Note 388 — Part I (continued 4)

"This degree is intimately connected with the ancient order of the Knights Templars, a history of whose destruction, by the united efiorts of Philip, King of France, and Pope Clement V, forms a part of the instructions given to the candidate. The dress of the Knights is black, as an emblem of mourning for the extinction of the Knights Templars, and the death of Jacques du Molay, their last Grand Master...."--Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry, p. 172.