Persecution of the Templars
The Persecution of the Templars was a purge of the French Templars by the combined forces of the French Assassins and King Philip IV of France.
On Friday 13 October 1307, the French Assassins, through their agent in the King's court, Guillaume de Nogaret, manipulated the Crown into declaring the Templar Order as heretical; something made all the easier by the fact that Philip IV was heavily indebted to the Templars' at the time. Led by the future Mentor Thomas de Carneillon, the French Assassins, desguised as Flemish mercenaries, assaulted the Temple - headquarters to the Templar Order at the time - just outside of Paris, and either killed or arrested all who were present.
Jacques de Molay, the Templar Grand Master and a Sage was apprehended by the Assassins, though not before ordering his advisor to hide the Codex Pater Intellectus and a Sword of Eden.
The purge finally drew to a close on 18 March 1314, when Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Charney were burned at the stake, charged with heresy and worship of the idol Baphomet.
Legacy
Recognised as a possibility even before its execution, the purge destroyed the public image of the Order of the Knights Templar, and drove the Order to adopt the same tactics as its bitter rivals, the Assassins, by moving underground. Operating in secret, the Templars survived and gradually rebuilt their Order, which spread across Europe.
By 1776 the Parisian Rite of the Templar Order had grown such that it once again challenged the strength of the Assassins in France.
In 1789 the Paris Rite, led by François-Thomas Germain, another Sage who shared memories with Jacques de Molay, instigated the French Revolution in order to revenge themselves against the French crown. This vengeance was obtained when, in 1793, King Louis XVI of France was guillotined in the public gardens outside the Louvre.