Preserving the Secrets

(1) Rosslyn Chapel
"It is known that the Templars fled to Scotland, too, after the dissolution of 1312, and it is known that some found refuge among the Saint-Clairs of Rosslyn in Midlothian. There is a Templar cemetery there."
-Michael Bradley, Holy Grail Across the Atlantic

"No family in Europe beneath the rank of royalty boasts a higher antiquity, a nobler illustration, or a more romantic interest than that of St. Clair."
-Sir John Bernard Burke, Vicissitudes of Families and Other Essays
Rosslyn Chapel Choir


"...We encountered repeated references to the Sinclair family - Scottish branch of the Norman Saint-Clair/Gisors family. Their domain at Rosslyn was only a few miles from the former Scottish headquarters of the Knights Templar, and the chapel at Rosslyn - built between 1446 and 1486 - has long been associated with both Freemasonry and the Rose-Croix. In a charter believed to date from 1601, moreover, the Sinclairs are recognized as 'hereditary Grand Masters of Scottish Masonry'. This is the earliest specific Masonic document on record."
-Baigent and Leigh, The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail Choir

Rosslyn Chapel "is decorated inside with carvings of Masonic significance...and botanical significance. Arches, lintels, pillar bases and such like are mostly covered in decorative but highly detailed plant motifs, with many different species represented."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus

Two of the motifs resemble the aloe cactus and maize cobs, plants indigenous to the New World and supposedly unknown to Europe before the sixteenth century.
Greenman



"...Everywhere there were manifestations of the 'green man', the Celtic figure that represented fertility. Over a hundred 'green men' have been counted but it is believed that there are even more subtly peeping out of the vegetation."
"the symbolism is Egyptian, Celtic, Jewish, Templar and Masonic in profusion. A star-studded ceiling, vegetative growth coming form the mouths of the Celtic Green Men, entangled pyramids, images of Moses, towers of the Heavenly Jerusalem, engrailed crosses and well as squares and compasses. The only certain Christian imagery was in later Victorian alterations: the stained glass windows, the revolting baptistery and a statue of the Madonna and child."
Recalling the legend of Hiram Abif, "high up in the corner where the south and west walls meet, and level with the organ, is a head with a severe gash on the right temple and in the opposite side of the west wall is the head of the person who killed him."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus

"...William St Clair himself masterminded the whole construction of the building from its inception to his own death in 1484, just two years before it completion; furthermore, he personally supervised every tiny detail of the work...William St Clair had brought some of Europe's finest masons to Scotland for this great project, building the village of Rosslyn to house them."
"From the outside, Rosslyn is a representation in stone of the Heavenly Jerusalem as depicted in Lambert's copy, with towers and a huge central curved, arched roof. Inside the Rosslyn shrine, the layout is a reconstruction of the ruin of Herod's Temple, decorated with Nasorean and Templar symbolism. In the north-east corner we found a section of the wall carved with the towers of the Heavenly Jerusalem complete with the Masonic compasses, styled exactly as they are shown on Lambert's scroll."
"As we looked directly upwards from the organ loft, we could see that the arched roof had a running series of keystones down its length, just like the one the Royal Arch degree describes as found in the ruins of Herod's Temple!"
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
Apprentice Pillar


"Early this morning on resuming our labors we discovered a pair of pillars of exquisite beauty and symmetry: proceeding with our work, we discovered six other pairs of equal beauty which from their situation, appeared to be the remains of the subterranean gallery leading to the Most Holy Place."
- Royal Arch Degree

"In Rosslyn, we observed that the fourteen pillars had been arranged so that the eastern eight of them including Boaz and Jachin, were laid out in the form of a Triple Tau. The formation and the proportions were exactly as the Royal Arch degree depicts today."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus

"The Triple Tau, signifying, among other occult things, Templum Hierosolyma, 'the Temple of Jerusalem'. It also means Clavis ad Theosaurum - 'A key to a treasure' - and Theca ubi res pretiosa deponitur - 'A place where a precious thing is concealed', or Res ipsa pretiosa - 'The precious thing itself'."
- Royal Arch Degree

"The famous Grail Seeker Trevor Ravenscroft claimed in 1962 that he had finished a twenty year quest in search of the Grail at Rosslyn chapel.....His claim was that the Grail was inside the Prentice Pillar (as it is known) in this chapel. The chapel is often visited now by Grail Seekers and many references to the Grail can be found in its stonework and windows. Metal detectors have been used on the pillar and an object of the appropriate size is indeed buried in the middle. Lord Rosslyn adamantly refuses to have the pillar x-rayed."
- Chris Thornborrow, "An Introduction to Current Theories about The Holy Grail"

Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas believe that the small crypt of the Rosslyn shrine was the lower middle chamber where the masons received their wages. Before the vaults were sealed off when the chapel was completed, twenty Templar knights were buried there in full armor.

"Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie:
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply."
- Sir Walter Scott, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"

"The vaults themselves may yet be far more than a simple tomb, other important artifacts may be contained therein. The one recorded action of the Lords Sinclair that apparently contradicts their well earned reputation for chivalry and loyalty may also be explained if the vaults are opened, for it is just possible that some clue as to the whereabouts of certain treasures of great historical interest may also be discovered."
- Tim Wallace-Murphy, An Illustrated Guide to Rosslyn Chapel

"The Companion's Jewel of the Royal Arch is a double triangle, sometimes called the Seal of Solomon, within a circle of gold; at the bottom is a scroll bearing the words, Nil nisi clavis deest - 'Nothing is wanting but the Key', and on the circle appears the legend, Si tatlia jungere possis sit tibi scire posse - 'If thou canst comprehend these things, thou knowest enough'."
-Royal Arch Degree

Knight and Lomas speculate that the reconstructed treasure vaults of Herod's temple are located below the main floor of the Chapel. An Seal of Solomon (Star of David) can be constructed from the alignment of pillars between the entrance and Triple Tau formation.

"At the very center of this invisible Seal of Solomon, in the arched roof there is a large suspended boss in the form of a decorated arrowhead that points straight down to a keystone in the floor below. It is, we believe, this stone that must be raised to enter the reconstructed vaults of Herod's Temple and recover the Nasorean Scrolls."
"Rosslyn is not a free interpretation of the ruins in Jerusalem; as far as the foundation plan is concerned, it is a very carefully executed copy. The unfinished sections of the great western wall are there, the main walls and the pillar arrangements fit like a glove and the pillars of Boaz and Jachin stand precisely at the eastern end of what would be the inner Temple. The spot we identified as being at the center of the Seal of Solomon turned out to correspond exactly with the center point of the medieval world; the middle of the Holy of Holies; the spot where the Ark of the covenant was placed in the Temple at Jerusalem."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus

Order directly on-line from Amazon Books
The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
by Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas



Andrew Sinclair (The Sword and the Grail, Arrow Books 1994) "did some ground radar investigations of the chapel and found evidence of large metallic objects and vaults. They drilled down into a vault but were unable to get a mini-TV camera down because rubble kept filling the borehole."
- George Sassoon (private communication)