On the 30th of March, A. D. 1311, after some months' trial of the above severe measures, the examination was resumed before the inquisitors, and the bishops of London and Chichester, at the several churches of St. Martin's, Ludgate, and St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. The Templars had now been in prison in England for the space of three years and some months. During the whole of the previous winter they had been confined in chains in the dungeons of the city of London, compelled to receive their scanty supply of food from the officers of the inquisition, and to suffer from cold, from hunger, and from torture. They had been made to endure all the horrors of solitary confinement, and had none to solace or to cheer them during the long hours of their melancholy captivity. They had been already condemned collectively by the pope, as members of an heretical and idolatrous society, and as long as they continued to persist in the truth of their first confessions, and in the avowal of their innocence, they were treated as obstinate, unreconciled heretics, living in a state of excommunication, and doomed, when dead, to everlasting punishment in hell. They had heard of the miserable fate of their brethren in France, and they knew that those who had confessed crimes of which they had never been guilty, had been immediately declared reconciled to the church, had been absolved and set at liberty, and they knew that freedom, pardon, and peace could be immediately purchased by a confession of guilt; notwithstanding all which, every Templar, at this last examination, persisted in the maintenance of his innocence, and in the denial of all knowledge of, or participation in, the crimes and heresies imputed to the order. They declare that everything that was done in their chapters, in respect of absolution, the reception of brethren, and other matters, was honourable and honest, and might well and lawfully be done; that it was in no wise heretical or vicious; and that whatever was done was from the appointment, approbation, and regulation of all the brethren.[395] From their statements, it appears that the Master of the Temple in England was in the habit of summoning a general chapter of the order once a year, at which the preceptors of Ireland and of Scotland were present. These were always called together to take into consideration the affairs of the Holy Land, and to determine on sending succour to their brethren in the East. At the close of their examination the Templars were again sent back to their dungeons, and loaded with chains; and the inquisitors, disappointed of the desired confessions, addressed themselves to the enemies of the order for the necessary proofs of guilt. During the month of April, seventy-two witnesses were examined in the chapter-house of the Holy Trinity. They were nearly all monks, Carmelites, Augustinians, Dominicans, and Minorites; their evidence is all hearsay, and the nature of it will be seen from the following choice specimens.