Rosslyn

Book excerpt: Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh has long exerted a powerful magnetism and mystery for people all over the world. The flamboyant Gothic church became a third Temple of Solomon for the Knights Templar, under the patronage of the St Clairs of Rosslyn. In the eighteenth century the Templars supported the Jacobite cause, and after the final defeat at Culloden, moved their radical Scots Lodges to America and France, where they played a powerful part in the revolutions in both countries. This book offers an enthralling trail through the rich tapestry of events witnessed by Rosslyn over the centuries. Andrew Sinclair, himself descended from Prince Henry St Clair, who could have taken the Templar treasure from the original vaults beneath Rosslyn Chapel to the medieval Newport Tower, Rhode Island, explores - and sometimes explodes - the many myths and misinterpretations that have grown up around Rosslyn, as the fortunes of the Sinclair family declined and the Church and Castle fell into ruin.