The Templar's Curse

On the 18th March 1314, in Paris, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, by then an old man, and Geoffroi de Charney, preceptor of the Knights Templar in Normandy, are led to the stake. Before the pyre at their feet is set alight, Jacques de Molay speaks to the watching crowd, flinging a curse at those who had condemned them:

God will revenge our death

All who are against us

Will suffer for us

A month later Pope Clement V, who had helped to condemn the Knights Templar, died. Their chief persecutor, Philip IV of France, followed him to the grave a few months later. Famine, plague and revolt throughout Europe were to follow. Was the Templars Curse coming home to roost?