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     * Rymer, vol. iii. p. 31, 101.

They also initiated, it was said, every candidate by such infamous rites as could serve to no other purpose than to degrade the order in his eyes, and destroy forever the authority of all his superiors over him.[*] Above a hundred of these unhappy gentlemen were put to the question, in order to extort from them a confession of their guilt: the more obstinate perished in the hands of their tormentors: several, to procure immediate ease in the violence of their agonies, acknowledged whatever was required of them: forged confessions were imputed to others: and Philip, as if their guilt were now certain, proceeded to a confiscation of all their treasures. But no sooner were the templars relieved from their tortures, than, preferring the most cruel execution to a life with infamy, they disavowed their confessions, exclaimed against the forgeries, justified the innocence of their order, and appealed to all the gallant actions performed by them in ancient or later times, as a full apology for their conduct. The tyrant, enraged at this disappointment, and thinking himself now engaged in honor to proceed to extremities, ordered fifty-four of them, whom he branded as relapsed heretics, to perish by the punishment of fire in his capital: great numbers expired, after a like manner, in other parts of the kingdom: and when he found that the perseverance of these unhappy victims, in justifying to the last their innocence, had made deep impression on the spectators, he endeavored to overcome the constancy of the templars by new inhumanities. The grand master of the order, John de Molay, and another great officer, brother to the sovereign of Dauphiny, were conducted to a scaffold erected before the church of Notredame, at Paris: a full pardon was offered them on the one hand; the fire destined for their execution was shown them on the other: these gallant nobles still persisted in the protestations of their own innocence and that of their order; and were instantly hurried into the flames by the executioner.[**]

     * It was pretended that he kissed the knights who received
     him on the mouth, navel, and breech. Dupuy, p. 15, 6.
     Walsing, p. 99.

     ** Vertot, vol. ii. p. 142.

In all this barbarous injustice, Clement V., who was the creature of Philip, and then resided in France, fully concurred; and without examining a witness, or making any inquiry into the truth of facts, he summarily, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, abolished the whole order. The templars all over Europe were thrown into prison; their conduct underwent a strict scrutiny; the power of their enemies still pursued and oppressed them; but nowhere, except in France, were the smallest traces of their guilt pretended to be found. England sent an ample testimony of their piety and morals; but as the order was now annihilated, the knights were distributed into several convents, and their possessions were, by command of the pope, transferred to the order of St. John.[*] We now proceed to relate some other detached transactions of the present period.

The kingdom of England was afflicted with a grievous famine during several years of this reign. Perpetual rains and cold weather not only destroyed the harvest, but bred a mortality among the cattle, and raised every kind of food to an enormous price.[**] The parliament in 1315 endeavored to fix more moderate rates to commodities! not sensible that such an attempt was impracticable, and that, were it possible to reduce the price of provisions by any other expedient than by introducing plenty, nothing could be more pernicious and destructive to the public. Where the produce of a year, for instance, falls so far short as to afford full subsistence only for nine months, the only expedient for making it last all the twelve, is to raise the prices, to put the people by that means on short allowance, and oblige them to save their food till a more plentiful season. But in reality the increase of prices is a necessary consequence of scarcity; and laws, instead of preventing it, only aggravate the evil, by cramping and restraining commerce. The parliament accordingly, in the ensuing year, repealed their ordinance, which they had found useless and burdensome.[***]

The prices affixed by the parliament are somewhat remarkable: three pounds twelve shillings of our present money for the best stalled ox; for other oxen, two pounds eight shillings; a fat hog of two years old, ten shillings; a fat wether unshorn, a crown; if shorn, three shillings and sixpence; a fat goose, sevenpence halfpenny; a fat capon, sixpence; a fat hen, threepence; two chickens, threepence; four pigeons, threepence; two dozen of eggs, threepence.[****]

     * Rymer, vol. iii. p. 323, 956; vol. iv. p. 47. Ypod. Neust.
     p. 606

     ** Trivet, Cont. p. 17, 18.

     *** Walsing p. 107.

     **** Rot. Parl. 7 Edw. II. n. 35, 36. Ypod. Neust. p. 502.

If we consider these prices, we shall find that butcher’s meat, in this time of great scarcity, must still have been sold, by the parliamentary ordinance, three times cheaper than our middling prices at present; poultry somewhat lower, because, being now considered as a delicacy, it has risen beyond its proportion. In the country places of Ireland and Scotland, where delicacies bear no price, poultry is at present as cheap, if not cheaper than butcher’s meat. But the inference I would draw from the comparison of prices is still more considerable: I suppose that the rates affixed by parliament were inferior to the usual market prices in those years of famine and mortality of cattle; and that these commodities, instead of a third, had really risen to a half of the present value. But the famine at that time was so consuming, that wheat was sometimes sold for above four pounds ten shillings a quarter,[*] usually for three pounds;[**] that is, twice our middling prices: a certain proof of the wretched state of tillage in those ages. We formerly found, that the middling price of corn in that period was half of the present price; while the middling price of cattle was only an eighth part: we here find the same immense disproportion in years of scarcity. It may thence be inferred with certainty, that the raising of corn was a species of manufactory, which few in that age could practise with advantage: and there is reason to think, that other manufactures, more refined, were sold even beyond their present prices; at least, there is a demonstration for it in the reign of Henry VII., from the rates affixed to scarlet and other broadcloth by act of parliament. During all those times it was usual for the princes and great nobility to make settlements of their velvet beds and silken robes, in the same manner as of their estates and manors.[***] In the list of jewels and plate which had belonged to the ostentatious Gavaston, and which the king recovered from the earl of Lancaster after the murder of that favorite, we find some embroidered girdles, flowered shirts, and silk waistcoats.[****]

     * Murimuth, p. 48. Walsingham (p. 108) says it rose to six
     pounds.

     ** Ypod. Neust. p. 502. Trivet Cont. p. 18.

     *** Dugdale, passim.

     **** Rymer, vol. iii. p. 288

It was afterwards one article of accusation against that potent and opulent earl, when he was put to death, that he had purloined some of that finery of Gavaston’s. The ignorance of those ages in manufactures, and still more their unskilful husbandry, seem a clear proof that the country was then far from being populous.