Stealing from the British Museum: How, why, who? - BBC Newsnight / British Museum Director Resigns After Worker Fired for Theft / Artefacts stolen from British Museum ‘may be untraceable’ due to poor records

British Museum Director Resigns After Worker Fired for Theft

 

Hartwig Fischer, who had led the museum since 2016, said that the museum’s failure to respond to earlier warnings “must ultimately rest with the director.”

 

Hartwig Fischer

Alex Marshall

By Alex Marshall

Reporting from London

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/arts/design/british-museum-director-resigns.html

Aug. 25, 2023

Updated 12:45 p.m. ET

 

Just days after the British Museum announced that it had fired an employee who was suspected of looting its storerooms and selling items on eBay, the museum’s director announced Friday that he was resigning, effective immediately.

 

Hartwig Fischer, a German art historian who had led the world renowned institution since 2016, said in a news release that he was leaving the post at a time “of the utmost seriousness.”

 

Mr. Fischer said that it was “evident” that under his leadership the museum did not adequately respond to warnings that a curator may be stealing items. “The responsibility for that failure must ultimately rest with the director,” Mr. Fischer said.

 

The crisis became public when the British Museum announced last week that items had been stolen from its collection. The museum did not say how many items were taken, but said that the missing, stolen or damaged pieces included “gold jewelry and “gems of semiprecious stones and glass” dating from as far back as the 15th century B.C.

 

Ever since, a stream of revelations around the museum’s handling of the thefts undermined Mr. Fischer’s position. On Tuesday, The New York Times and the BBC published emails showing that he had downplayed concerns raised by Ithai Gradel, a Denmark-based antiquities dealer, about potential thefts.

 

Mr. Fischer, in an email to a trustee in October 2022, said “the case has been thoroughly investigated” adding “there is no evidence to substantiate the allegations.”

 

Mr. Fischer initially defended his response, saying in a statement Wednesday that his handling of the allegations had been robust and that the museum had taken the warnings “incredibly seriously.” The extent of the problem only became clear later, after the museum undertook “a full audit” of its collections, he added.

 

His defense did little to quell criticism in Britain. On Wednesday, The Times of London wrote that the thefts were “a national disgrace, calling into question the museum’s own claims for its stewardship of cultural treasures, and for which it needs to give a full accounting.”

 

In announcing his resignation, Mr. Fischer said that it was clear that “the British Museum did not respond as comprehensively as it should have in response to the warnings in 2021, and to the problem that has now fully emerged.”

 

He was already planning to leave the institution. In July Mr. Fischer announced he would leave the British Museum in 2024, after eight years in the role as director. But the crisis has brought that date far closer.

 

The museum would “come through this moment and emerge stronger,” Mr. Fischer said, “but sadly I have come to the conclusion that my presence is proving a distraction. That is the last thing I would want."

 

George Osborne, the museum chair, said in the release that the board had accepted Mr. Fischer’s decision. “I am clear about this: we are going to fix what has gone wrong,” Mr. Osborne said. “The museum has a mission that lasts across generations. We will learn, restore confidence and deserve to be admired once again.”

 

Alex Marshall is a European culture reporter, based in London. More about Alex Marshall

Artefacts stolen from British Museum ‘may be untraceable’ due to poor records

 

Many examples of missing gold jewellery, gems and ancient items were not catalogued, say cultural heritage experts

 

British Museum director steps down after suspected thefts

David Batty

Fri 25 Aug 2023 17.40 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records

 

Many of the priceless artefacts suspected to have been stolen from the British Museum’s collections may never be recovered because of its poor record keeping, cultural heritage experts have said.

 

Ittai Gradel, a British-Danish antiquities dealer who uncovered the suspected thefts of items such as gold jewellery, semiprecious stones and ancient glassware, said he had been told hundreds of missing objects had never been properly cataloged by the museum, making it difficult to prove they belonged to its collections.

 

Gradel, who first alerted the museum to the suspected thefts in 2020, said he understood staff had found almost an entire collection of 942 unregistered gems was missing. The museum’s records only describe the collection as a whole and do not detail the individual pieces.

 

“As far as I understand, these individual items were not described, only a sum total,” he said. “So, 935 gems are missing and the problem is, if they can’t be identified, how can they return to the museum?

 

“They have been lying there without any registration at all for over 200 years,” making them an open invitation to theft “because who could ever find out?”

 

Gradel was singled out for an apology on Friday after the museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, announced he was resigning over the suspected thefts from the museum’s vaults.

 

Fischer had earlier told the Guardian of his frustration that the extent of any appropriation of artefacts from its collection was not apparent when concerns were first raised in 2021.

 

He said: “We now have reason to believe that the individual who raised concerns had many more items in his possession, and it’s frustrating that that was not revealed to us as it would have aided our investigations.”

 

But it later transpired Gradel had spent years appealing to the museum to investigate, first airing his suspicions in 2020 before handing over a dossier of evidence showing that items were being sold on eBay.

 

On Friday, Fischer withdrew his earlier remarks. He said he expressed “sincere regret” over the “misjudged” comments. “It is evident that the British Museum did not respond as comprehensively as it should have in response to the warnings in 2021, and to the problem that has now fully emerged.”

 

Speaking before the resignation, Gradel said: “The implication [is] that I deliberately withheld evidence from the British Museum. How does that even make sense? It was I who reported it and insisted that they took it seriously. It is a direct attack on my personal integrity and I will not stand for it.”

 

The museum announced last week that it had sacked a member of staff after treasures were reported “missing, stolen or damaged”. The Metropolitan police said on Thursday they had interviewed a man in connection with the suspected thefts.

 

Gradel said he believed the suspected thefts occurred over at least two decades, and media reports suggested that the number of stolen items could be as high as 2,000 – with a value of millions of pounds.

 

Christos Tsirogiannis, an expert at identifying looted antiquities, said he suspected the British Museum had not specified how many items were missing or what they looked like because it either had incomplete or no records for some of the objects.

 

Tsirogiannis, who heads illicit antiquities trafficking research for the Unesco chair on threats to cultural heritage at the Ionian University in Corfu, added: “That will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the British Museum to prove that these particular objects are the ones that they are missing from the collections. That will eliminate the possibility to identify them and claim them back.”

 

According to the museum, 4.5m of the at least 8m items in its collections have been added to its public database. About 1.64m artefacts have been photographed, although there are other images, such as illustrations, of some of the remaining objects.

 

Gradel said the museum’s incomplete records meant he was only able to identify three of the 70 items he had bought on eBay as belonging to its collections.

 

He said he contacted the museum after becoming convinced that someone with access to its collections had been stealing items not listed on its online catalogue to avoid detection.

 

It was only when the suspected thief got sloppy and allegedly sold some items that were traceable that Gradel said he realised the items he had bought may have been stolen.

 

“They also discovered Greek gold jewellery that was missing or had been physically destroyed, cut to pieces with scissors or pliers or smashed with a hammer, or the gold removed. The gold is [probably] melted down now. That’s lost for ever.”

 

Prof Dan Hicks, the curator of world archaeology at Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum, accused the British Museum of neglecting the work of making a proper catalogue of its collection.

 

“This isn’t a bad apple story, this is about institutional priorities,” he said. “This was a disaster waiting to happen because of the lack of investment in doing curatorial work.”

 

A British Museum spokesperson said: “We have placed great significance and resource on the cataloguing programme.”

British Museum curator sacked over theft allegation

British Museum worker sacked after treasures vanished named as senior curator

 

Peter John Higgs, 56, revealed by son as staff member sacked from his role

 

By Daniel Keane

13 hours ago

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/british-museum-peter-john-higgs-sacked-stealing-artefacts-b1101388.html

 

senior curator who worked at the British Museum for 30 years has been sacked after jewellery and gems vanished from the museum, his son said on Thursday.

 

The son of Peter John Higgs, 56, said he was dismissed this summer after gems worth tens of millions of pounds went missing from the museum.

 

Mr Higgs, who worked as the museum’s curator of Greek collections, Greek culture and the Hellenistic period, has not been arrested.

 

He is an expert on ancient Greece who had worked at the museum for 35 years before this summer.

 

An antiquities expert is said to have tipped off staff at the museum in 2020 after noticing a piece of Roman jewellery being offered for sale on eBay, according to the Daily Telegraph.

 

Mr Higgs’ son Greg on Thursday claimed that his father was innocent, and told The Times that his dismissal had come as a shock.

 

“He’s not done anything,” he said. “He’s not happy about it at all. He’s lost his job and his reputation and I don’t think it was fair. It couldn’t have been [him]. I don’t think there is even anything missing as far as I’m aware.

 

“He worked there for what, 35 years without any incidents. They relied on him for so much stuff. And then, yeah, I don’t know what changed.

 

“He’s devastated about it, because it’s his life’s work, basically. I’ve never known somebody who’s so passionate about what he did. I mean, he’s a world expert in his field.”

 

The British Museum declined to comment.

 

Mr Higgs, who has a doctorate in archaeology, was a senior member of staff and had worked at the museum since 1993.

 

He had recently served as the museum’s acting keeper of Greek collections and was co-editor of a book on Sicily and its heritage.

 

Greg told the Telegraph that his father had been dismissed in July, but had been under investigation for “a while”.

 

“He's with family currently for a bit of support because it's been very hard, losing half of our income pretty suddenly.

 

“At this point he doesn't even really care what people think of him, he just wants a chance to live a normal life.

 

“It gets to that point sometimes where even if you're innocent you'd just rather not have everyone speak to you all the time about it, at least from the museum. He's lost all faith in the museum.

 

“The one thing he said was that he was really hurt by the fact that even if his colleagues could have supported him they probably wouldn't be allowed to - that's what he said to me.”

 

The items allegedly taken from the museum include gold jewellery and gems of semi-precious stones, and glass dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD, which were not recently on public display and were mainly used for research and academic work.

 

It is understood that the items were taken before 2023 and over a “significant” period of time.

 

Items have gone missing from the museum in previous years including a number of coins and medals in the 1970s and a 1993 break-in when Roman coins were taken.

 

In 2002, the museum reviewed security following a 2,500-year-old Greek statue being stolen by a member of the public.

 

The institution said at the time that the Greek Archaic Gallery had been open to the public but there was no permanent guard on duty when the 12cm-high marble head was taken.

 

Two years later, Chinese gems also went missing.

 

The matter is also under investigation by the economic crime command of the Metropolitan Police.

 

A spokesperson for Met Police said: “We have been working alongside the British Museum.

 

“There is currently an ongoing investigation – there is no arrest and inquiries continue. We will not be providing any further information at this time.”

 

Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, said that security had been ramped up following the disappearance of the items.

 

He said: “The museum apologises for what has happened, but we have now brought an end to this - and we are determined to put things right. We have already tightened our security arrangements and we are working alongside outside experts to complete a definitive account of what is missing, damaged and stolen. This will allow us to throw our efforts into the recovery of objects.”

The History of Huntsman Tweeds | With Ed Turco

4 years ago : London Savile Row Walking Tour | Huntsman v Henry Poole v Anderson

Half Norfolk tweed jacket by bladen supasax

Through out the years Bladen has produced superb tweed jackets around the Norfolk theme.

These items have become quite expensive in the second hand market.

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SEE ALSO:

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The real face of mythical Bonnie Prince Charlie

 Death masks help recreate face of Bonnie Prince Charlie

 

De-aged image offers likelife image of how prince may have looked during unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1745

 

PA Media

Fri 18 Aug 2023 07.27 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/18/death-masks-recreate-face-of-bonnie-prince-charlie

 

The face of Bonnie Prince Charlie has been recreated using death masks that depict him as he would have looked during the Jacobite rising of 1745.

 

The prince, who was renowned for his good looks, has captivated a new generation of interest through the TV show Outlander.

 

A team at the University of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification has produced what is said to be the most lifelike replica of the prince’s face so far.

 

It shows him with blond ringlets, wearing a white shirt, and with blotchy patches on his skin, as he would have looked at the time of the Jacobite rising – his unsuccessful attempt to restore his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, to the British throne.

 

Death masks of the prince were photographed and mapped by researchers, so 3D models could be produced with state-of-the-art software, allowing experts to de-age the prince.

 

Barbora Veselá, a master’s student who initiated the project, said: “I have looked at previous reconstructions of historical figures and was interested as to how these could be done differently.

 

“I wanted to create an image of what he would have looked like during the Jacobite rising. There are death masks of Bonnie Prince Charlie that are accessible, while some are in private collections.

 

“We also know that he suffered a stroke before he died, so that made the process of age regression even more interesting to me.”

 

In 1745, at the age of 24, Prince Charles Edward Stuart sought to regain the Great British throne for his father, the exiled King James III of England and Ireland and VIII of Scotland.

 

Despite some initial successes on the battlefield, his army was defeated by government forces at the Battle of Culloden, near Inverness, in April 1746.

 

Bonnie Prince Charlie spent the next five months as a fugitive before fleeing to France and living on the continent for the rest of his life. His endeavours created one of the most romanticised periods of Scottish history.

 

When the prince died after a stroke, aged 67, in Palazzo Muti, Rome, a cast of his face was taken, which was common for notable figures at the time.

 

Researchers examined copies of the masks, at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery and The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, and created a composite over several months.

 

Veselá took photographs from all around the masks and used photogrammetry software to establish a 3D model using almost 500 images.

 

She said: “It has been a pleasure to work with these artefacts. The access I have been given has been incredible. There are moments, when you are working with the masks, that it suddenly strikes you that this was once a living person.

 

“Beauty is a very subjective thing but Bonnie Prince Charlie does have distinctive features, such as his nose and his eyes, that encourage you to study him. Hopefully this recreation encourages people to think about him as a person, instead of just a legend.”

 

The work will feature as part of the University of Dundee’s annual master’s show, which opens to the public on Saturday.

The myths of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites

Published

23 June 2017

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-40258979

 

Most people have heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites but their story is often only vaguely known or misunderstood.

 

The 1745 Jacobite Rebellion was a turning point in British history.

 

Charles Edward Stuart believed the British throne was his birthright and planned to invade with his Jacobite followers and remove the Hanoverian "usurper" George II.

 

A new exhibition on the Jacobites at the National Museum of Scotland is the largest in more than 70 years, with over 300 objects on show combining National Museums Scotland's collection with material on loan from around the UK and Europe.

 

Exhibition curator David Forsyth reveals some of the hidden depths to one of the most tumultuous periods in Scotland's history.

 

Bonnie Prince Charlie - a mythical figure?

The above classic "shortbread tin" image depicts Bonnie Prince Charlie as a highland hero, sweeping into the ballroom at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

 

In fact the painting, by John Pettie, dates from 100 years after Charles Edward Stuart died and was inspired by an episode from Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Waverley.

 

Charles did hold court at Holyrood for about six weeks in 1745 but expressly forbade his supporters from excessive celebration of the victory at Prestonpans.

 

His court was said to be business-like as Charles and his advisors planned the next steps in the campaign, eventually taking the decision to march south for London.

 

A Scottish hero?

Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Maria Stuart was born in Rome in 1720, about 32 years after his grandfather - James VII and II - the last Roman Catholic monarch of Scotland, England and Ireland - had been deposed from the throne.

 

Many years later Charles would also die in Rome.

 

During his life he spent just 14 months on British soil, in 1745-6, and a brief clandestine return visit in 1750.

 

Charles was raised as a king-in-waiting, successor to his father, James, who was the deposed king's son.

 

He was installed by his father with the chivalric orders of both Scotland and England, depicted in the painting above - the Order of the Thistle and the Order of the Garter.

 

James, who still believed himself to be the king, appointed Charles as his Prince Regent in 1743, authorised to act for his father in all things.

 

He was resolved to reclaim the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland for his father.

 

A Bonnie Prince?

The earlier portraits of Bonnie Prince Charlie show the popular perception of a handsome and charming young man.

 

Contemporary accounts of the prince appear to confirm this.

 

In later life, these qualities faded.

 

The above sketch shows the prince as an old man (about 56) and perhaps the overriding sense is one of disappointment.

 

He lived for another 42 years after the battle of Culloden of 1746 but was never able to muster support for any further attempts to claim the throne.

 

Charles became increasingly frustrated and in time embittered by lack of support and betrayal, as he saw it, by his own father and his younger brother, Henry Benedict.

 

With James' blessing and support, Henry joined the Catholic Church.

 

This was a grievous blow to Charles, who would wish to distance the Stuarts from the Catholic faith in order to generate support in England.

 

He even converted to Anglicanism during a clandestine visit to London in 1750.

 

Charles never spoke to his father again.

 

Who were the Stuarts?

 

The story of the Jacobites is often reduced to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the 1745 rebellion, with limited consideration of what Charles was actually fighting for.

 

Behind that is the Stuart claim to the three kingdoms.

 

The Stuart dynasty had ruled Scotland since 1371.

 

With the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England at the Union of the Crowns in 1603, the Stuarts expanded their kingdom.

 

This was still the age of 'divine right' monarchy - the Stuarts believed they were answerable only to God.

 

The ampulla (pictured above) was a sacred object that held the holy oil to consecrate Charles I during his Scottish Coronation in 1633.

 

Charles, a firm believer in divine right monarchy, was executed at the end of the English Civil War.

 

The Stuart line was restored with Charles II, who ruled until his death in 1685.

 

Why were the Stuarts deposed in the first place?

Charles II was succeeded by his younger brother, James VII of Scotland and II of England.

 

James had secretly converted to Catholicism, as the revelation of his faith would jar with an increasingly Protestant Britain.

 

The Holyrood Altar Plate (above) is a set of devotional items James used in Edinburgh.

 

The birth of a male heir raised the prospect of a continuing Catholic succession.

 

His Protestant daughter Mary was no longer his heir.

 

A Dutch force led by Mary's husband, William of Orange, was invited to England to restore Mary to her rightful place.

 

The '45 was actually the last of five Jacobite challenges going back to 1689

,

A warrant for an inquiry into the Glencoe massacre, signed by King William III

The so-called Glorious Revolution, which installed William and Mary on the throne, resulted in James's flight to exile in France.

 

James then tried to reclaim his throne, with what was effectively the first Jacobite rising in 1689.

 

It led to violence in Ireland, where James' (largely Catholic) supporters were finally beaten at the Battle of the Boyne and in Scotland where, despite a victory at Killiecrankie, military conflict proved inconclusive.

 

The Scottish Parliament agreed to adopt William as their king in favour of James.

 

The Highlands, where the clan chiefs' old oaths were to the Scottish Stuart line, had been the focal point of rising in Scotland.

 

So the chiefs were ordered to swear fealty to their new king, William.

 

All did this bar the MacDonalds, who missed an arbitrary deadline.

 

Many were killed by a government force billeted with them, an act which appalled many and increased Jacobite support.

 

The Glencoe Massacre of 1692 is one of the most notorious episodes in Scottish history and the outcry over it alarmed King William.

 

The above document is a warrant for an inquiry into the massacre, signed by King William III.

 

The commission of inquiry, perhaps unsurprisingly, found there was nothing in the king's instructions to warrant the slaughter.

 

This is an international story

After being deposed in 1688, James VII and II went into exile for the rest of his days, along with his family, including the infant prince, James Francis Stuart.

 

He was welcomed as a guest of his cousin, King Louis XIV at Saint Germain-en-Laye, which the French king had vacated to move into Versailles.

 

From there, the Stuarts established a court in exile, receiving visitors, conducting international relations and dispensing honours.

 

When James VII and II died in 1701, Louis recognised his son as James VIII and III, King of Scotland, England and Ireland.

 

This was not a title King William acknowledged.

 

Further challenges to the British throne were mounted in 1708, 1715 and 1719.

 

After the failure of the 1715 rising, the death of Louis XIV and the Treaty of Utrecht between Britain and France, James was obliged to leave France, settling in Rome in 1719.

 

Charles Edward Stuart was born there the following year.

 

Was this a war between Scotland and England?

 

The truth is rather more complex.

 

The suit pictured above belonged to Sir John Hynde Cotton, a leading Jacobite Tory MP from Cambridgeshire.

 

He acquired or was gifted this on a visit to Edinburgh about 1743.

 

There was Jacobite support and sympathy in England although, to Charles Stuart's chagrin, that did not translate into significant military or overt political support in the 1745 rebellion.

 

In addition, promised military aid from France and Sweden failed to materialise.

 

Nevertheless, the Jacobite army that took the field at Culloden near Inverness - the decisive battle of the '45 - was not solely Highland. It also had Irish and French units.

 

So a Scottish civil war between highlanders and lowlanders?

This Gaelic bible pictured above belonged to a soldier who served with the Argyll militia, raised by the Clan Campbell to fight on the side of the government forces

There was considerable opposition to the Jacobites within Scotland.

 

Bonnie Prince Charlie held court at Holyrood Palace for six weeks in 1745 but, just the length of the Royal Mile away, Edinburgh Castle remained a fortified government garrison throughout.

 

Glasgow remained loyal to the Hanoverians, who were by now on the thrones of Scotland and England.

 

This division is sometimes simplified to Highlanders and Lowlanders but there was strong Jacobite support in Aberdeen, Perth and Fife, and indeed some Highlanders fought on the government side.

 

The Gaelic bible pictured above belonged to a soldier who served with the Argyll militia, raised by the Clan Campbell to fight on the side of the government forces.

 

It was also not a matter of Protestant v Catholic in Scotland - many of Charles' most prominent Scottish supporters were actually Episcopalian.

 

Who defeated Charlie?

He is vilified in the popular historical memory for the brutal crackdowns across the Highlands after Culloden, when the traditional right to bear arms and the wearing of tartan and were suppressed as the British government resolved to wipe out the social, cultural and military infrastructure of clan society, which was perceived as a source of loyalty to the Stuarts.

 

Some Lowlanders welcomed the Duke, and he was granted the freedom of both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

 

How was Charles remembered?

This is a letter from Robert Burns, accepting an invitation to attend a "Steuart Society dinner" on Hogmanay 1787, on what turned out to be Charles Edward Stuart's last birthday.

 

By now, Jacobitism was no longer a threat to the House of Hanover, more almost a gentleman's club, still toasting the kings-over-the-water but, politically and militarily spent.

 

By this time, after the brutality of the post-Culloden years, efforts were being made to assimilate or rehabilitate (depending on your point of view) the reputation of the Highlander into the emergent British imperial identity, with the revoking of the ban on tartan and the incorporation of the Highland regiments into the British Army.

 

Charles died in 1788, leaving his younger brother, Henry, Cardinal York as the last male heir in the Stuart succession.

 

Despite being in no position to prosecute the claim, he never renounced it and commissioned rather regal objects like the above Caddinet - a type of serving dish for bread which was traditionally only used by monarchs.

 

After Henry's death in 1807, Charles was reinterred and the three now rest together in the crypt of St Peter's Basilica.

The real life Da Vinci Code? Historian uncovers graves belonging to memb...

Real life Da Vinci Code unveiled as Knights Templar graves found in English village

 

The church is even linked to "England's greatest knight", who was the inspiration for Lancelot in Arthurian legend.

 

By CHARLES HARRISON

22:32, Tue, Aug 15, 2023 | UPDATED: 22:57, Tue, Aug 15, 2023

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1802647/knights-templar-english-village

 

The graves represent a crucial discovery in understanding the Knights Templar

 

Graves belonging to mysterious holy militia the Knights Templar have been discovered in an English village in what has been described as one of the "most nationally important discoveries".

 

The medieval order had chapters across Europe after springing up in the 12th century, and was known for its role in the Crusades and as one of the Middle Ages' most powerful and wealthy religious organisations. 

 

Eight graves in the style of the Knights Templar were discovered at St Mary's Church in Enville, Staffordshire.

 

The new discovery represents one of the most important in historians' understanding of the knightly order, which was widely known as the focus of fictional Professor Robert Langdon's research in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

 

Historian Edward Spencer Dyas, who made the discovery, believes the church could be one of the most important in the country where Templars are concerned, with its particular link to "England's greatest knight".

 

The graves had on them the crest of the Knights Templar

 

This knight is William Marshal, the 1st Earl of Pembroke. He was a jouster, warrior, diplomat and even twice de facto king.

 

He was also the inspiration for Lancelot in medieval Arthurian tales, and is understood to have drafted the Magna Carta.

 

He was invested into the order of the Knights Templar just before he died aged 73 in 1219.

 

At St Mary's, stained glass windows depict an array of coats of arms including one that belonged to Hugh Mortimer of Chelmarsh, who married Marshal's granddaughter.

 

Many find this to be the only connection between the church and the Knights Templar to explain why so many graves were discovered there.

 

When the church was built in the 12th century, the Templars were creating Preceptories - a type of monastery - around Britain.

 

Each of the eight graves features a Templar cross within double circles in a Templar design, while one includes a Crusader cross, suggesting the knight was both a Templar and a Crusader of the ancient military order.

 

Mr Dyas said: "I believe these discoveries make Enville one of the most nationally important churches in the country.

 

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The church was linked to William Marshal, considered to be England's greatest knight

 

"That's due to its close links with William Marshall, who is considered of the greatest warriors England ever produced.

 

"But there is a mystery of why an European Templar is buried at Enville and why they were secretly so prominent there."

 

But despite inspecting the crypt of the church, the historian could not find any further connections to the Templars.

 

The wealthy medieval organisation was made up of devout Christians tasked with providing safety to pilgrims to Jerusalem.

 

In 1129, the Knights were officially recognised by the Pope and by 1180 there were some 600 of them in Jerusalem, Tripoli and Antioch.