Scottish Knights Templar Explained

There are Masonic degrees named after the Knights Templar but not all Knights Templar Orders are Masonic.

There is no direct connection with the 13th-century presence of Knights Templar in Scotland. However, since the 1980s such a connection has been a popular topic in fiction and in pseudohistorical speculation.

Early modern history

In the seventeenth century, interest in Templarism became political after the execution of Charles I, with the idea that Stuart partisans invented a Templar degree, as the king's death was to be avenged, as was the violent death in 1314 of Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Templars. The story told by Dom Calmet was that Viscount Dundee was supposed to have been an early Templar Grand Master and to have fallen at Killiecrankie wearing the Grand Cross of the Order. The Duke of Mar is then said to have held office, after which time the Templar Order was apparently inactive until its revival by Charles Edward Stuart in 1745. An original letter of the 3rd Duke of Perth to Earl of Airlie Lord Ogilvy shortly after the Jacobite victory at Prestonpans, described a secret ceremony at Holyrood in which the prince was elected Grand Master of the ancient chivalry of the Temple of Jerusalem on Tuesday 24 September 1745.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Notes and References

1. The Stuart Court in Rome: A Legacy of Exile (Visual Arts Research Institute Edinburgh S.) Edward Corp (Editor) "Seventeenth-century Templarism acquired political overtones after the beheading of Charles I, and it has been suggested the 'since the king's death was to be avenged, certain Stuart partisans fabricated a Templar degree in which the violent death in 1314 of Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Templars, called for vengeance,' Dundee himself is supposed to have been an early Templar Grand Master and to have fallen at Killiecrankie wearing the Grand Cross of the Order. The Duke of Mar also held office, after which time the Templar Order apparently fell into abeyance until its revival by Charles Edward in 1745.An extract from the 3rd Duke of Perth's original letter to Lord Ogilvy shortly after the Jacobite victory at Prestonpans, describes, in vivid detail, a secret ceremony at Holyrood in which the prince was elected Grand Master of the ancient chivalry of the Temple of Jerusalem on Tuesday 24 September 1745..."page 104
2. Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture By Marsha Keith Schuchard, p 767 "According to the early eighteenth-century writers, Jacob de Lennep, Abbe de Buisson, and Dom Calvet, Dundee was wearing a Templar Cross, emblematic of his role as Grand Master of the Scottish Order of the Temple."
3. New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry 1921 by Arthur Edward Waite "Viscount Dundee.- It remains to be said that there is one captivating story which, if we can take it as given, will carry back evidence of an ORDER OF THE TEMPLE to the year 1689 and to Scotland. It has been said that the well-known French Historian and theologian Dom Calmet has lent the authority of his name to three important statements: (1) That John Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, was Grand Master of the ORDER OF TEMPLARS in Scotland; (2) that when he fell at Killiecrankie on July 27, 1689 he wore the Grand Cross of the Order;