A great mass of depositions, mostly vague and worthless, or derived
from the suspicious confessions of apostates and weaklings, was
gathered together, and in 1311 laid before provincial councils, but
neither province came to any fixed decision. "Inasmuch," says
Hemingburgh, "as the Templars were not found altogether guilty or
altogether innocent, they referred the dubious matter to the pope."
They sent the evidence they had collected to swell the mass of
testimony from all Christendom, which was laid before the council of
Vienne. When the pope suppressed the order in April, 1312, and
transferred its lands to the Knights of St. John, the papal decrees
were quietly carried out in England. One or two Templars died in
prison, but none were executed; and the majority were dismissed with
pensions or secluded in monasteries. Edward and his nobles took good
care to make a large profit out of the transaction. The resources of
the Temple alone kept the king from destitution during the period
between the death of Gaveston and his reconciliation with the earls.
Many barons laid violent hands on estates belonging to the order, and
long held on to them despite papal expostulation. The Hospitallers
found that the lands of their rivals came to them so slowly, and
encumbered with so many charges, that their new property became
burdensome rather than helpful to their society. Thus it was that they
never made any use of the New Temple in London, and, before long, let
it out to the common-lawyers. In the fall of the Templars, the pope and
the Church set the first great example of the suppression of a
religious order to kings, who before long bettered the precedent given
them. The sordid story is mainly important to our history as an example
of the completeness of the influence of the papal autocracy, and of the
submissiveness of clergy and laity to its behests. It was a lurid
commentary on the practical working of the ecclesiastical system that