Order in Chaos (Templar Trilogy, Book 3)

This book has been read, minor wear to covers, minor pencil marking first inner page. No other markings inner pages. Spine intact, some creases. "The third novel in the thrilling historical trilogy about the rise and fall of the powerful and mysterious Templars, from the author of the immensely popular Camulod Chronicles.

Order in Chaos begins just prior to Friday the thirteenth of October 1307, the original Day of Infamy that marked the abrupt end of the Order of the Templars. On that day, without warning, King Philip IV sent his armies to arrest every Templar in France in a single morning. Then, with the aid of Pope Clement V, he seized all the Temple assets and set the Holy Inquisition against the Order.

Forewarned at the last minute by the Grand Master himself, who has discovered the king's plot too late to thwart it, Sir William St. Clair flees France with the Temple's legendary treasure, taking with him several hundred knights, along with the Scots-born widow of a French Baron, the Lady Jessica Randolph. As time passes and the evidence of the French King's treachery becomes incontestable, St. Clair finds himself increasingly disillusioned and decides, on behalf of his Order, to abandon the past. He releases his men from their "sacred" vows of papal obedience and leads them into battle as Temple Knights one last time, in support of King Robert Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn. And in the aftermath of victory, he takes his surviving men away in search of another the fabled land, mentioned in Templar lore, that lies beyond the Western Ocean and is known as Merica." Good Reads "Jack Whyte is an author and writer born and raised in Scotland, but has been living in western Canada since 1967, and in Kelowna, British Columbia, since 1996.

Whyte's major work to date is the A Dream of Eagles series (as it is titled in Canada, but known as The Camulod Chronicles in the United States and elsewhere). This series of historical novels presents the tale of King Arthur set against the backdrop of Roman Britain. This retelling of the popular legend eschews the use of magic (as in T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone) to explain Arthur's ascent to power and instead relies on the historical condition (with some artistic license) of post-Roman Britain to support the theory that Arthur was meant to counter the anarchy left by the Roman departure from Britain in 410 AD and the subsequent colonization and invasion of Britain by various peoples from Northwestern Europe, including the Saxons, Jutes, Franks, and Angles). Whyte incorporates both traditional Arthurian names, places and events (albeit in gaelic or Latin form) as well as the names of various historical figures that have been suggested as being the possible basis for the original King Arthur legend. The tacit implication is that Whyte's version of history is the true story that has become distorted over time to become the legend and stories of magic that we know today.

Jack Whyte served as the official bard of The Calgary Highlanders and performed several tracks of poetry and song on the 1990 recording by the Regimental Pipes and Drums of The Calgary Highlanders entitled Eighty Years of Glory: The Regimental Pipes, Drums and Bard of The Calgary Highlanders." Good Reads