In the last two weeks, I finished filming for a new series of Forbidden History and for a new documentary series on the History channel that will accompany The Curse of Oak Island. There’s great Templar related content on both programmes and I think you’re going to have some amazing viewing in 2020. I’ll tell you when those programmes appear – of course!
Plus – three months ago I was up in Scotland filming with broadcaster and top comic talent Rob Riggle for a brand new series for Discovery called Rob Riggle Global Investigator. As with the other programmes above, I’m sworn to secrecy on the content but needless to say, more Templar secrets will be revealed.
American visitors to the blog may have seen me on the last series of Strange Evidenceand NASA’s Unexplained Files – where I covered an extraordinary breadth of topics. Plus there was my outing with Scott Wolter on America Unearthed where Scott and I investigated a possible Templar link at Rosslyn Chapel back in January of this year – which has now been aired on the Travel channel.
So, all in all, 2019 has been a good year for taking history on to TV and hopefully making it accessible and fun for global audiences. If there are any subjects you think I should be covering on TV in 2020 – please do tell me and comment in the usual way.
Tony McMahon – the bearded historian – is coming to a history TV screen near you!
I’ve bottled this up for a couple of months but goddam I’ve now got to let it out – the History channel’s big budget Templar drama Knightfall needs to pack a bigger punch in season 2. So, may I be so bold as to suggest where it could be a whole lot better?
Petty quibble at the outset. King Philip of France resembles Lord Farquaad in Shrek. It’s offputting. Possibly a costume change and rethink on the hair could improve matters. The flustering temper tantrums might have to be rethought. Other reviewers have likened Knightfall to Game of Thrones – but Shrek kept coming to my mind. Not just Philip but one of the female characters as well – but I’m too gallant and polite to mention who.
Please scuff up the king’s castle and the Paris temple! Everything is way too neat. It’s reminiscent of all medieval cartoons Disney churned out. Idealised castles with pointy towers and pristine stonework. Not a rat or a cockroach in sight. Where’s the hay on the floor and the dung in the stables?
De Nogaret could be a great villain – so why not give him some clever lines? Baddies always get the smart dialogue but I’d be hard pressed to remember a single bon mot that De Nogaret has delivered. That said, I quite liked “Good Christians are spies you don’t have to pay”. But I searched for it on a quotes website to use in this blog post. For some reason, the few good lines De Nogaret gets aren’t registering.
Pope Boniface is the leader of medieval Christendom. In one scene, he wanders into a banquet at the palace and nobody acknowledges or genuflects to him. There is little sense of the pontiff as all-powerful medieval prelate. He just seems to drift around. Plus – that white mitre looks way too 20th century for my liking. Have a word with the costume department.
The plot twists are workmanlike. There’s no element of surprise or shock as Pope Boniface does a 180 degree about turn with regards to Landry in the final two episodes. We don’t know why – and to be honest, I’m not sure we care that much. Season one often felt very rushed and anxious to please. So much so that plot twists were chucked at us with such rapidity that they lacked credibility and authenticity. Just take the frenetic pace of plotting down a notch.
Does the Holy Grail always have to be left around screaming “steal me” in every episode? And let’s be honest – this dusty goblet is a little underwhelming as cosmically significant sacred relics go. I know it’s supposed to be a modest vessel. But where’s the sense of awe? Just a weather beaten old beaker from where I’m sitting.
Queen Joan – gosh, glad she’s gone. Those endless grimaces! Please don’t use the Grail to bring Parsifal back to life. He’s not missed. However, I look forward to Mark Hamill entering the fray in season 2.
I want Knightfall to work – I really do. But friends must speak plainly and it just needs some tightening up. Please. I beg you!
On 17 July, UK viewers finally got to watch Knightfall – the History channel’s multi-million dollar drama series about the Knights Templar and their quest for the Holy Grail. A thrilling adventure set in medieval France partly based on fact but lots of fun story telling thrown in as well.
Buried – follow the Templar treasure trail!
But even more exciting – on the 24 July, History starts to air an accompanying documentary series called Buried where two intrepid history experts will follow the trail of Templar treasure from the Holy Land to Portugal and possibly the New World – for which read, the United States.
In the third episode of Buried, I appear in Portugal investigating some mysterious caves in the Templar citadel of Tomar. This was great fun to film last summer and swelling with pride to finally see it hit the TV screens in the UK. Make sure you tune in because it’s well worth the watch!
Beardy History roaming around Templar caves in Portugal with the History channel
Is there any link at all between the Knights Templar and Freemasons? I have recently been filmed for an episode of The Curse of Oak Island – Specials – Season 7, episode 2. I was asked to comment on the links between the Masons and Templars.
As you know, the Knights Templar were in existence between their founding in 1118 and their destruction in 1307 – a period of nearly two hundred years. The Freemasons as we know them today are largely a construct of the 18th century though with roots going further back.
How far back and whether they link to the Knights Templar is the big question. Freemasons seem to vary between those that are quite happy to state an explicit and firm link and those who say it’s part of the masonic mythology but not to be taken too literally.
Templar infiltration of the Freemasons?
The linkage between the Freemasons and Knights Templar is difficult to prove but there’s no shortage of theories. One goes that after they were suppressed by Pope and the King of France, the Templars infiltrated stone mason guilds.
These were then refashioned to embrace Templar ideals and rituals. In effect, the masons and Templars over time became one and the same thing.
Freemasons came to full public view in 1717 with the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England. The organisation’s website traces the history of the order back to the stone masons of the Middle Ages who built Europe’s great cathedrals and not to the Knights Templar. It doesn’t recognised the aforementioned merger of masons and Templars.
The website cites evidence of people becoming Freemasons throughout the seventeenth century such as a gentleman called Elias Ashmole in 1643. Then in the eighteenth century, grand lodges were formed in England, Ireland and Scotland and the order grew significantly to include top politicians and establishment figures. But as its lodges spread throughout government and business, the conspiracy theories proliferated.
From the eighteenth century to the present day, there were Freemasons happy to state that their rituals and organisation were directly descended from the Templars. Equally, there have always been Freemasons irritated by these claims. However, the creation of an occult mythology around masonic activity was largely created by Freemasons and not their detractors.
Baron Gotthelf and the Knights Templar – Freemasons link
The prominent eighteenth century Freemason Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund was forever hammering home the link between masonry and the Templars. The baron founded The Rite of Strict Observance within Freemasonry, as series of degrees through which members would pass including the degree of “knight”.
Michael Haag details in his book The Templars that a crusader connection was first expounded by Andrew Michael Ramsay, a Jacobite who headed up the French Grand Lodge around 1737. He said in a speech that the crusaders had wanted to create a global spiritual confraternity. While attempting to rebuild the Temple of Solomon, he believed they had developed secret signs and rituals to protect themselves from Saracen infiltration.
When the crusades collapsed, these spiritual crusaders left the Holy Land and returned to their European homes setting up the first Freemason lodges. But these were neglected over time and the secrets forgotten. Only in Scotland was the flame kept burning.
Holy Blood Holy Grail – and the Knights Templar – Freemasons connection
The authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail in 1982 wrote about the alleged flight of Knights Templar to Scotland when the order was suppressed by the King of France in 1307, repeating an old claim that they participated in the Battle of Bannockburn against the English.
They claimed to have discovered “what seemed to be” a Templar graveyard in Argyllshire with 13th century Templar gravestones and eighteenth century Masonic gravestones. The authors asserted that the later stones had mixed motifs suggesting a fusion at some point between the Templars and Freemasons.
The alleged link between Freemasonry and the Templars has often been used to damage the reputation of masons. Stephen Knight authored The Brotherhood in the early 1980s claiming a link to the Templars and arguing that Freemasons were running the United Kingdom.
Knight had also written a book on Jack the Ripper claiming that his murders were part of a conspiracy involving masons and the Royal Family. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it influenced the later work From Hell by Alan Moore.
John Robinson’s 1989 book Born in Blood claimed that Knights Templar fleeing arrest and torture in England and Scotland formed a secret society of mutual protection that eventually revealed itself as the Freemasons.
The symbols and rituals we associate with the masons in fact dated back to the Templars. He credited this secret society with the Protestant Reformation and included among its members the first US President George Washington.
I’ve been busy filming with the History channel in the Portuguese town of Tomar for a thrilling new documentary series about the Knights Templar. It’s called Buried: Knights Templar and the Holy Grailand is presented by Mikey Kay and Garth Baldwin.
This will accompany the new Templar drama Knightfall about to grace your TV screens.
Buried follows the Templar quest for the Holy Grail and I caught up with the team in Tomar, the headquarters of the Knights Templar in Portugal.
Tomar, in central Portugal, was on the frontier between the Christian crusader kingdoms of northern Spain and Portugal and the Islamic caliphate to the south. This is when cities like Lisbon, Seville and Cordoba were ruled by emirs. But slowly, the crusaders and Templars conquered the whole Iberian peninsula.
One Muslim army tried to storm Tomar and the cost of much blood, the Knights Templar held the city and pushed them back. One gate where a very vicious struggle took place between Knights Templar and Muslims is still called the Gate of Blood.
I’ve visited this town many times, dominated by its Templar fortress. It’s a hugely atmospheric and enigmatic place. Nowhere I’ve been to in the world captures the essence of the Templars like Tomar.
After the Knights Templar were crushed in 1307, the Portuguese simply rebranded them as the Order of Christ. And this is why we wondered in the programme whether Tomar could have been a safe haven for Templars worldwide? And could their treasure have been buried there?
Together with the team, we set out to unearth some Templar secrets and you can find out how we got on later in the autumn – or Fall for my American followers!
On 17 July, UK viewers finally got to watch 
