us.
In York Buildings our host lived as comfortably as any man I ever saw. He was a most convivial man in his sixties who was a former President of the Royal Society and, until the accession of King William to the throne, had been Secretary to the Admiralty. I liked him immediately for he made me most welcome, as if he and I had been long acquainted. Mister Pepys lived very handsomely, but it was as well I had been asked to do that gentleman’s table the justice it deserved, for our host ate and drank almost as little as my master, explaining that he was troubled with the stone which obliged him to leave off eating and, more particularly, drinking, rather sooner than he often had a mind to.
“And who keeps your house in the Tower, Mister Ellis?” asked Mister Pepys. “Some pretty wench, I’ll be bound.”
“Sir, I cannot yet afford a servant. But I manage well enough. It is a fine little house I have. Thanks to the Doctor.”
“Yes, I know the one. Indeed there is very little about the Tower I do not know.”
Mister Pepys then proceeded to tell us a most curious story that involved the Tower.
“During the December of 1662 I spent several days digging for buried treasure in the Tower, for it had been rumoured that Sir John Barkstead had, while he was Oliver Cromwell’s Lieutenant of the Tower, placed the sum of seven thousand pounds in a butter firkin, and then hidden it somewhere in the Tower. But the search came to nothing.
“Then, not long after my retirement from the Admiralty, in 1689, my enemies reappeared with the aim of having me eliminated beyond recall to any government office. I was imprisoned in the Tower for six long weeks. I was not close-confined, which afforded me the opportunity to study the Tower records. These are kept in St. John’s Chapel at the White Tower. There, to my great fascination, I soon discovered that Barkstead, who was hanged in 1662, had spent a prodigious amount of time working among the Tower records; and, in particular, with those documents that dealt with the Templars.
“The Templars were an order of warrior monks who were accused of heretical practices by Philippe the Fourth of France; but it was generally held that King Philip envied the Order its enormous wealth and influence, and that the charges were falsely trumped up as an excuse to rob the Order. Many Templars were burned as heretics but a large number escaped. It was supposed that as many as eighteen galley ships containing the treasure of the Templars set sail from La Rochelle in 1307. The ships were never heard of again.
“Strenuous efforts were made to arrest those Templars who came to England,” continued Mister Pepys, “and many of these were imprisoned in the Tower. It is said that, fearing the secret of their treasure might forever be lost, the Templars made a map showing its location. This map was never found although a commentary made by a Jew who had seen the map was said to exist that purported to describe the treasure and what was on the map.
“Now before he was come to serve the Commonwealth, Barkstead was a goldsmith in the Strand, in a shop he purchased from Jews. I now believe that this was when he discovered the existence of that same commentary and that upon learning of the existence of Templar treasure, Barkstead did everything in his power to make himself Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, with the sole aim of finding the treasure for himself.
“It was a secret he shared with no one, not even his mistress, who nevertheless suspected something from his assiduous endeavours with the Tower records, and finally he told her that a great sum of money was buried in the basement of the Bell Tower. And yet none of Barkstead’s notes, which may still be found in the Tower records, make any mention of the Bell Tower. Only the White Tower, where many of the Templars were held. It was there that Barkstead concentrated his efforts.”
“Did you say the north-east turret?” remarked my master, frowning. “Until comparatively recently the Astronomer Royal, Mister Flamsteed, under the patronage of Sir Jonas Moore, Surveyor to the Ordnance, occupied that north-east turret as a makeshift observatory.”
“It is my belief,” said Mister Pepys, savouring his own conversation as I had savoured his excellent French wine, “that Flamsteed and Moore were looking for something else beside the stars.”
“But upon what basis did they conduct their search?” I asked. “Did they find the map? Or the commentary?”
“Sir Jonas Moore was a good friend of the librarian,” explained Mister Pepys. “Moore was Official Surveyor to the Ordnance in the Tower since 1669. No man knew the Tower better than he. I was well acquainted with Moore until his death, in 1679. But I never knew the secret of his wealth, which came late in his life. It was given out that the money came from the official and unofficial remunerations he received from his surveying work in Tangier. But I never believed that, for the sums of money were too great.
“When Moore became Surveyor of the Ordnance in 1669, it is my belief that William Prynne, who was the Keeper of the Tower Records, confided something of the secret of the Templar treasure to him, shortly before his own death in that same year. It is also my belief that soon thereafter, Moore stumbled accidentally upon a small part of the treasure and that he spent the last ten years of his life trying to find the rest of it, with Flamsteed’s help.”
“But, sir, pray explain,” I said. “I thought you said that the treasure of the Templars was taken to Scotland.”
“It was only a rumour that it went to Scotland, and it is more likely that part of the treasure was in London during the early fifteenth century. Following the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, Marguerite of Anjou used the treasure to buy her life and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took it to his family estates in Greenwich Park and hid it there.”
“Greenwich Park,” exclaimed Newton. “God’s teeth, this story is the best I ever heard, Mister Pepys. Are you suggesting that our Royal Observatory at Greenwich was chosen because of its proximity to some buried treasure?”
“The pre-eminent sponsor of the new observatory was Sir Jonas Moore,” said Mister Pepys. “It was Moore who acquired the site and who, with the Master General of the Ordnance, organised the Observatory’s construction using money raised from the sale of army surplus gunpowder in Portsmouth. It was Moore who made certain that it was Flamsteed who became Astronomer Royal, and it was the Ordnance who paid and continue to pay his salary.”
“Do you suspect that Flamsteed still searches for the treasure?” I asked.
“I am certain of it,” replied Mister Pepys. “As certain as I am that he cannot ever find it. Moore found only a small part of the greater whole of treasure that still remains intact. And this leads to the second part of my story.”
Newton laughed cruelly. “No sir, I swear you cannot think to amuse me any further than you have already done so. Flamsteed plays Sir Perceval in search of the Holy Grail.”
“For once you say more than you know.” Mister Pepys smiled. “In 1682, I visited Scotland with the Duke of York, where I made the acquaintance of the Duke of Atholl. It was his eldest son, Lord Murray, who declared for King William and fought Viscount Dundee at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. Dundee was killed whereupon Murray found a grand cross of the Order of the Temple of Sion around the dead man’s neck. Murray had a most exact copy of the cross fashioned which he recently gave to me as a keepsake. It is why I asked you here today, to show it to you.”
Here Mister Pepys produced, from the pocket of his coat, a saltire cross the size of a man’s palm which he handed over for Doctor Newton’s inspection. It appeared to be made of silver and was covered with markings which greatly interested my master.
“Why was it thought this was to do with the Order of Templars?”
“Because it was known that Dundee wore a cross of that name. I had hoped you could make some sense of it, Doctor, for it was generally held that this saltire constitutes the key to finding the treasure.”
“The markings are interesting,” conceded my master. “But what are these tiny holes for, I wonder? You say this is an exact facsimile of the original?”
“Exact,” said Mister Pepys.
Newton held the cross up to the window and muttered something beneath his breath. “How very fascinating,” he said, eventually. “This merely seems to be a cross. In truth it is something altogether different.”
“But if it be not a cross,” said Mister Pepys, “then pray, what is it?”
“It’s a constellation of stars,” Newton explained. “The positions of these holes, especially the three holes at
