On the 1st of July, an avowal of guilt was wrung by the inquisitors from Brother John de Stoke, chaplain of the order, who, being brought before the bishops of London and Chichester in St. Martin's church, deposed that he was received in the mode mentioned by him on his first examination; but a year and fifteen days after that reception, being at the preceptory of Garwy in the diocese of Hereford, he was called into the chamber of Brother James de Molay, the Grand Master of the order, who, in the presence of two other Templars of foreign extraction, informed him that he wished to make proof of his obedience, and commanded him to take a seat at the foot of the bed, and the deponent did so. The Grand Master then sent into the church for the crucifix, and two serving brothers, with naked swords in their hands, stationed themselves on either side of the doorway. As soon as the crucifix made its appearance, the Grand Master, pointing to the figure of our Saviour nailed thereon, asked the deponent whose image it was, and he answered, "The image of Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross for the redemption of mankind;" but the Grand Master exclaimed, "Thou sayest wrong, and are much mistakened, for he was the son of a certain woman, and was crucified because he called himself the Son of God, and I myself have been in the place where he was born and crucified, and thou must now deny him whom this image represents." The deponent exclaimed, "Far be it from me to deny my Saviour;" but the Grand Master told him he must do it, or he would be put into a sack and be carried to a place which he would find by no means agreeable, and there were swords in the room, and brothers ready to use them, &c. &c.; and the deponent asked if such was the custom of the order, and if all the brethren did the same; and being answered in the affirmative, he, through fear of immediate death, denied Christ with his _tongue_, but not with his _heart_. Being asked in whom he was told to put his faith after he had denied Christ Jesus, he replies, "In that great Omnipotent God who created the heaven and the earth."[404] Such, in substance, was the whole of the criminatory evidence that could be wrung by torture, by a long imprisonment, and by hardships of every kind, from the Templars in England. It amounts simply to an assertion that they compelled all whom they received into their order to renounce the christian religion, a thing perfectly incredible. Is it to be supposed that the many good Christians of high birth, and honour, and exalted piety, who entered into the order of the Temple, taking the cross for their standard and their guide, would thus suddenly have cast their faith and their religion to the winds? Would they not rather have denounced the impiety and iniquity to the officers of the Inquisition, and to the pope, the superior of the order?