Knights Templar in England
An inventory by Geoffrey Fitz Stephen reveals that by 1185, the Order of the Knights Templar had extensive holdings in London, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Salop, Oxfordshire, Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. The involvement of Templars in financial matters is highlighted by Walter of Coventry's story of Gilbert de Ogrestan, the Knight Templar accused of embezzling taxes collected in the Saladin tithe of 1188. He was severely punished by his contemporary Master.
Karl Gotthelf von Hund
Later, he claimed that it was in Paris in 1743 that he was initiated, by Scottish knights, into the Order of the Knights Templar, and was the introduced to the pretender to the British throne, Prince Charles Edward Stuart as the Grand Master of the (supposedly resurrected) Knights Templar. Present were the Earl of Kilmarnock and other senior Jacobites. He was initiated by the "Knight of the Red Feather, whose identity he was pledged to conceal, but he may have tried to hint that it was Charles Edward Stuart. There is no documentary proof of any such Masonic lodge. Hund claimed to have been appointed by these "unknown superiors" of the Templars as "commander in chief" (Provincial Grand Master) of the Order of Province VII (Germany). Whether he lied or whether he had been deceived for other purposes, is not known. As proof, he presented an encoded "military chief patent", which remains undeciphered. Hund wrapped himself in silence and in more detailed inquiries repeatedly underlined his discretion with respect to the "unknown superiors", who had supposedly charged him with the revival of the Templar Order in Germany. Hund's relationship to the alleged French Templar Order is unclear, and his surviving diary entries give little information.