Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, Baron of Roslin (c.1345 – c.1400) was a Scottish and a Norwegian nobleman. Sinclair held the title Earl of Orkney under the King of Norway (see Earl of Orkney: Scottish Earls under the Norwegian Crown). He is sometimes identified by another spelling of his surname, St. Clair. He was the grandfather of William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness, the builder of Rosslyn Chapel. He is best known today because of a modern legend that he took part in explorations of Greenland and North America almost 100 years before Christopher Columbus. Henry Sinclair was the son and heir of William Sinclair, Lord of Roslin, and his wife Isabella (Isobel) of Strathearn. She was a daughter of Maol Ísa, Earl of Orkney. Henry Sinclairs maternal grandfather had been deprived of much of his lands (the earldom of Strathearn being completely lost to the King of Scots). Sometime after 13 September 1358, Henrys father died, at which point Henry Sinclair succeeded as Baron of Roslin, Pentland and Cousland, a group of minor properties in Lothian. Three cousins – Alexander de LArde, Lord of Caithness; Malise Sparre, Lord of Skaldale; and Henry Sinclair – were rivals for the succession to the earldom of Orkney. On 2 August 1379, at Marstrand, near Tønsberg, Norway, King Haakon VI of Norway invested and confirmed Sinclair as the Norwegian Earl of Orkney over a rival claim by his cousin Malise Sparre. The alleged voyage to North America Almost nothing more is known about Sinclairs life. However, much has been written through conjecture about his supposed career as an explorer. In 1784, he was identified by Johann Reinhold Forster as possibly being the Prince Zichmni described in letters allegedly written around the year 1400 by the Zeno brothers of Venice, in which they describe a voyage throughout the North Atlantic under the command of Zichmni. The authenticity of the letters (which were allegedly rediscovered and published in the early 16th century), the exact course of the voyage, as well as whether it even took place, are challenged by historians. Most regard the letters (and the accompanying map) as a hoax by the Zenos or their publishers. Moreover, the identification of Zichmni as Henry Sinclair has not been accepted by most historians, although it is taken for granted by the supporters of the theory. Some supporters of the theory contend that there are stone carvings of American plants in Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. The Chapel was built by Henry Sinclairs grandson William Sinclair and was completed in 1486. Columbus made his first voyage in 1492. This is seen by writers Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas as being compelling evidence for the theory that Sinclair had sailed to America Alleged Templar connections Intertwined with the Sinclair voyage story is the claim that Henry Sinclair was a Knight Templar and that the voyage either was sponsored by or conducted on the behalf of the Templars, though the order was suppressed almost half a century before Henrys lifetime. Knight and Lomas speculate that the Knights Templar discovered under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem a royal archive dating from King Solomons times that stated that Phoenicians from Tyre voyaged to a westerly continent following a star called La Merika. According to Knight and Lomas, the Templars learned that to sail to that continent, they had to follow a star by the same name. Sinclair supposedly followed this route. The theory also makes use of the supposed Templar connection to explain the name Nova Scotia (New Scotland in Latin). It is based on the 18th-century tale that some Templars escaped the suppression of their order by fleeing to Scotland during the reign of Robert the Bruce and fought in the Battle of Bannockburn. Claims persist that Rosslyn Chapel contains Templar imagery. Andrew Sinclair speculates that the grave slab now in the crypt is that of a Templar knight: According to author Robert Lomas, the chapel also has an engraving depicting a knight templar holding the sword over a head of an initiate, supposedly to protect the secrets of the templars. Rosslyn Chapel was built by Sir William St Clair, last St Clair Earl of Orkney, who was the grandson of Henry. According to Lomas, Sir William, the chapel builder, is also the direct ancestor of the first Grand Master of Masons of Scotland, also named William St Clair (Sinclair). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_Sinclair,_Earl_of_Orkney
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:45:03 +0000
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