“So long as the Knights Templars remained in estimation it is probable that persons availed themselves of that privileged distinction, but as at its dissolution the Knights were accused of divers enormous crimes, it is not likely any one would chuse to claim brotherhood with them, or hand themselves or friends to posterity as members of a society held in detestation all over Europe, so that cross-legged figures, or monuments, may pretty safely be estimated as _prior_ to the year 1312, when that dissolution took place, or at most they cannot exceed it by above sixty or seventy years, as persons of sufficient age to be benefactors before that event, would not, according to the common age of man, outlive them more than that term.” CROSS-LEGGED MONUMENTS IN THE TEMPLE CHURCH.[63] _Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex._ (1148.) He is represented in mail with a surcoat, and round helmet flatted on the top, with a nose piece, which was of iron to defend the nose from swords. His head rests on a cushion placed lozenge fashion, his right hand on his breast, a long sword at his right side, and on his left arm a long pointed shield, charged with an escarbuncle on a diapered field. This is the first instance in England of arms on a sepulchral figure. This Earl, driven to despair by the confiscation of his estates by king Stephen, indulged in every act of violence, and making an attack on the castle of Burwell, was there mortally wounded, and was carried off by the Templars, who as he died under sentence of excommunication, declined giving him Christian burial, but wrapping his body up in lead, hung it on a crooked tree in the orchard of the Old Temple, London. William, prior of Walden, having obtained absolution for him of the Pope, made application for his body, for the purpose of burying it at Walden, upon which the Templars took it down, and deposited it in the cemetery of the New Temple. _William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke._ This monument represents a knight in mail with a surcoat, his helmet more completely rounded than the adjoining one, and the cushion as in all the rest laid straiter under his head. He is drawing his short dagger or broken sword with his right hand, and on his left arm has a short pointed shield, on which are his arms, per pale, _or_ and _vert_, a lion rampant, _gules_, armed and langued, _gules_, below his knees are bands or garters, as if to separate the cuisses from the greaves; his legs are crossed, and under his feet is a lion couchant.