the rosslyn bones

Copyright March 2011 by Jeff Nisbet / www.mythomorph.com

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By Jeff Nisbet

Photographic pioneer and artist Louis Daguerre's 1824painting, The Interior of Rosslyn Chapel, shows twoworkmen crouching by the base of a pillar, with three

Templar Knights nearby. One workman is staring intently atsome bones they have found beneath the flagstones.

For a bizarre example of life imitating art, let's fast-for-ward 186 years.

On March 1, 2010, Scottish Television reported that work-men at Rosslyn, the chapel made famous by The Da VinciCode, had discovered remains in an area with no recordedburials. The remains, continued the STV report, had been“removed from the site to be examined by archaeologists todiscover their age, type and if they are human or animal.”

The local police confirmed the find, but said “it was notbeing treated as a crime.” Rosslyn Chapel declined comment.

Two things aroused my interest.First, I was sure that even an untrained eye would be able

to distinguish between animal and human remains, and won-dered why the archaeologists could not do the same. Second,I wondered exactly where the remains had been discovered.The idea they might have been found in the spot Daguerreshowed in his painting made me chuckle.

It would take me a year to get some answers.During that time, I searched for news updates. There were

none. I also broached the subject with two St. Clair/Sinclairclan online forums. Since a William St. Clair had built thechapel in the mid-15th century, these groups share an abiding

interest in its history. No one knew anything.Finally, on Feb. 21, I wrote to a Rosslyn Chapel executive.

There was no reply.Someone knew more, but no one was talking.Two weeks later, however, my inquiries finally bore some

fruit -- an Email containing four remarkable photos of theexcavation, before the remains had been moved.

One showed leg bones that were undoubtedly human, con-firming that one of the stated reasons for their removal was,as I suspected, clearly bogus.

Two showed the exact location of the remains, but it wasnot the area shown in Daguerre's painting. Instead, they hadbeen found at the threshold of the west door.

The fourth showed a skull, face down, with a ragged-look-ing wound just a short distance above the foramen magnum,the natural aperture that allows the spinal cord to connectwith the brain.

Taking just a small leap of the imagination, what mightthis tell us?

There's a long-lived legend that Rosslyn's master mason,returning from Rome after studying the design of an exqui-site pillar in person, found an apprentice had carved the pil-lar in his absence. Flying into a rage, he slew the apprenticewith a blow to the head, a legend that resonates with theeponymous murder of Hiram Abif, chief architect ofSolomon's Temple, absolutely central to the Freemasonic rit-ual of the Third Degree.

Could the skull belong to the apprentice? The teeth were

The Rosslyn BonesIs the tale of the murdered apprentice more than just a legend?The Rosslyn Bones

Is the tale of the murdered apprentice more than just a legend?Note: This article was originally published in Atlantis Rising magazine and Girnigoe: Scotland’s Clan Sinclair Magazine.

This version ihas been updated with material not available by the original deadline.

in remarkably youthful condition, and the shape of the headwound appeared consistent with the stone-trimming end of amason's hammer.

Researchers skeptical of the chapel's claimed Masonicroots scoff at the legend, protesting that it's not exclusive toRosslyn. While there are indeed similar tales told about otherecclesiastical buildings of the day, I'm not so quick to throwthe baby out with the bathwater. As a speculative researcher,and in the absence of the forensic evidence already more thana year in coming, I'm happy to present some speculativethoughts about the Rosslyn bones.

Above the area of discovery are three carved heads.Rosslyn tradition describes the one in the southwest, gazingnortheast, as the head of the apprentice; the one in the north-west, gazing southeast, as the head of the master mason; and,on an adjacent wall, the apprentice's mother, weeping for herson. The chapel's website describes the master's gaze as hispunishment, forever condemned to look southeast towards thenow-famous Apprentice Pillar. Not much of a punishment form u r d e r, certainly.

I have since received, however, another dispatch that sug-gests a stiffer sentence: There were two skeletons found atRosslyn, in a single grave. Could one be the master?

That they were found at the threshold of the chapel, con-jures up a plump scenario of darkly poetic justice.

History records many examples of human remains beingburied in the foundations of buildings, and at their thresh-olds, but the reasons are varied. Legend has it that Saint

Dunstan ordered his own burial to be under the threshold ofWinchester Cathedral as a testament to his humility;Scotland's St. Columba, by contrast, is said to have buried aman alive at the foundations of a cathedral in order to ensurethe building's structural stability with blood sacrifice; and Iwill give a third example, later on, where the practice wasmeant as an insult to the deceased.

Another robust legend that may connect Rosslyn withthreshold sacrifice is the widespread belief that the chapel'sgroundplan is based on that of Solomon's Temple, althoughskeptics point out that Rosslyn's is identical to that ofGlasgow Cathedral, which, except for the enormous differ-ence in scale, is true.

But what if the similarities between Rosslyn and Solomon'sTemple, at least for Freemasons, were meant to be more sym-bolic than actual, and that both skeptics and true believershave been looking at things the wrong way?

In Albert Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry is thefollowing entry: “Over the Sacred Lodge presided Solomon,the greatest of kings, and the wisest of men; Hiram, the greatand learned King of Tyre; and Hiram Abif, the widow's son,of the tribe of Naphtali. It was held in the bowels of thesacred Mount Moriah, under the part whereon was erectedthe Holy of Holies. On this mount it was where Abrahamconfirmed his faith by his readiness to offer up his only son,Isaac. Here it was where David offered that acceptable sacri-fice on the threshing-floor of Araunah by which the anger ofthe Lord was appeased, and the plague stayed from his peo-


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Clockwise from upper left: The leg bones; the skull; the skull shown at the west end of the excavation; the location of the excavationat the threshold of the chapel’s west door. Inset center: a mason’s hammer with the stone-trimming end at left.

ple. Here it was where the Lord delivered to David, in adream, the plan of the glorious Temple, afterward erected byour noble Grand Master, King Solomon. And lastly, here itwas where he declared he would establish his sacred nameand word, which should never pass away -- and for these rea-sons this was justly styled the Sacred Lodge.”

Might not the floor of Rosslyn Chapel be symbolic, then,of a place that predates Solomon's Temple - the threshingfloor of Araunah and a place of great Biblical sacrifice,which in many ways it still is? Claimed as a holy place byChristians, Jews, and Muslims, the rock over which nowstands Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock has become, over mil-lennia, a most costly piece of real estate.

Also revered as “The Foundation Stone,” the rock fromwhich the world was made, it was the place where Biblicalpatriarch Jacob is said to have dreamt of a ladder reaching toHeaven, with angels ascending and descending - whichbrings us to Scotland's unique connection with the place.Whether or not the block of stone now safely enshrined inEdinburgh Castle is Scotland's fabled Stone of Destiny, oneof its popular monikers is “Jacob's Pillow.” And then there isthe theory that the Scots are, in fact, a “lost tribe of Israel.”When historians, Biblical scholars and adherents to BritishIsraelism debate that theory, things get noisy.

But let's return to the Rosslyn bones, continuing to sup-pose that the remains belong to the jealous master and theslain apprentice. What better place for the apprentice to beburied than beneath the carved head of his grieving mother?

And what greater insult to the master than to be condemned,forever, to be trod underfoot by God-fearing Scots?

As it happens, though, the head of the apprentice is also gaz-ing at an exquisitely carved pillar - one attributed to the mas-ter's hands. Curiously, there is evidence that the Master's Pillar,as it is now known, had been concealed under a plain exteriorfor over 400 years, and had been rediscovered by architectDavid Bryce during his 1860's restoration efforts. Might it nothave been concealed because it was, after all, the work of anarch sinner? The Scots have historically done much moreabout a lot less, particularly over matters of morality.

Whether or not there is any truth to the slain apprenticelegend, it is the height of coincidence that Rosslyn's mostenduring legend involves the murder of one man by another,by a blow to the head, and that the murder has been memori-alized by the carved heads of the murderer and the victim, onthe wall above the unmarked grave of two recently discov-ered bodies, one of which shows indications of having beenkilled by a blow to the head.

But until the forensic experts release their findings, wemust consider the possibility that the bones were put theremore recently.

In 1846, during a lecture at London's Institute of BritishArchitects, antiquary John Britton criticized the lines inWalter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel that suggest tenRosslyn barons were buried, in full armor, below the chapel.Also in attendance was William Burn, architect in charge ofthe chapel's 1830's restoration. Burn supported Britton by


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Clockwise from upper-left: the apprentice, the apprentice’s mother, the master mason, the Dome of the Rock, the Stone of Destiny, the Foundation Stone.Center: The murder of Hiram Abiff, as reenacted in a Masonic ritual.

claiming he had dug trenches up all three of the chapel'saisles, finding only one vault with a wooden coffin (presum-ably the vault long known to be accessed under flagstones inthe north aisle, towards the rear of the chapel).

Burn makes no mention of having found human remainsin the center aisle. But since his work was mainly concernedwith the exterior of the chapel, there remains the possibilitythat Burn lied to support Britton's skeptical opinions, becausethe restoration of the chapel was the subject of a heated andongoing debate.

Thirty-four years later, in 1880, architect Andrew Kerr,under the direction of Robert St. Clair-Erskine, the 4th Earlof Rosslyn, added the baptistery to the chapel's west end. If,as I suspect, the recently discovered bones stretched beneaththe common threshold of both buildings, then there remainsthe interesting possibility that the bones were deposited thereat that time, to be conveniently “discovered” at a later date.Kerr and the Earl have a well-documented conversationabout the Slain Apprentice legend that appears on page 6 ofthe official Rosslyn Chapel guidebook, and it should benoted that both men were high-ranking Scottish freemasons.The Earl, in fact, was the fraternity's 63rd Grand Master.

While this article has been hampered by the lack of moreavailable evidence, further revelations may soon be madepublic.

At the time of this writing, I have learned that Ashley Cowie,“resident historian” for STV's The Hour Show, was recentlyseen at the chapel, shooting a new documentary series titled

Legend Quest. Airing in July, the show is described as “anaction-adventure series that follows real-life symbologistAshley Cowie as he travels the world in search of hidden, mys-tical artifacts. Each episode is designed to combine IndianaJones-style adventure and Da Vinci Code-type connections astheories are explored.” While that description hints the showwill do for archaeology what The Deadliest Wa rr i o r has donefor the history of military warfare, perhaps Cowie will surpriseus. Stranger things, as we will now see, have happened.

Late in my research for this article, I stumbled upon a curi-ous tale connecting the 4th Earl of Rosslyn with yet a thirdskeleton. This one, though, was the property of his widow.

On March 15, 2002, Sotheby's auctioned the contents ofKen Paul's London theatrical-prop company. One paragraphof the Sotheby announcement reads as follows: “The ulti-mate conversation piece has to be the mystery clock in a full-sized inlaid mahogany coffin, dated c. 1900 -- complete withreal skeleton -- used in the opening scenes of The RockyHorror Picture Show. The skeleton is rumoured to be theremains of the young Italian lover and secretary of theCountess of Rosslyn. After his death she couldn't bear to beseparated from him, so she immortalized him in the clockand took him everywhere with her!” Acquired by Ken Paulfrom an unnamed music-hall escape artist, the clock was wonby an anonymous bidder for £35,000.

The Countess of Rosslyn at the time of the skeleton clock'smanufacture had been married to the 4th Earl from 1866 untilhis death in 1890. Her own death, in 1933, would have pro-


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Left: The Master’s Pillar (foreground) as it appeared in 1837; Center: The uncovered Master’s Pillar in a circa 1880 photo.Right: The Rocky Horror Picture Show character Riff Raff displays the skeleton in the clock.

vided the perfect opportunity for the rest of the family tooffload Grandma's Italian paramour to the escapologist -- atan eminently negotiable price, I'm sure.

Interestingly, besides appearing in The Rocky HorrorPicture Show, the clock had most recently been hired to ap-pear in a then-unreleased film about Jack the Ripper, FromHell, which presented the theory that Jack was a Freemason.

But the story of the clock's connection to the Countess ofRosslyn seemed suspect. I knew of only one Scottish luminarywho was intimately involved with an Italian secretary - noneother than Mary, Queen of Scots.

On March 9, 1566, secretary David Rizzio was stabbed todeath in Holyrood Palace for being the queen's confidant andl o v e r, and for being a catholic. It has also been bandied aboutthat he was the father of Mary's son, the future king of bothScotland and England.

Although a plaque in Edinburgh's Canongate Kirkyardreads “Tradition says that this is the grave of David Rizzio,”who really knows for sure? Could the countess and the queenhave traded places in the telling of the tale over the years?Might not the bones in the clock be the bones of DavidRizzio? Moreover, in a macabre concordance with theRosslyn bones, there is an Edinburgh tradition that Rizzio'sbody was first buried at the threshold of Holyrood Abbey asa sign of disrespect.

My speculation that the clock's skeleton is David Rizzio'sis not that outrageous.

It is well known that the Freemasons have made ritualistic

use of skeletal remains. One short sentence in the 1896 min-utes of Edinburgh's Mary's Chapel Lodge reads that “BrotherHay's presentation of a skull was accepted with thanks,” andin the 1851 minutes we find an even more bizarre entry: “TheLodge was upon this occasion presented with two ThighBones of a Nun by Dr. McCowan.”

The mind boggles …Just two years later, in 1853, the 4th Earl of Rosslyn is list-

ed as Deputy Master of the Canongate Killwinning Lodge,still located on Edinburgh's St. John Street, just a hundredyards or so from Rizzio's Canongate Kirk grave. That's 1,750miles closer than Prescott Bush, President George W's grand-father, trekked to bring the skull of Geronimo back to YaleUniversity's most storied secret society, Skull & Bones.

Or could the music-hall escapologist have made the wholetale up?

Until the unnamed buyer steps forward and allows them tobe studied, we can only speculate about the bones inside theskeleton clock.

Tick, tock, tick, tock …

END

When my copy of Girnigoe: Scotland’s Clan SinclairMagazine arrived, I was astonished to find another articlethat further muddied the waters.

It was written by Danny McCarthy, Farm Manager for theQueen Elizabeth Castle of Mey Trust, and told the story of


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Clockwise from top right: The Murder of David Rizzio; David Rizzio; 4th Earl of Rosslyn as caricatured inVanity Fair; the Countess of Rosslyn; Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

Marie Josefa de Mariategui, the Duchesse of Pomar, who hadinherited a vast fortune upon the death of her husband in1868, and became the second wife of James Sinclair, the 14thEarl of Caithness, in 1872, becoming the Countess ofCaithness, a marriage that produced no offspring.

Upon the 1881 death of the Earl, Marie moved to Paris andtook up residence in a grand house on the Avenue Wagram,where she became a major figure behind the popular occultmovement and the French Theosophical Society, rubbingelbows with such luminaries of the day as Scottish spiritual-ist Daniel Dunglas Home and Theosophical Society founderHelena Petrovna Blavatsky.

In 1883 she founded the Societe Theosophique d’Orient etd’Occident, and was president of the Society until her death,publishing many books and pamphlets in support ofTheosophy, including Truths in a New Light and Mystery ofThe Ages.

Here is where the stories of the Countess of Caithness, theCountess of Rosslyn, and the skeleton clock converge ...

According to McCarthy, the Countess of Caithness “be-lieved herself to be the reincarnation of Mary Queen ofScots,” and that the spirit of the queen “had come into beingagain in her own existence.”

In 1887, the countess published a short book titled AMidnight Visit to Holyrood in which she recounts an inter-view with the spirit of the dead queen among the ruins ofHolyrood Abbey, where the queen instructed the countess onhow she should live, and where both now lie buried.

As McCarthy relates in his article, the countess “was notable to prove that Mary Queen of Scots was her personaladvisor and inspiring genius; but on the other hand no onecan prove that she was not.”

After her move to Paris, the countess named her grandhouse “Holyrood,” decorating the rooms in 16th-centurystyle and hanging the walls with a massive collection of thequeen’s portraits.

The Countess of Caithness died in 1895, five years beforethe date attributed to the skeleton clock, 38 years before thedeath of the Countess of Rosslyn, 80 years before the clock’susage in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and 107 yearsbefore the clock’s eventual sale to an unnamed buyer at theSotheby’s auction.

Clearly, we have a wealth of information that in someweird and convoluted way gives tantalizing hints at the truthof the matter, but falls far short of the mark.

And as for the bones found in Rosslyn Chapel in February2010, it will soon be two years since the time they werefound until the time of this writing and the archaeologicalexperts have yet to weigh in with their official report.

I grow weary of this digging.Shortly after the publication of my original article, I sent it

along to no fewer than 50 U.K. newspapers. Not one showedany interest in my findings, regardless of the interest thatmany had shown in the original and woefully deficient STVreport of March, 2010.

Go figure ... END


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Left: Marie Josefa de Mariategui, Duchesse of Pomar and Countess of Caithness.Right: The interior of Edinburgh’s Holyrood Abbey, where the remains of both Mary Queen of Scots and the countess are buried.

the rosslyn bones

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