Scotland has a wealth of historical environment. Its museums and collections are filled with artefact, art, and treasure. Its history is displayed in its castles, churches, and within the remains of its classical past, industrial might, and neolithic origins. On top of this, there is much still interred in the ground—hidden history. But not all unrevealed history lies buried deep in the earth, some remains unseen due to misleading antiquarian record, and the professional historians’ reluctance to audit their predecessors ill-founded suppositions. Scotland’s earliest religious knights and their artefacts are such hidden history, hidden in plain sight, undiscovered for want of proper scholarly consideration.
Scotland’s first Knights Templar have never been identified by historians. This is partly due to the fact all early Templar record was lost—purged by centuries of war, wilful destruction, and calamity, and partly due to historians not considering the evidence presented by those knights surrounding David I, the Scottish king who welcomed the Templars into his kingdom, sponsoring with money and land, setting them into his entourage as his guardians, and as witnesses to royal charter.
It is not until late in the 12th century, that the first master of Templars in the land of the King of the Scots is identified on a surviving Templar charter. However, we know there were Templars in Scotland before 1153, confirmed by testimony from Ailred of Rievaulx, who declares Knights Templar surrounded the king ‘day and night’ before his death. It is presumed Templar presence was established in Scotland shortly after the Grand Master of the Templar Order, Hugh de Payens visited David I in 1128. The first Templar holdings being established in Midlothian along with a preceptory at Balantrodoch (now called Temple).
In 2020, two church bells, sponsored by a 12th century knight were identified in a church where they had hung over the same site for nine hundred years, installed originally over the convent of Sacro Nemore in Dumfriesshire. The origins of the bells, hidden by Victorian misinterpretation, were revealed by a protracted, detailed, and collaborative investigation, led by two trained analysists: a qualified forensic archaeologist and an experienced historian. The study involved international academics in palaeography, ecclesiastical history, bell historians, and the College of Arms. It was the first time the bells and their sponsor had been thoroughly considered.
Incontrovertibly, the knight’s name on the bells was William le Riche, son of Robert le Riche, a former crusader who had travelled to Scotland from the court of Henry I of England with David to take the Scottish throne. Robert is thought to have died around 1130, but before he did, he donated his Midlothian barony, a gift from King David I, to a beneficiary other than his sons, William and Roger.
William le Riche is amongst at least six knights recorded on Scottish charter with the title Masculus—a title employed by senior secular clerics in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. These confraternities of secular canons were the origins of the Church’s miliary orders. William is first listed as ‘Masculus’ in 1141, as he witnesses royal charter, and leading up to his death between 1180 and 1189, he is only recognised as a land holding knight—Lord of Fowlis. While recorded as a knight, his name appears on an engraving dated 1154, associated with a church bell, affirming him ‘father’, religious head of the convent of Sacro Nemore, and a declaration of his tenure of twenty-two years as master within the occupying religious order. William’s existence as a knight whilst in religious life, master of a religious sect, confirms he was member of a religious military order. Only two military orders existed in Scotland at the time of David I. Foremost are the Knights Templar, originating in Midlothian, and the Knights of St John, given property in West Lothian. William’s origins dictate he was a Templar, member of Scotland’s foremost Templar family.
Frustratingly, despite inarguable conclusion, academics and the Scottish Government’s lead historical institutions chose to ignore and deny the discovery. Neither scholarly argument nor supportable counter opinion has been offered, only unreasoning support for discredited Victorian hypotheses. And so, professional academic historians would see an incredible reveal of priceless, unique medieval artifacts, the only bells from a 12th century Templar house in existence, the oldest provenanced Christian church bells in the world, remain hidden, not through misunderstanding, but through wilful negligence—all so the professional academic historian may maintain their paternalistic control over the keys of history.