In the 1961 film “The Greengage Summer”, the character Joss Grey (played by Susannah York), whilst casually looking at a dark statue of the Virgin Mary in Reims cathedral, commented: “The statues were carved from bog-oak, which is black – I read that in a guide book”.

The Virgin Mary carved out of dark wood in the Carmelite chapel at Allington Castle in Britain originally had nothing to do with the Carmelite Order of nuns – it was carved by Clare Sheridan out of bog-oak during the 1950s, long before the chapel became the residence of the Carmelite Order.

The statue of the Black Madonna in the church of Notre Dame de France, Leicester Square, London was disgracefully stolen on 10 November 1986 – the church that Henry Lincoln regarded as notable because it contained a mural by Jean Cocteau – and was “linked” to the Priory of Sion.

Statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary were carved out of a variety of different woods – there was nothing differentiating Black Madonnas carved out of dark wood from statues of the Virgin Mary that were carved out of any other wood.

It’s time to put all this business about sinister Black Madonnas into timeline perspective – the idea didn’t exist before 1980 – when it was first introduced in a series of articles by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh in The Unexplained magazine: issues 4, 6 and 8 in 1980.

It should also be pointed out that Baigent and Leigh were part of a crowd that included Ean Begg, who wrote The Cult of the Black Virgin in 1985 – where the dark statues of the Black Madonnas were transformed into Mary Magdalene – wife of Jesus Christ. The reason why the statues were black was because Mary Magdalene bore the child of Jesus Christ.

Astrologer Liz Greene (Richard Leigh’s sister) could have been part of the same crowd – Liz Greene’s 1980 novel about Nostradamus included the subject-matter of the Jesus Bloodline and the photograph of the author on the back cover was taken by Michael Baigent.

Sinister Black Madonnas and the bloodline of Jesus Christ – all recent ideas developed by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, Ean Begg and Liz Greene.

“The Unexplained”, Number 6, pages 114-117, 1980.