cover image The Sword and the Grail: Of the Grail and the Templars and a True Discovery of America

The Sword and the Grail: Of the Grail and the Templars and a True Discovery of America

Andrew Sinclair. Crown Publishing Group (NY), $22.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-517-58618-1

Historian and novelist Sinclair (War Like a Wasp: The Last Decade of the Forties) presents a daunting amount of research to support two controversial theses. First, he postulates that members of the Knights Templar, a medieval ascetic order that sought the Holy Grail and maintained a standing army in Jerusalem, fled to St. Clair Castle in Scotland after they were outlawed in the early 1300s and served as a direct connection to later Masonic orders. Second, drawing on the Templars' wealth and knowledge, Prince Henry St. Clair, aided by Venetian brothers Antonio and Nicolo Zen, also led an expedition to the New World, founding colonies in Nova Scotia and New England years before Columbus set sail. A direct descendant of Prince Henry, Sinclair has used primary sources and legends uncovered at Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh in Scotland, to support these theories. They will be of interest mainly to history buffs and medievalists. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Oct.)