The central house of the Templars in London was called the Temple. At first it was built on the north-east corner of Chancery Lane. Remains of this house were standing until quite modern times. When the Order became richer, the members bought a piece of ground stretching from Whitefriars to Essex House, and there erected a splendid convent, of which the Chapel remains to this day. The Master of the Temple was the Master of the English Templars. There were, however, some fifty Preceptories scattered about the country, monastic establishments, each ruled by a Prior, chiefly inhabited by sick or aged Templars. The site of many of their Preceptories is still preserved by the name, as Temple Combe in Somersetshire, Temple Rothley in Lincolnshire, and others. The Priors of the Preceptories had in their hands the management of the estates and the collection of the rents and dues. [Illustration: AN EFFIGY AT THE TEMPLE CHURCH, ERRONEOUSLY DESCRIBED AS THAT OF GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE] The Temple of London, in consequence of its garrison of knights, its monastic character, and its privilege of sanctuary, became a place in which great lords and even kings deposited their treasure. Queen Berengaria’s dower was placed in the hands of the Templars. Hubert de Burgh made the Temple his bank, and the knights refused to let the King’s officers remove the money and jewels he had given into their care. Kings made the place their residence; King John was there when his barons came to him demanding the “liberties and laws of King Edward.” Henry the Third, after a little quarrel with the Order, became reconciled to them, and lived for a while in the Temple; he made them the guardians of his treasure; he was present at the consecration of the Chancel of their Church in 1240. And he sent certain Castilian Ambassadors to the Temple as his guests. But by the beginning of the fourteenth century there is no doubt that the Templars had become unpopular. The King could not be pleased to think of manors and lordships which produced no revenues for the realm; the nobles grudged the immunities of the Order, and remembered that the lands of the Templars had once belonged to their ancestors before they were piously alienated; merchants could not with patience behold the annual transmission of vast sums of money out of the country; the Bishops lusted after the tithes, and regarded the Templars with suspicion and dislike as a united body over whom they had no authority. Finally, soldiers and military historians remembered that in the last days in Palestine the Order would own no subordination to King, Bishop, or Council; the knights stood apart, a compact body; so far, it was said, from supporting the Cross in the Holy Land, they did their best by their stubborn independence to pull it down. War has no rule more rigid and inflexible than the rule of obedience to one general. This rule the Templars had broken. That they fought with valour no one could