The enthusiastic flurry of modern books about the “mystery” of Rosslyn Chapel and the “discovery of America” by “Prince” Henry Sinclair was initially inspired by the publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in 1982, taking the Priory of Sion and its Priory Documents seriously – based on the name of Pierre Plantard de Saint Clair and the knowledge that Rosslyn Chapel was owned by the St Clares.

At least two monuments were erected to commemorate Henry Sinclair's “discovery of America” with a commemoration of the “Westford Knight”.

Pierre Plantard added “Plantard de Saint Clair” for the first time to his surname when interviewed for the French magazine l’Ère d’Aquarius in 1975 at a time when he was developing his “Bermuda-Triangle-Style” of Gisors, Stenay and Rennes-le-Château.

Plantard's interest lay in the St Clares of Gisors and not in the St Clares of Rosslyn Chapel – Gisors castle in Normandy was claimed to have contained the treasure of the Knights Templar (a story invented by Roger Lhomoy) – this was thrown into the Priory of Sion mix – but this could have been the very thing that inspired the claim that “Prince” Henry Sinclair could have been a Knights Templar who “discovered America” (as well as the desire to excavate Rosslyn Chapel).

Knights Templar & Gisors (St Clare)

Walter Johannes Stein wrote about possible esoteric links between Rosslyn Chapel and the Grail that was posthumously published in 1958. Frederick J. Pohl wrote several books dating between the 1950s and 1970s about “Prince” Henry Sinclair's “discovery of America” basing his account on Johan Reinhold Forster's misguided claim in 1784 that Henry Sinclair was a version of the name “Zichmni”, in relation to a fabricated account of a voyage in 1398 to the North Atlantic and Nova Scotia by the Zeno brothers – first committed to writing only in 1558 – and containing a fabricated map according to mainstream historians (Pohl did not link Henry Sinclair with the Knights Templar).

These other elements also inspired the authors when they became excited by The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in 1982. The “Big Three Authorities” have all since died – Niven Sinclair (1924-2017), Andrew Sinclair (1935-2019) and Tim Wallace-Murphy (1930-2019).

It has been claimed that Tim Wallace-Murphy based his belief in “Prince” Henry Sinclair's “Discovery of America” on the sculpted depictions of Maize and Corn found on Rosslyn Chapel, but these are idealised depictions of vegetation. From the BBC website:

“Dr Adrian Dyer, a professional botanist and husband of the Revd Janet Dyer, former Priest in Charge at Rosslyn Chapel, meticulously examined the botanical carvings in the Chapel…Dr Dyer found that there was no attempt to represent a species accurately: the ‘maize’ and ‘aloe’ carvings are almost certainly derived from stylized wooden patterns, whose resemblance to recognisable botanical forms is fortuitous.

Much the same conclusion was reached by archaeo-botanist Dr Brian Moffat, who also noted that the carvings of botanical forms are not naturalistic nor accurate. He found a highly stylised Arum Lily the most likely candidate for what has been identified as American maize.

As for the ‘aloes’, Dr Moffat points out that the consumer would never have seen the plant, only the sap which was used medicinally.”

So far, the earliest documented evidence for the discovery of the Americas are the archaeological artefacts of the Vikings discovered in 1960 at L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, dated to about 1000 AD (Helge Ingstad & Anne Ingstad, The Viking Discovery of America: The Excavation of A Norse Settlement In L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, 2001). This has been standard and basic education for a while. Of course, unlike Christopher Columbus, the Vikings did not go back to Europe to tell people about their discovery. There was no mass-immigration to the New World from Europe.

In his fourth and final voyage, Christopher Columbus explored the coast of Central America for several months, including several land incursions looking for a passage west.

Tim Wallace-Murphy, The Templar Legacy and Masonic Inheritance within Rosslyn Chapel, 1994. Page 47.