The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar

by Steven Sora

  It seems at this point that the Sinclairs’ motives were more grounded in earthly objectives, but examining the French side of the family, the St. Clairs, shows that the mysterious side of the equation still has some merit. The second grand master of the newly named Prieuré de Sion was Marie St. Clair.32 She was descended from another Henry St. Clair, who had fought alongside Godfrey of Bouillion in the Crusades. Her maiden name was Levis, that Merovingian-Visigothic name that hints at a Judaic origin. Knowing the proclivity of the St. Clairs to marry in their class, it is reasonable to connect Marie Levis to the Levis family that owned the Cathar stronghold at Montsegur. The Levis family axis extended from Nîmes, where denim was invented and named (denim means from “fabrique de Nîmes”) by a modern Levi (as in Levi-Strauss), to Narbonne.

  Bertrand de Blanchefort, too, was a Cathar, as was his family. On the surface this would seem to deflate the importance of a Jewish bloodline passing through the Merovingian-Visigothic ancestors of the Blancheforts. Such a bloodline would take on importance only in a historic sense rather than a religious one. If Visigoths were Arians, believing in only one supreme God and a more earthly Jesus, that is, a prophet, then their religion would not be very different from that of the Cathari.33 Nor would it be so different from that of the Jews, who believed in Jesus as the earthly Messiah. Bertrand’s descendants fought alongside the Cathari at Montsegur, but they stopped short of allowing themselves to be immolated for their faith. The St. Clairs and the de Blancheforts featured in events in the Languedoc area hundreds of years later.

  Through marriage the family of Marie Levis St. Clair was connected to the de Gisors, the family from which the first and third grand masters of the Prieuré de Sion came. Without question, the Prieuré de Sion was created and run by individuals related to the St. Clairs. The third grand master was in charge in the year that the Templars were ordered arrested and the treasure fleet set sail for Scotland to escape the agents of the French king. Did one St. Clair (from France) correspond with another Sinclair (from Scotland) for this express purpose? Most likely the answer is yes.

  The Sinclair family had become well established in Scotland, and the Roslin branch had for some reason divorced itself from the family of William the Conqueror, but not from their French relations. Throughout the history of Scotland the Sinclairs switched sides often and sometimes appear on both sides of a conflict. This is not to say that they were self-serving or disloyal—it was more a sign of the times in which they lived. Their loyalty was often rooted in their own clan, which was very typical of northern Europe as well as Scotland. As the clan became a larger unit, loyalty was focused on a smaller part within that unit. Despite the code of chivalry, as we know it from literature, the Dark Ages and feudal period of Europe’s history features kings and churchmen rarely loyal to their subjects or their flocks. Nationalism did not yet exist. The Sinclairs understood the fluidity of these alliances, and were loyal most often only to themselves. They also understood opportunity.

  In 1307, when the fleet of the French Templars left La Rochelle and disappeared from history, St. Clairs had conspired with Sinclairs to gain control of the treasure fleet. The treasure laden ships fled to the protection of the Sinclair domain on the outer islands of Scotland. The Scottish Sinclairs, playing the role of the power behind the throne, added to their own power immensely. They rallied behind Robert the Bruce, who went down in history as a hero, but in many ways they stayed behind the scenes. The Sinclairs did not want the role of martyr. As a reward for their protection of the Templars, the Sinclairs gained from the king the hereditary distinction of protectors of the Masons. Did they inherit the myth as well? Most likely not.

  Two hundred years after Bannockburn, the battle in which they threw their resources behind the excommunicated king of Scotland, the Sinclairs of Scotland remained devout at least to their Catholic religion if not to the corrupt popes. At that time it was not a popular position to take. The Reformation was raging through Scotland, and people were losing everything in their defense of their form of Christian worship. If the Sinclairs believed in an Arian Christianity or entertained thoughts of their own descent through the Davidic line, they gave no sign of such heresy. The Sinclairs of Roslin, in fact, lost all for their loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church.

  The French St. Clairs might have been more caught up in their own mythology. Medieval times saw such elite families taking elaborate steps to make gods of themselves. Genealogies were rewritten by historians bought and paid for by the family being glorified—a phenomenon that did not disappear from history, although modern genealogies seek less pretentious goals. To claim descent from an ancestor who stepped off the Mayflower is a more realistic goal than to assert a divine right to kingship based on one’s ancestor having been a Judaic priest-king.

  While there is little doubt that the Sinclairs held to their Catholicism, the Freemasons who were Templars did get caught up in the Reformation and in the mythology that they created for themselves. Before they took on the trappings of being heirs to a sacred body of knowledge—pagan and Christian at the same time—they were simply an organization with military goals and later, by default, more civil goals.

  The Knights Templar and their successive organization, the Freemasons, took shape in a Europe that had been almost completely conquered by Normans. Today it is difficult to grasp just how complete the Norman Conquest was, but from Great Britain to the tip of Italy the Normans had thoroughly changed the world in which they lived. No longer were they the Vikings from the north who blazed through Europe looting and pillaging. These forefathers had raided the Irish coast, settled the western isles, and also sailed to Turkey and Russia, where their influence became permanent. Once they established a political base in France, the second wave of “northmen” were no longer called Norse, but Norman, meaning “northmen.”

  The Normans conquered great stretches of land throughout Europe. They reintroduced surnames, which had faded away, as a means to tax the populace of the lands they came to own. And they brought in their own courts of law, held in their own French-Norman language. In the early fourteenth century the language of the rulers of England and Scotland was Norman French. If a Briton was accused of a crime, he went to a court conducted in this Norman language, not his own. It was not until 1352 that the English language prevailed as the legal language as well as the popular language of the realm.

  The fleeing Templars (now Freemasons) preserved their French-Norman language as code words that survive into modern Masonry. John Robinson’s Born in Blood is a good source for both the development of the code language and irrefutable proof that the Templars hid as a trade guild.34 While such a real trade guild of masons would not need to post guards at its meetings, an underground organization banned by state and church might. The Freemasons still employ a guard at their meetings, called a “Tyler” in England. But unlike the meaning of the English word—“tailor” (from the French tailleur, or “one who cuts” ), the Tyler guarding the Freemason meeting was a swordsman. The term “freemason” itself was derived from frère (meaning “brother” in French), the name the Templars reserved for each other, and maçon, another word for knight.

  Another name reviewed in Born in Blood is “Lewis.” According to the author, this title cannot be translated exactly, but it refers to the son of another mason. General Douglas MacArthur was a Mason who held the “Lewis” title. If the initiate’s father was a Mason, the son could be considered a Lewis. Interestingly enough, Lewis is the English version of the French “Levis,” also meaning “son of,” “scion,” and so on. This is more evidence that Masonry is grounded in a secret context and refes to a Davidic vine with “sprouts” secretly growing in southern and, later, northern France.

  While it is doubtful that the average fez-wearing modern Shriner believes himself to be an heir to the god kings of Israel, other Masonic-Templar-Judaic trappings are accepted and commonplace among Masons. The initiation tale recited and acted out when a modern member is enrolled in t
he Masons recalls the name of the master mason murdered while working on Solomon’s temple. That name, never recorded historically, is Hiram Abiff, meaning Hiram “who was eliminated.” Modern Masons are told that they are inheriting traditions that started with this murdered man.

  One word that has defied translation is the Scottish Masonry term mahabone. It is considered a secret “Mason’s word,” and it may have something to do with piracy. After passing through initiation, the newly inducted Mason is told that he is now “a brother to pirates and corsairs.” Robinson mentions a pirate port in North Africa used during the Crusades, called “Mahdia.” Pointing out that Arab-held Madrid was pronounced Mahadrid, he says Mahadia might have been corrupted into Mahabone. Alternatively, Mahadia the Good, in French, would be Mahadia le Bon. The author also shows a precedent in the corrupted Franco-English language—“Mary the Good” has become “Marylebone,” a district of London.

  Grail literature might suggest another meaning—in Grail prose “Mahadia” referred to the “desired knight.” Galahad was one such desired knight, a reincarnation of his father Lancelot, who ruled the Round Table one year and then died at the altar just after seeing a vision of the Holy Grail. Grail literature is steeped in both Christian and Celtic mysticism, and in some tribes a “king” would serve for just one year, only to be sacrificed afterward. In the sermons of the warmonger saint, Bernard, Mount Galaad in the Holy Land is represented by Christ. This term was employed in a French contribution to Grail literature called Queste del Saint Graal, where Galaad is called the “Christ Knight.” In The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol, Roger Sherman Loomis determined that the name Galahad comes from the source word Galaad, a “reference to the Messiah.” He says Galahad was the “long awaited healer” and compares him to Christ. Thus, Galahad, “the desired knight,” and Mahadia, might be one and the same.35

  This author leans toward the pirate explanation. The term mahonnes describes a low-lying French corsair favored by pirates. The Masons were brothers to such “pirates and corsairs.” And the hiding place at Oak Island that has been credited to pirates lies in Mahone Bay, named for the French pirate ship. Even more fascinating is another Masonic term that has defied explanation—“Heredom,” described both as the mother of Freemasonry and a mythical mountain.36 It is tempting to connect it to Sheerdom Cove, the predecessor of Smith’s Cove on Oak Island. Sheerdom Cove is at the edge of the island that contains the booby-trapped water-draining system that has plagued treasure seekers for centuries. It was given the name “Smith’s Cove” only after treasure seeker Smith bought the island.

  The Sinclairs of Scotland inherited an organization that had served as a front to forward the aims of their French relatives, the St. Clairs. After Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce, their king, recognized the help of the Templars, and their “cover” as a trade guild was given over to the protection of the Sinclairs, who were influential in bringing them to Bruce’s (and Scotland’s) aid. In 1441, more than a hundred years later, James II appointed the Sinclairs as guardians of the Freemasons and made this title hereditary.37 At the time, Sir William Sinclair was building his temple at Roslin, which required the work of such masons. James II used this as his reason for the appointment. The Masons had been under Sinclairs’ protection for a century, and James, in this way, was merely making his peace with the Sinclairs. He was at war with the Livingston clan at the time and may have needed the Sinclairs’ neutrality.

  Local history says an influx of “masons” to the Sinclair borough started in 1441, although construction on the chapel did not begin until 1446. Why would workers be needed five years before the start of the project? It is now evident that the chapel of Roslin was a cover for the construction of massive workings underground. Tunnels and secret entrances created to conceal an army were built or extended during that time. The work that started on the chapel continued for forty years and never saw completion. Just what else were masons doing in this forty-five year period?

  The chapel perched on a gorge is steeped in Masonic symbolism, complete with carved head of a man with a gash in his skull (Hiram Abiff) and a depiction of the man who killed him. A third head is of the “Widowed Mother,” another Masonic symbol that suggests that all Masons are the “sons of a widowed mother.”38 (One masonic hand signal signifies the phrase “Is there no help for the son of the Widow?”—which is a call for help.) This truly bizarre “hallucination in stone” is unlike any Christian church, but it is an example of the ancient art represented in the Temple of Solomon.39 The message may be that more than one god can be worshiped—a Masonic theme but certainly not a Catholic one. Solomon’s edifice allowed space for Semite pagan gods; Sinclairs gave equal time to Green George, the Celtic vegetation god.

  Near the chapel at Roslin there is a cave behind a waterfall where a weathered head appears carved into the rock. And in the cliff face is a “dressed window,” behind which is a “warren of tunnels sufficient to conceal a substantial number of men.” To enter this secret hideout, one has to be lowered down into a well and travel through a tunnel. The same engineering had created the well and tunnel entrance in Jerusalem almost two thousand years before Sinclair’s Roslin. And the same shaft and tunnel design was used on a grander scale in Nova Scotia.40

  The Sinclair family had something of great value that needed to be hidden. There was no Bank of Scotland that could serve as a repository; instead the cliffs and caves and tunnels constructed by the Masons would become their secret vault. Modern treasure seekers using every means available have attempted to discover just what the Sinclairs were hiding. Basements under basements and secret depositories have been uncovered, but nothing has been found.41

  Where, then, do our clues lead? An elite family with a pretension to a bloodline that starts with David. A sacred vine that extends its sprouts into southern France, where Visigoths, Merovingians, and Carolingians seemingly aspire to a Davidic ancestry. A cover organization, the Templars, concealing a secret and elite inner circle. A succeeding cover organization that combines pagan symbolism with secret handshakes. And an immense treasure that includes the wealth of Europe entrusted to Templar safekeeping in the vaults of a Scottish family who was possibly holding the treasure for itself. All finally leading to an empty vault. Between 1441 and 1482 the treasures guarded by the Sinclairs left their hiding place in the warren of tunnels in the cliffs near and under Roslin. They set sail again, this time for the western lands of the Sinclairs.

  Chapter 11

  THE TREASURE COMES TO OAK ISLAND

  The Sinclair family had grown and prospered in the years after Robert the Bruce achieved independence for Scotland. They had signed the Declaration of Arboath in 1320, which decreed Scotland an independent nation.1 This is a sign of prominence equal to being a signer of the American Declaration of Independence, and it highlights the importance of the Sinclair family. It is an unusual document, in that it claims an Asian ancestry for the Scottish people and calls Robert the Bruce a second Maccabeus, referring to a Jewish freedom fighter.

  The Sinclairs themselves were fighting for their Templar organization, resisting the efforts of the pope to grant the Hospitalers all of the Templar lands in Scotland. They claimed that the Templars owned no lands in Scotland, although they did own more than five hundred individual properties. As Templar lands were being recovered by the enemies of the organization, the Sinclair family took steps to defend them. The Sinclairs were in contact with their French counterparts, but repression against the Templars and a hostile England separating France from Scotland drove a wedge between the two elite families. As this wedge widened, it was the Scottish Sinclair family that held possession of the order’s treasures. Thirty years after the last Viking expedition to America, Henry Sinclair and his Venetian first mate Zeno made their first voyage to the New World.

  The Guardian Family in Scotland

  Between 1398 and 1400 Henry Sinclair made perhaps two trips to the New World and laid plans for a colony. He controlled the larges
t fleet in the world and, in his role as guardian, the largest treasure in the world. But when he returned to Scotland, hostilities between the ever warring clans were raging out of control. After his return to Scotland he encountered the English, who attacked both Edinburgh and then the chief Sinclair property in the Orkneys, Kirkwall. Kirkwall was a castle with a walled harbor built to protect it against sea raids. Henry lost his life in defense of his stronghold.2 With Scotland’s independence threatened, Henry’s son (also Henry) was given the task of guarding the son of the king. Robert III trusted Henry to sail to France and safety, but both Crown Prince James of Scotland and the younger Sinclair were taken prisoner and released later for ransom.3 The next threat to both the Sinclairs and Scotland would come from within.

  Norway had given up domination of the northern islands, many of which had been in Norse control since the tenth century. The clan Donald made a violent bid to rule the north believing themselves to be more powerful than the Sinclairs and other allied clans. Armed with swords, axes, and bows, the Donalds raised the largest army ever to fight in a clan war in the Highlands. After defeating the McKay clan, the wild men of the north marched south toward Aberdeen, plundering everything in their way.4