The Adventures Of Ximene Trencavel
Underlying Events
Timeline 1307-1321 France
1307 Isabelle of France marries Edward II
1307 Arrest of Templars
1308 Jaques Fournier’s raid on Montaillou
1321 William Belebaste “The Last Perfect” is burnt at stake.
Les Rois Maudites
Isabelle, Princess of France and Queen of England engineered , accidentally or deliberately the extinction of her own family. The events commence when her father arrests every Templar in France and burns the templar leader Jaques de Molay at the stake. Jacques was Isabel’s godfather. The story is eloquently told in the French TV series ” les Rois Maudits” which translates rather awkwardly as “the kings who were cursed”
The Perfect Heresy
Jaques Fournier, as bishop of Pamiers, funded an elaborate network of spies and secret police to capture and execute William Belibaste. He claimed that Belibaste was the last perfect and that the Cathar faith had been eradicated. He used that claim to justify his election as Pope Benedict XII. the story is told both in Stephen O’Shea’s book, “The perfect heresy” and Emanuelle le Roy Laudrie’s book “Montaillou”
Timeline 1312-1334 England
1312 Birth of Edward III
1325 Isabelle leaves Edward II and goes to Paris
1328 Isabelle invades England with Roger Mortimer and imprisons Edward II
1328 Edward III marries Phillipa
1328 Charles IV dies
1330 Birth of Black Prince
1330 Edward III deposes Isabelle and executes her lover Roger Mortimer
1334 Jaques Fournier becomes Pope Benedict XII
The Right to Rule.
There was a fight for the “Right to Rule”, both of France and England. There have been many suggestions that issues of succession were somehow mixed up with concepts of descent from Jesus. The concept is displayed in the “Bloodline of the Holy Grail” by Laurence Gardener, and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Henry Lincoln, Micheal Baigent and Richard Leigh, all of which was popularised by Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code.