was to be kept in secrecy till after his elevation. Bertrand pledged himself to all these terms; and as soon as he had received the triple crown, was informed that the last dreadful condition was the destruction of the Order of the Temple. He hesitated, but was forced to consent; and after various stratagems to inveigle all the principal Templars into France, Philip caused them suddenly to be arrested throughout his dominions,[883] and had them arraigned of idolatry, immorality, extortion, and treason, together with crimes whose very name must not soil this page. Mixed with a multitude of charges, both false and absurd, were various others too notorious to be confuted by the body, and many which could be proved against individuals. Several members of the Order confessed some of the crimes laid to their charge, and many more were afterward induced to do so by torture; but at a subsequent period of the trial, when the whole of the papal authority was used to give the proceeding the character of a regular legal inquisition, a number of individuals confessed, on the promise of pardon, different offences, sufficient to justify rigorous punishment against themselves, and to implicate deeply the institution to which they belonged. James de Mollay, however, the Grand Master, firmly denied every charge, and defended himself and his brethren with a calm and dignified resolution that nothing could shake. It would be useless as well as painful to dwell upon all the particulars of their trial, where space is not allowed to investigate minutely the facts: it is sufficient to say, that the great body of the Templars in France were sentenced to be imprisoned for life, and a multitude were burned at the stake, where they showed that heroic firmness which they had ever evinced in the field of battle. Their large possessions were of course confiscated. In Spain, their aid against the Moors was too necessary to permit of similar rigour, and they were generally acquitted in that country. In England, the same persecutions were carried on, but with somewhat of a milder course: and the last blow was put to the whole by a council held at Vienne, which formally dissolved the Order, and transferred its estates to the Hospitallers. James de Mollay and the Grand Prior of France were the last victims, and were publicly burned in Paris for crimes that beyond doubt they did not commit. To suppose that the Templars were guilty of the specific offences attributed to them would be to suppose them a congregation of madmen; but to believe they were a religious or a virtuous Order would be to charge all Europe with a general and purposeless conspiracy.