The impunity with which these acts of violence were committed, JÌMIS n manifests that the Templars then no longer enjoyed the power and A. D . uu2. respect which they possessed in ancient limes. As the enthusiasm, too, in favonr of the holy wardiminished, large numbers of the Templars remained at home in their western preceptories, and took an active part in the politics of Europe. They interfered in the quarrels of christian princes, and even drew their swords against their fellow-Christians. Thus we find the members of the order taking part in the war between the houses of Anjou and Aragon, and aiding the king of England in his warfare against the king of Scotland. In the battle of Ealkirk, fought on the 22nd of July, A. U. 1298, seven years after the fall of Acre, perished both the Master of the Temple at London, and his vicegerent the Preceptor of Scotland.* AU these circumstances, together with the loss of the Holy Land, and the extinction of the enthusiasm of the crusades, diminished the popularity of the Templars in Europe. At the period of the fall of Acre, Philip the Fair, Son of St. Louis, occupied the throne of France. He was a needy and avaricious monarch,-}- and had at different periods resorted to the most violent expedients to replenish his exhausted exchequer. On the death of Pope Benedict XI., (A. D. 1304,) he succeeded, through the intrigues of the French Cardinal Dupré, in raising the archbishop of Bourdeaux, a creature of his own, to the pontifical chair. The new pope removed the Holy See from Rome to France ; he summoned all the cardinals to Lyons, and was there consecrated, (A. D. 1305,) by the name of Clement V., in the presence of king Philip and his nobles. Of the ten new cardinals then created nine were Frenchmen, and in all his acts the new pope manifested himself the obedient slave of the French rno * Chron. Triveti, ad ana. 1298. ffemiagjbrd, vol. Ì. p. 159. t Dante styles him it mat di Francia, Del. Purgai cant. 20, 91.