execution JacquesDeMolay

e was to become Master of the Temple of England and eventually, between April 1292 and December 1293 he became Grand Master of the Order.
He was elected at a difficult time for the Order, they had sustained tremendous losses at the hands of the Muslims and had been forced to retreat from the Holy Land.
Molay had travelled acrosss Europe desperately seeking support for a Crusade to retake the Holy Land, but this was never to be. He had stayed at the Templar Headquarters on the island of Cyprus until 1306 when he was called back to France by Pope Clement V to discuss combining the Templar order with the Knights Hospitaller - a plan both parties were violently opposed to.

t was during this trip that he was arrested on Friday 13th August 1307 at the Paris Temple and taken into custody.
Molay was then tortured by William Imbert, head of the Inquisition and was forced to make a confession he was later to recant in front of the Papal Commission in Vienne (Wednesday 26th November 1309). He stated,

"If I ,myself, or other Knights, have made confessions before the Bishop of Paris, or elsewhere, we have betrayed the truth - we have yielded to fear, to danger, to violence, we were tortured by our enemies"

Jaques de Molay remained in prison for another 5 years with Geoffrey de Charney (Preceptor of Normandy), Hugh de Payraud (Visitor of the Order) and Guy de Auverene, until in 1314 Pope Clement set up a Papal Commission headed by the Bishop of Alba. This was not for the purpose of hearing the prisoners, but taking their guilt for granted was to pronounce their sentences.

he sentencing was a very public affair at the instruction of Philip IV. It took place on the 18th March 1314 in front of a huge crowd. The priconers were brought forward onto a large wooden scaffold where the Bishop of Alba read out their alleged confessions and pronounced a sentance of life imprisonment. Molay was allowed to speak and addressed the crowd:

"It is just that, in so terrible a day, and in the last moments of my life, I should discover all the iniquity of falsehood, and make the truth triumph. I declare, then, in the face of heaven and earth, and acknowledge, though to my eternal shame, that I have commited the greatest crimes but it has been the acknowledging of those which have been so foully charged on the order. I attest - and truth obliges me to attest - that it is innocent!
I made the contrary declaration only to suspend the excessive pains of torture, and to mollify those who made me endure them.
I know the punishments which have been inflicted on all the knights who had the courage to revoke a similar confession; but the dreadful spectacle which is presented to me is not able to make me confirm one lie by another.
The life offered me on such infamous terms I abandon without regret."

The speech caused an uproar of support from the crowd and the porceedings were quickly halted by the Commissioners. The situation was reported back to Philip who, without hesitation over-ruled the sentance of life imprisonment and condemned Molay and Charney to death.

he following day the two Templars were taken to the Isle of Javiaux, a small island in the River Seine, and were put to death.
Reports say they were slowly roasted over a hot, smokeless fire prolonging their agony as their flesh slowly cooked and blackened.
Molay insisted that his hands were not bound so that he could pray in his final moments and before he died he cursed both Philip and Pope Clement, summoning both of them to appear before God, the supreme judge, before the year was out. His last words were,

"Let evil swiftly befall those who have wrongly condemned us - God will avenge us."

Geoffrey de Charney is reported to have added,

"I shall follow the way of my master as a martyr you have killed him. You have done and know not. God willing, on this day, I shall die in the Order like him"

he chilling irony of the conclusion of this story is that Molays final words did, in fact, come true.
Pope Clement V died only a month later on 20th April (he is suspected of having cancer of the bowel) and Philip IV was killed whilst out hunting on 29th November 1314.