

Fouquet was allegedly imprisoned for discovering hidden knowledge that Christ didn’t die on the cross, but survived, leading to a secret bloodline of direct ancestors.

MOST CONVINCING EVIDENCE

The fact that the prisoner wasn’t simply killed indicates that there must have been a royal connection. Anyone else would have been left to an unmarked grave or garotte.

MOST MYSTERIOUS FACT

Despite the backstabbing of French politics, despite the gains that could be made by revealing who this prisoner was, despite methodical examination of records, there is no indication of who the prisoner was. It was an universally kept secret, by all parties involved.

SCEPTICALLY SPEAKING

The identity of the Man In the Iron Mask is so well hidden one can surmise it’s simply because he didn’t exist at all. The vision of such a figure would go far in quelling any dissidents to the King’s rule. The prospect of lifelong imprisonment will do that.

Templars pt. 2: Rise

Templars pt. 3: Superstar

Fortunately for the Templars, as previously discussed, their power wasn’t based on good battle strategy. After their initial expansion, they very quickly amassed substantial wealth. As the Templars were forbidden from owning wealth, the order became very cash rich. Taking advantage of the order’s policy of absolute secrecy regarding its affairs, they started offering discreet financial services to pilgrims, such as bonded credit notes. A pilgrim taking the journey to the East could deposit their money at a Templar chapter-house in Europe and get an encoded note. That note could then be presented to any other Templar house and redeemed for cash again – minus a hefty fee. They also offered loans, and received a special Papal exemption from the sin of usury (charging interest).

As their cash reserves grew, they offered loans, mortgaged goods and properties, issued cheques on deposit accounts, and even minted currencies. They always took a cut, and that cut could be as much as 60% on some transactions. It wasn’t long before the Knights had so much wealth that they were able to lend Kings the money to conduct military campaigns. It is no exaggeration to say that they invented banking, and established it firmly throughout European civilisation. It was this wealth – and their special dispensation to leverage it into temporal power – that gave them their strength, and made them the companions of Kings. Richard the Lionheart, known as the Absent King because he spent just six months of his 16-year reign in the British isles, was a big fan of the Order, and often campaigned with them… even as his despised half-brother, John, was staying in their London chapter house.

King John. Even less popular than warts.

Quite simply, the Templars made themselves into an indispensable part of the European financial landscape, right up to the very highest levels. At their height, during the 13th century, there were over 160,000 Templars, of whom twenty thousand or more were full knights, which made them stronger than many countries at the time. The order owned not only castles and armies, but also entire chunks of country, complete with towns and cities, right across Europe. They had a large fleet of ships, tens of thousands of strongholds and castles, entire battalions of architects and builders, churches and cathedrals and even, for a while, the entire city of Cyprus. They were rich enough to bankrupt Kings if they wanted to – Edward II of England even had to pawn his crown jewels to them for a time. The Templar bankers literally had European society by the financial balls.

Financial power and military prowess are a heady mix, and the Knights quickly got a reputation quite different to the pious ideals that Hughes de Payens had started out with. In Europe, the Templars got the reputation of being swaggering bullies; in the Holy Land, they were known for politicking and playing dirty tricks. The undoubted friction between the Templars and the Hospitallers stemmed from more than professional rivalry – around the middle of the twelfth century, the Hospitallers foiled a Templar plan to betray an inconvenient Christian ruler to local Moslem forces. Meanwhile, back in France, the phrase “As drunk as a Templar” had become the universal metaphor for extreme inebriation, and right across Germany, brothels had become known as Templarhofs – Templar Houses.

After the collapse of the Crusader states in 1291AD, the militant orders were left in a strange situation. Their entire justification for existing – protecting pilgrims and the holy lands – had been removed, but their financial power was as great as ever. They had lost a lot of men and a number of territories, but on the other hand their outgoing costs had been slashed. For the European bases, it was business as usual. The goodwill engendered by St. Bernard de Clairvaux was now 150 years in the past now though, and the political landscape was very different.

Philip the Fair

King Philip II of France, known as Philip the Fair (for his hair colour rather than his ethics) was extremely ambitious, and resented the Templars’ power. When they refused him a loan towards the end of the 13th century, he became their devoted enemy, determine to have their wealth for himself. He had one Pope murdered for certain, and possibly also murdered the man’s successor, but eventually he got a puppet of his on the Papal throne in 1305, Pope Clement V. The Papacy was moved from Rome to Avignon in France, and the Inquisition with it.

Philip had Clement sign a document accusing the Templar Knights of all manner of institutionalised evil – blasphemy, trampling the cross, sodomy, worshipping a head named Baphomet, kissing each others’ bodies during initiation, witchcraft, and over a hundred other crimes. The Catholic Church nowadays admits that they were almost certainly all groundless. However, under its authority, Philip assembled a vast force of soldiers was secretly assembled across France, and on Friday, October 13, 1307, the entire Templar order in France were arrested in simultaneous dawn raids.

In theory.

In practice, Philip the Fair was not particularly popular, and many regional magistrates still respected the Templars. The order was forewarned, and only a fraction of its members were actually arrested. Whilst this included the Order’s leadership, many of the remaining arrestees were elderly or infirm, and it has been suggested that the Templars who stayed behind had volunteered to act as sacrificial lambs for the rest of the Order’s membership. Meanwhile, the Templar fleet – which had been in port on October 12 – had vanished into history, along with the Order’s treasure and most of its personnel.

Philip had the Inquisition torture confessions out of the arrested Templars, and finally, in 1312, forced Pope Clement to officially disband the Templars. Philip and Clement put pressure on the other European kingdoms to arrest and execute the ‘evil’ Templars, but most territories dragged their heels. Scotland, already excommunicated, welcomed all comers with open arms. Below the Scots, in England, Edward II did nothing except write to his sheriffs across the country telling them to stop the Templars roaming around – for three years – before holding a desultory investigation and letting almost all the Knights off. In Germany, the Knights turned up to court in full armour, to receive full pardons. In Portugal, the King simply renamed the Templars as the Knights of Christ and left it at that; in Spain, the Order’s members and lands were moved over to the Hospitallers instead.

Jacques de Molay (before burning)

The Order’s last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, had confessed under torture to the various charges, but he recanted in 1314, saying his only regret was lying about his men. Furious, Philip had him burnt at the stake on March 18, 1314 as he and Pope Clement looked on. Legend states that de Molay invited his murderers to join him in the grave within the year; certainly, Clement V was dead within a month, and Philip II died just six months after that.

For all Philip’s ranting and Clement’s obedient pressuring, all they really achieved was to disperse the Knights into the mists of history. The French crown grabbed ownership of the lands the Templars left behind, but never saw a penny of the Order’s fabled treasure. As to where the fleet ended up, where the Knights went, what happened to all that gold and what other secrets and treasures were carried off with it… Well, those are the kinds of questions which will inspire poets, dreamers and conspiracy theorists for eight hundred years – and counting.

Templars pt. 2: Rise

Skill in armed combat never automatically guarantees victory in battle, and despite the legends which remain, evidence suggests that the Templars had some serious shortcomings when it came to strategy. Partly, this can be put down to their indoctrination. When your soldiers will die in battle rather than retreat should a position turn bad, a lot of strategic flexibility is sacrificed. The Knights devoutly believed that God was with them, and that righteousness would prevail – in other words, they were fanatics.

There are various accounts of Templars dismissing battlefield intelligence, warnings, strategic advice and even other force commanders’ battle orders on the grounds that God would see them through. Their primary strategy was to charge in, confident in their superior arms, training and piety – a strategy which was often used against them to great effect. The brilliant Arab leader Saladin, in particular, was known for ordering his lines to retreat if the Knights charged, drawing them in, and then close and surround the cavalry once they were isolated. It was a tactic which repeatedly proved deadly. Other times however, the Templars proved perfectly adequate architects of their own disasters.

At the siege of Ascalon in 1153, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem led a combined force consisting of his own armies bolstered with Knights Templar and knights from the two other militant crusader orders that had come into existence, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights. The siege had been dragging on for some three months when the defenders unwisely set fire to a siege tower during a high wind. The flames turned back on a fortified tower in the wall, and a chunk of the tower collapsed. According to William of Tyre, a chronicler of the times, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Bernard de Tremelay, decided this was an opportunity too good to miss.

De Tremelay, who had been Grand Master just four years, gathered a pack of some forty of his strongest Knights and announced his intention to breach the wall. Baldwin’s men tried to convince de Tremelay that the idea was dangerous, but he refused to listen. The leaders of the Hospitallers and the Teutonics made similar protests against the plan, but they too were unable to get de Tremelay to change his mind. Finally, de Tremelay actually stood guard over the gap whilst his men went in, so as to prevent anyone else from attempting to join the group, and then follwed them into Ascalon city. No more was heard from the men until their severed heads were laughingly displayed on the battlements the following morning.

Crusaders play chess during a seige, from William of Tyre's _History_

Another notably stupid escapade resulted in a Templar slaughter near Antioch in 1237AD. The Preceptor of the Antioch chapter house, Guillaume de Montferrat, led a large force against the castle of Darbsak, which was controlled by the Sultan of Aleppo. The Knights prepared a camp on a nearby plain, drew into battle formation, and approached the castle. As they got close, Christian prisoners chained near the castle screamed warnings to the Knights, trying to inform them that the Sultan was waiting for them with an entire province-worth of soldiers, and that a mighty ambush had been prepared. Guillaume’s response was immediate – he hurled insults back at the prisoners, calling them traitors and apostates for trying to sap his men’s morale.

Not all of the Templars were quite so sanguine. The raiding band wasn’t huge, and there were a lot of enemies in the area. A contingent of Knights approached Guillaume, pointing out that the prisoners had no reason to lie, and saying that it might be prudent to at least scout out the area to investigate the enemy’s strength. Guillaume declared them cowards and false knights, and announced that he was not prepared to allow such craven men to share in a great victory. Adding, as an afterthought, that he didn’t want to be fighting alongside such gross cowards anyway, he banished the entire contingent back to the chapter house.

With everyone who had questioned him sent off the field, Guillaume marched confidently up to the castle, and was then astonished when a huge tide of enemy warriors descended on his men. Incredibly, Guillaume broke the core Templar rule and fled the scene. His force was duly slaughtered against the castle walls – more than one hundred Knights, something like another hundred sergeants, three hundred crossbowmen and an infantry force of hundreds more men. It is a testament to the Templars’ training that they took almost five times as many Turks with them. Guillaume himself was caught in flight and cut to pieces, but not before he’d killed sixteen men outright, and lethally wounded at least twenty more.

There were some Templar successes of course, particularly early on. Baldwin II of Palestine attacked Damascus in 1129, shortly after the Templars first became a force. The Knights managed to broker a deal with the infamous Ishmaelian sect of Islam, the Hashishim, but even the help of the notorious Assassins wasn’t enough to swing the battle Baldwin’s way. Even so, the Templars were largely to thank for preventing the defeat from becoming a fatal rout. Similarly, King Louis VII of France openly acknowledged that it was only the wisdom and sense of the Templars that saved the disastrous Second Crusade (1147-8AD) from being a total massacre before the Europeans even reached Palestine.

In general though, the Templars – along with the other orders militant – proved remarkably ineffective in helping to protect and maintain the crusader states. The kingdoms themselves hit their peak quickly; by 1145AD things were already starting to go wrong. From 1170AD onwards, the Muslims were carrying the fight back to the Christian invaders, fired by the brilliance of their general and leader, Saladin. Jerusalem fell in 1187AD, and although the Crusaders battled on doggedly for another century and the militant orders continued operations, the last piece of invaded territory, the city of Acre, fell in 1291AD.

Templars pt. 4: Templar, Inc.

The Templars would have vanished, entirely forgotten, into the Jerusalem sands without the intervention of Saint Bernard de Clairvaux. A visionary genius with a manic zeal for organisation and negotiation, Bernard de Clairvaux was known as the Pope-Maker, and even in some circles as the Second Pope. He was at the heart of the young Cistercian monastic order, and almost solely responsible for its exponential growth. He was also well-connected politically, with blood ties to many rulers, including those of Champagne and Palestine. His religious and political pull combined with his charisma, energy and organisational genius to make him an almost unstoppable force in the  Catholic church. For decades, he literally decided who sat on the Papal throne.

Bernard also had strong links to the Templar band, however. His uncle, Andre de Montbard, was one of Hughes de Payens’ Templar Knights. In a characteristic flash of inspirational genius, Bernard clearly saw the near-unlimited potential of the rag-tag Templar band. Here was a group of pious knights who had sworn themselves to poverty and taken on the most thankless and dangerous job in all of Christendom, protecting the Pilgrim trail. No job could fit them better for Papal accolades. The knights were unimpeachable, precisely because of their obscurity. With a little effort behind the scenes, Bernard knew that his influence could turn the Templars from a small pack of tired warriors into a mighty force, loyal only to the Pope. The Pope, in turn, would be loyal to him.

Bernard de Clairvaux

When another relative from the Champagne nobility – Hugh, Comte de Champagne – donated his estates to the Cistertians in 1126AD, Bernard saw to it that De Payens welcomed him into the group. With King Baldwin II of Jerusalem having already named de Payens as the Master of the Mount, the group officially controlled the entire Temple Mount, a huge area. This not only gave them plenty of room for expanding into a mighty headquarters, it also meant one of the most holy sites known to Christendom, Judaism and Islam was under Templar guard. With Hugh de Champagne’s heavyweight presence in their number, everything was ready to take the Templars to an entirely new level.

When a Papal council convened in Troyes, capital of Champagne, in 1128, Bernard de Clairvaux smoothly hijacked the meeting. The Templars were already in place back in France, officially on a conveniently-timed fund-raising trip. Bernard called them to Troyes, introduced them to the council, and painted them as the most valiant defenders of the faith ever known. The Pope was already in debt to the Cistercian genius, and with the council taking place in Champagne, Bernard’s home, he could hardly challenge his pronouncements without risking grave offence to the Duke of Champagne. By the end of the council of Troyes, the Templars had become the first ever official Militant Church Order, with a code of conduct based on Bernard’s own Cistercian vows.

Bernard wrote the new Templar Order a glittering letter of praise and recommendation, and tales of the heroic knights and their incredible prowess quickly spread. The European nobles, eager to curry favour with the Pope-Maker, fell over themselves to donate sons, lands and gold to his new order. De Payens returned to Palestine with a host of knights, a whole horde of support staff, and a generous amount of cash. Within a year, the order had substantial estates and properties across Scotland, England, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, and was already working on constructing fleets and standing armies.

It wasn’t long before Bernard’s tame Popes had exempted the Templar Knights from all worldly authority save that of the Pope himself. They were answerable to no law, free to cross borders without hindrance, paid no taxes and were even entitled to build and run their own churches, tithing for their own profit. Their numbers mushroomed: by 1146 AD, seven hundred knights were garrisoned in Jerusalem alone, with 2,400 servants, and across the known world, the order owned almost three and a half thousand castles.

The Seal of the Knights Templar

The heart of the order were the Knight Brothers, the expert heavily-armoured cavalry we think of as Templars today. Making up as little as 10% of the overall membership of the order, the Knights were the officer elite. Under them, the Sergeant Brothers and Turcopoles were auxiliary troops, mounted and lightly armoured, but with just one horse each (Knights owned three) and no squire to assist. Any man could become a Sergeant Brother in theory, whilst Turcopoles tended to be local militia on assignment. Chaplain Brothers took care of the order’s spiritual needs. The lowest-ranking members were the Farmer Brothers, who provided all the order’s physical support functions – not just farming, but also stabling, building, cleaning, cookery and so on.

The Knights were undoubtedly terrifying warriors. Drawing on their beginning as a group of seasoned veterans, the Templars ensured that each new Knight Brother was a dangerous soldier. Forbidden to waste time hunting or jousting, and not allowed to even leave the order house without permission, there was little for the Knights to do but practice their skills. Training took place en mass, Knights mixed in with Sergeants and Turcopoles, an innovation unheard of at the time that greatly contributed to the overall martial prowess of the order. Their code and beliefs added to their ferocity – surrendering or retreating whilst the standard still flew was a major crime against the order, whilst death in battle guaranteed full absolution and entry into heaven. For the Knights, it was better to die than to retreat. With their unshakeable morale, rock-hard faith and unparalleled fighting skills, the Templars were regarded with the same sort of awe that modern armies have for the British SAS and other near-legendary super-elite units.

Templars pt. 3: Superstar

Templars pt. 4: Templar, Inc.

Dan Brown’s smash novel “The Da Vinci Code” is the most recent work to bring the Templars back into the public eye. Following the historical research of authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the Da Vinci Code suggests that the Templars were the inheritors of sacred wisdom, gained during their time in the Middle East. This was then supposedly passed on to the even-more-secretive Priory of Sion after the order’s suppression, along with huge amounts of gold and other treasure. Then again, tales of the sudden rise and even sharper fall of the West’s pre-eminent warrior-monks have been inspiring poets, dreamers and conspiracy theorists for eight hundred years.

The truth, however, is that the mighty Templars started out as a tiny band of weary veteran crusaders looking for somewhere to lodge.

Hugh de Payens

In 1099 AD, the armies of the first Crusade captured the city of Jerusalem, slaughtered the inhabitants and announced the formation of a new state, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The purpose of the Crusade, officially, had been to rescue the holy sites around Jerusalem from desecration by the area’s Moslem and Jewish population. The Crusade also sought to make the long journey from Europe safe for pilgrims, protecting them from heathen attack. In this, at least, it failed, stirring up all manner of anti-Christian sentiment.

Twenty years later, following an unusually spectacular massacre of Easter pilgrims – too weak from Lent fasting to even run – a group of nine long-term crusaders offered their services to the King of Jerusalem. Their leader, Hughes de Payens, sought a base. He promised to defend the pilgrim route, and the group swore oaths of poverty, chastity and obedience to prove their piety. The King accepted their offer, and gave them barracks in the city. Hughes de Payens may have been a distant relative – little is known about him for sure. He was certainly a minor French noble serving the Duke of Champagne, a knight from the first Crusade who, it is thought, had stayed on campaigning in the area ever since.

The new group took their name from the location of their quarters, the former site of King Solomon’s Temple. The Poor Fellow-Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon – the Knights Templar – started their new careers very quietly indeed. After their initial formation, the Templars vanished into total obscurity for almost ten years. Would-be new recruits were turned away.

Whatever De Payens intended, no records remain to suggest they even so much as helped a pilgrim cross the street, let alone that nine men successfully defended a route hundreds of miles in length through hostile territory.

Templars pt. 2: Rise

Templars pt. 3: Superstar

Templars pt. 4: Templar, Inc.

The story says that in the late autumn of 1590, a large coven of perhaps as many as 200 witches – both men and women – came together in an empty church near to North Berwick. Their goal was to conjure up a murderous storm, and use it to kill the King of Scotland himself. The spell called for the sacrifice of a black cat – one that had been specially prepared. First the cat was christened with the name of a recently-dead local sailor, in a mocking send-up of Christian ceremony. It was then passed through the flame of a large fire repeatedly, burning and torturing it as it absorbed certain herbs and incenses from the material that was being burnt.

The dead man’s corpse had been stolen from the local cemetery, and the witches hacked off the hands, feet and genitals of the man. The hands were tied to the semi-conscious cat’s forward paws, left to left, right to right. The feet were tied to its rear paws, again left to left. Finally, the penis and testicles were threaded through and tied to the cat’s belly. When the preparations were complete, one of the witches carried the prepared cat to the pier at Leith village, and cast it into the sea with a final invocation.

Tantallon Castle, North Berwick by Thomas Moran

No sooner had the cat sunk under the water than the skies turned as black as pitch, and a howling wind erupted. Within moments, a terrible storm was in full force. A ship that was sailing in to Leith from Kinghorn was caught up and dashed against rocks, killing many sailors, but the witches kept the storm going. Their object wasn’t just mayhem and death, it was the specific murder of King James of Scotland, on his way back to the country from Denmark with his new wife. The witches kept the storm rolling and directed it throughout the night, targeting the man-of-war carrying the royal couple. To their horror and dread however, it managed to ride through the storm, avoiding destruction.

The first hints of the story emerged accidentally, during an investigation into suspected witchcraft in the Edinburgh area. Geillis Duncan, a young woman who worked as a servant in the city, had become known for her skills in nursing the sick back to health. This attracted attention. Geillis worked for a deputy bailiff named David Smeaton. He observed that she used to sneak out of the house some nights. Her destination on these occasions was a friend’s house, an older woman. Geillis and her friend were in the habit of taking in any person who was injured, ill or otherwise in distress. They then proceeded to heal these poor unfortunates as best they could. They patched up all manner of people effectively and quickly, and started developing a good reputation as healers.

Naturally, this gave Bailiff Smeaton grounds for great suspicion. How could such things be done naturally and lawfully? He could not imagine it, and so was certain that his main was performing her healing through “extraordinary and unlawful means”. To help investigate his suspicions, Smeaton had Geillis put to the question. The girl was tortured for several days, first by means of a form of early thumbscrew called “pilliwinkes” that were progressively tightened, forcing nail-heads and studden screws through the flesh and bone of the fingers, and then by binding her head with rope and winching it so tight that it ripped through skin and flesh. However, she held out until the questioners claimed to have found a witch-mark – a numb spot which did not respond to being jabbed with a needle – located on her neck. Finally, she confessed to having had the help of the devil in healing the sick.

In The Berwick Graveyard by Lee Kindness

Under further questioning, Geillis named a selection of fellow witches, including Agnes Sampson, Agnes Tompson, Dr James Fian, Barbara Napier and Euphemia McCalyan. Agnes Sampson – a ‘grave and matronly gentlewoman’ – was revealed as the eldest and most senior of the witches, and was called in. Agnes initially refused to confess to any wrong-doing, so her interrogators shaved every hair from her body and searched for a devil’s mark of some sort, as had been found on Geillis Duncan. Once they had spotted a likely mark, then proceeded to torture the woman in a similar manner to Geillis, with a binding-rope around her head and neck. When that did not yield results, they forced an iron ‘bridle’ into her mouth. This gouged into her tongue, lips and cheeks, and prevented her from sleeping. She broke within a few days, and started confessing, and King James was there to listen to her confessions.

Agnes Sampson proved a fairly creative confessor. She started modestly, as Geillis had – they had used magic spells to cure diseases, she had a satanic familiar in the form of a dog called elva, and so on. Agnes’ tales quickly became more colourful, however. She readily implicated the others named by Geillis, and brought yet more people into the list. Eventually, the network would spread to seventy or so people who were implicated in the plot, including a local nobleman, the Earl of Bothwell. According to Agnes, large groups of witches held regular conventions together at the North Berwick church, of up to 90 women and six men. They lit the place up with black candles, got drunk on wine, and worshipped Satan with chants. Geillis Duncan provided musical entertainment on a Jew’s harp.

On the occasion of October 31st 1590, the devil had come to the congregation, and they had worshipped him by performing the obscene kiss on his backside. The devil then instructed them on how to use the magic of images to turn spells against the king, and have given them the instructions on how to prepare the magical cat sacrifice to raise a storm. They were ordered to destroy James and his bride, Anne. When Agnes Thomson asked the devil why he was so determined that James should be killed, the dark one answered that James was his greatest enemy in all the world, and that he hated and feared him. Agnes Sampson then explained the ritual with the cat and the attempt to sink James’ ship. The king, recalling that his voyage home had been rough, immediately concluded that the matter was true, and that he was in mortal danger. Agnes was burnt at the stake shortly afterwards, and Geillis followed her very quickly.

The Trial of the Berwick Witches

One of the people mentioned by Geillis was Dr. James Fian, the master of Saltpans school. Like the others, he initially refused to confess to any wrongdoing, but after a period of some days being questioned by the torturers, recanted and was prepared to give details and name names. Fian admitted that he served as clark of the coven. His ob was to bear witness to recording the names of the witches at each coven gathering, and that he would be sure to take their oaths of service to the devil. He would also write down and record any specific matter that the devil ordered him to record.

Fian then gave an example of his magic by telling the inquisitors about a love spell that he had attempted to cast on a young local gentlewoman who had caught his eye. Having spotted the girl, he went to her brother, who he taught, and persuaded the lad to get him some of his sister’s hair from her head while she was asleep. The brother – ignorant of the reason – agreed, and tried to do just that. Unfortunately, the girl woke up, and yelled for their mother. When the mother questioned her son and forced the story out of him, she became suspicious of the reasons for the request. She directed the lad to get some hairs from one of the family’s cows to give to the schoolmaster. The lad obeyed, and Fian, none the wiser, cast his spell. He was both surprised and dismayed to then be followed around by the cow for some days.

Fian was tortured further, but did not confess to anything further despite the King’s best attempts. It is recorded that Fian’s legs were totally destroyed by the torture process – the ‘boots’. This cruel device was basically a pair of spiked wedges which ran the entire length from knee to ankle, roped around each leg. The torturer would ask a question, and then hammer the ‘boot’ tighter. Typically, questioning continued until the wedges were so close together that legs were reduced to useless marrow-soaked shards. Death frequently followed. It is known that Fian’s corpse was burned in late January 1591. A fourth member of the conspiracy, Agnes Thomson, was also burned at the stake.

King James, feeling vindicated by his uncovering of such heinous plots against him – and justly proud of his status as the devil’s main enemy on earth – went on to write a scholarly treatise, “Demonology”, based on what he had learnt. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James became king of England as well. In his opinion, the English witchcraft laws were weak and lenient, and he did his best to strengthen them, to help bring justice and the rule of God across the Kingdom. Not coincidentally, James I holds the record for hanging more witches than any other English monarch.

It was finally ascertained that nine individuals had been the ringleaders of the North Berwick coven. These were Agnes Sampson, her daughter (whose name is unrecorded), Agnes Thomson, Barbara Napier, Donald Robson, Geillis Duncan, Euphemia McCalyan, James Fian and Margaret Thomsoun. Almost sixty other individuals were named as lesser members. Agnes Samson, Agnes Thomson, James Fian and Geillis Duncan were executed as witches. The rest may simply have been imprisoned, or even released after their ‘questioning’.

He decided to establish an enlightened – or Illuminated – society to oppose injustice, and this he did, forming the order that would become The Illuminati of Bavaria on the 1st of May 1776. Originally called ‘The Order of the Perfectibilists’, its objects was to allow the members to team up in order to “attain the highest possible degree of morality and virtue, and to lay the foundation for the reformation of the world by the association of good men to oppose the progress of moral evil.”

In collaboration with a range of other influential figures, including Baron Von Knigge, Xavier Zwack and Baron Bassus, the order was extremely popular, and soon had enrolled up to 2,000 people. Lodges of the Illuminati were located in France, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Sweden & Denmark, Belgium and Holland.

Illuminati: New World Order by Swiss Chemtrails

The Bavarian authorities issued a suppressive Edict of the order on the 22nd of June 1784, repeated again in March and August of the following year. That same year, 1785, Weishaupt was stripped of his professorship and exiled from Bavaria; he moved to Gotha, where he died in 1811. From the point of suppression, the order began to go into public decline, and by the end of the century it had apparently vanished completely. Zwack’s home was illegally raided by the authorities in 1786, and Baron Bassus’ was searched in 1787. Documents seized were used to help suppress the order.

Most serious commentators take this decline at face value. The Encyclopaedia Britannica barely mentions the Illuminati, and the vast majority of historical sources follow suit, judging them insignificant. However, there is a whole raft of conspiracy theory which suggests that the Illuminati disbanded into Masonry and infiltrated like a cancer. Since that time, conspirologists allege, the Illuminati have stayed within the Masons, seizing power and manipulating the whole order.

Fnord.

There are a few hints which appear to suggest that perhaps the Illuminati survived. In 1902, the Freemason William Westcott records receiving membership in the “Order of the Illuminati” in 1902 from one Theodor Reuss. Similarly, the Golden Dawn occultist Eliphas Levi strongly connected the Bavarian Illuminati with Freemasonry in 1913. It is also perhaps noteworthy that the Harvard University Library catalogue shows that there was an Illuminati scare in New England in the 1790s, when their suspected presence became something of an obsession.

In 1906, the British Museum in London received a copy of a manuscript called The Illuminati Protocols. These first appeared in Bavaria in the late 1700s, and parts were used in a 1864 play by Joly. The copy the British Museum received was written in Russian. Coincidentally, both Adam Smith’s capitalist treatise “The Wealth of Nations” and that great democratic treatise the American Declaration of Independence were written in 1776.

Some of the more enthusiastic Illuminati theorists have even suggested that Weishaupt may have been the mysterious Black-Cloaked Man who presented Washington with the text of the declaration. It is also rumoured that the raid on Zwack’s house was spurred on by the chance interception in 1784 by the authorities of a document telling the head of the French Illuminati, Robespierre, how to orchestrate the French Revolution in 1789. Warnings were ignored, and the revolution happened on schedule.

In the 1970s, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson published a cult set of books called The Illuminatus! Trilogy. This was a trilogy of novels masquerading as the largest conspiracy theory ever seen disguised as a grand exposé of the Illuminati. The books blended Discordianism – the largely fictitious worship of chaos and amusing mischeif in the form of the Greek goddess of strife, Eris, and her Roman counterpart, Discordia – with historical fact and cunning invention. The villains of the piece were the Bavarian Illuminati, revealed as the secret masters of the world; indeed, Shea & Wilson claim that Weishaupt murdered George Washington and took his place, hence the Eye in the Pyramid on the back of a dollar bill, and the 13 steps involved. It is this book – excellent, if off-beat – that has set the Illuminati back in the public mind. Of course, no-one claims it is anything other than a good work of fiction… do they?