On October 13, 1307, while the Templars were being arrested, the Templar Fleet stationed at La Rochelle quietly slipped away. According to tradition and many testimonies, he carried the records of the Order, and the treasure of the Templar Preceptory of Paris, taking them to the West and East coast of Scotland. Some of these ships must have reached Leith as Berwick was in English hands.
Let’s leave the Templars for a moment to tell two strange stories about Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig. The first concerns the discovery of the skull of Sir Robert Logan during the restoration of South Leith Church in 1848. A coffin was found at the west end of the north aisle, below a room used by Kirk Session. The building inspector informed Dr. David Robertson and he decided to open it. The coffin was covered with purple velvet. A few hammer blows shattered the lid. Inside the coffin they saw a mass of human bones piled up and in the middle, a human skull. The strange thing was that the lower jaw was not found even though the skeleton was complete. The conclusion they reached was that these were the mortal remains of Sir Robert Logan. According to history, the skeleton of Sir Robert Logan was tried for his part in what was called the Gowrie conspiracy against James VI and disinherited. The remains are reburied at South Leith Church. However, would the remains of a man accused of high treason be buried in South Leith Church? Some historians do not think so, and if they were, the question is why?
Could there be a darker reason? Near Dunbar is Fast Castle. By marriage, the Logans occupied the castle between 1552 and 1606. In 1594 Sir Robert Logan asked John Napier of Merchiston to find treasure said to have been buried within the castle. The contract between them is today at Trinity College, Cambridge. John Napier not only invented logarithms as a method of calculation, but was also involved in the Black Arts. He hoped to find the treasure by supernatural means. The contract was to be destroyed once all the conditions were met, and since the contract was never destroyed and as long as the search actually took place, it is assumed that the treasure was never found. According to Napier in his memoirs, the search was carried out. He went to the dream castle with Sir Robert Logan and the wild Earl of Bothwell, both armed to the teeth. So what was the connection between the supposed treasure at Fast Castle and the remains of Sir Robert Logan at South Leith Church? How could someone accused of treason be buried in consecrated ground? Most likely, he was never a trafficker.
As Laing, a noted historian of the last century, put it: As for Logan himself, it was well known that according to a barbaric custom of the time when it was determined to implicate him by forged letters… in the Gowrie Conspiracy he was dug up and brought before the courts…”
The connection is the fact that Sir Robert Logan and the Lestalrics before them were Knights Templar to a man, and what Sir Robert Logan was trying to find in Fast Castle was Templar treasure, the treasure of the Paris Preceptory. This was the reason why he was disinherited. So what was the significance of the jawless skull and why was it buried in South Leith Church? To answer this, we must go back to 1309 and the Trial of the Knights Templar at Holyrood Abbey.
When Elijah II was Abbot of Holyrood, an event took place that is largely ignored in Scottish history. In 1309, while the south of Scotland was being invaded by the troops of Edward II, the trial of the Knights Templar took place. It is from this test that a curious light is thrown on the inner life of the Order. The details of the trial ordered by Clement V are given in a very rare book entitled “Concilia”.
The inquisitors were perhaps a little impatient to hear about the devil, the cat, and the curious story of the Calaveras.
A strange story is told which is traditionally associated with the Templars: A great lady of Maraclea was loved by a Templar, a lord of Sidon, but she died in her youth and on the night of her burial this evil lover crawled to the grave . , she dug up her body and raped him. Then a voice from the void asked her to come back in nine months because she would find a son. She obeyed the order and, at the appointed time, reopened the tomb and found a head on the bones of the skeleton’s leg: a skull and crossbones. The same voice ordered him to keep it well because he would be the giver of good things. And so she took him with her and protected him from his enemies. She passed into the possession of the Order” (This version of the story is from War, Freemasonry and the Old Gods, p305)
This history became associated with the Order and is mentioned in the records of the Inquisitions and in the versions of the Freemasons, who adopted the skull and crossbones and often used it as a device on gravestones.
When Sir Logan’s skeleton was rediscovered in South Leith Church. During the restoration of the Church in 1847-48, the jaw bone was missing and an explanation of this can be found in the ceremony of installation in the degree of the masonic cross of the Knight Templar of Jerusalem under the obligations of the Masonic Order. The obligation begins “In the name of the Holy Trinity and in commemoration of Saint John of Jerusalem, the first faithful soldier and martyr of Jesus Christ. I solemnly promise and swear that I will never unlawfully disclose the secrets of a Knight Templar to a Royal Arch mason. If I ever fully violate this, my solemn pact as a brother Knight Templar, may my skull be cut in two with a rough saw, my brain removed and placed in one charger to be consumed by the scorching sun, and my skull in another plate in commemoration of Saint John of Jerusalem, that first faithful soldier and martyr of our Lord and Savior…” The penal sign, which consists of passing the index finger or thumb across the forehead, is indicative of the penalty of being sawn the cranium.
So who could have removed the jawbone and carried the sentence of the Order? Suspect David Lindsay (1560-1613), the first Protestant minister of the South Leith parish church. He was chaplain to James VI and married him to Anne of Denmark in 1589 and baptized her children. Lindsay was the only one who believed there had been an attempt on the King’s life at the Earl of Gowrie’s home in Perth. In fact, she held a service of thanksgiving at Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross for the King’s safe return. However, none of David Lindsay’s fellow ministers believed a word of it and said so. If the Gowrie conspiracy was a hoax, then the trial of Sir Robert Logan’s remains was also a hoax and everyone knew it. However, the trial took place and that is a historical fact, but it was not done for the reasons stated, it was because of his actions in Fast Castle trying to find the Templar treasure and for that he was condemned.
David Lindsay had Masonic connections and was most likely a Mason himself. He also met William Schew, who established the first Masonic lodges in Scotland. Not only this, David Lindsay could have been obeying the king’s orders: the monarch was and still is the head of the freemasons in this country or, as today, a close relative of the Monarch and the Royal Family. During the restoration of the church in 1848, many of the original headstones inside the church were broken. The bits used for the floors of the east porches of the church. I suspect this was done to cover up any connection to Freemasons, as Freemasons have an ambiguous position within the Christian church. Considering the disruption of 1843. They didn’t want any more trouble. These tombstones can still be seen to this day.
Since Logan’s sentence was carried out, his crime must have been against the Order. Whoever removed the jawbone must have been disturbed in his work. Only rough saw marks were discovered on Sir Robert Logan’s skull; the removal of the jaw bone must have been to prove that an attempt had been made to carry out the orders of the Masonic Templars.
