Standard of Honour
-
- £3.99
-
- £3.99
Publisher Description
The story of the rise and fall of the powerful and mysterious Knights of the Temple: the Third Crusade under Richard the Lionheart.
It is sixty years since the secret Brotherhood of Sion, founders of the Knights Templar, uncovered the treasure vouchsafed them beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Now the ambitious and ruthless Plantagenet King Richard the Lionheart leads the Third Crusade against Saladin, and both the honour of the Templars and the mission of the Brotherhood are at risk.
Andrew Sinclair is one of the few survivors of the Battle of Hattin in 1187. As a member of the clandestine Brotherhood he was taught Arabic before being sent to the Holy Land on a mission that neither the Order of Templars nor the leaders of the Pope’s armies can know of. Sinclair’s captivity following the battle led to his friendship with the infidel and threatened to divide his loyalty. One of the great secrets of the Brotherhood is that they are not Christians, unlike the Templars.
Sinclair’s cousin and fellow member of the Brotherhood, Sir Andre St Clair, arrives with Richard from Cyprus. The secret mission they must pursue will lead them into the desert and the lair of the fearsome Assassins. And meanwhile Saladin’s clever tactics in battle, including the butchery of the magnificent destriers, the massive horses that carry armoured Frankish knights, bring reversals to the Christian cause from start of the Crusade.
But it is Richard the Lionheart’s treachery and deceit that convince both cousins that the Crusade is a sham, and that all men are venal and greedy, driven by the lust for power. Only their knowledge of the Order of Sion saves them from despair: their secret mission becomes more vital than ever before.
This glorious epic tells the true and truly astonishing story of the Knights of the Black and White.
About the author
Jack Whyte was born and raised in Scotland, and educated in England and France. He migrated to Canada from the UK, in 1967, as a teacher of High School English, but he only taught for a year before starting to work as a professional singer, musician, actor and entertainer. In the early 1970s, Whyte researched, wrote, directed and appeared in a one man show based on the life and times of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet.
Whyte's interest in the history of Britain springs from his early Classical education in Scotland during the 1950s, and he has pursued his fascination with those times ever since. Whyte is married, with five adult children, and lives in British Columbia, Canada.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This second entry in Whyte's Templar trilogy (after Knights of the Black and White), covering Richard the Lionhearted's crusade, finds the author in top form. Alexander Sinclair, a Knight of the Temple, is part of a 50,000-man army headed to battle in the Lower Galilee. At stake for the Christian army is its claim to the Holy Land, now under the jurisdiction of Kurdish Saracen leader Saladin. The coming disaster will force English King Richard to raise an even larger army and set sail from England himself, along with Henry St. Clair, the English army's master-at-arms, and Henry's son, Andre, a member of the secret Templar society, Brotherhood of Sion. Whyte gilds the tangled political complications of the late 12th century with a rich trove of Templar lore a treat for some readers, but superfluous for the more action oriented. And action is the point here: few authors can match Whyte when it comes to epic battle scenes involving blazing heat, choking dust, rearing horses and thousands of sword-wielding knights and Saracens locked in mortal combat.