The history books tell us that after their dissolution in 1312 – following a crackdown by Pope Clement V in France when they fell from grace due to accusations by King Philip IV about deviant sexual rituals – the Knights Templar were stripped of the special privileges they had been granted by the Vatican and, if rounded up, had been tortured into giving false confessions and then burned at the stake.

No doubt many of the group’s leaders met a pretty grisly end but it was such a powerful and wealthy movement, with tentacles stretching across the continent, that the notion it was completely eradicated in 1312 seems a pretty ridiculous concept.

A far more likely scenario is that the knights simply removed their distinctive white mantles, emblazoned with a red cross, and fled to some safe haven… with Scotland thought to be the most likely first refuge, at Kilwinning Abbey in Ayrshire... FULL STORY