On the Bloodline of Jesus -- and others A Book Review by D.B. Timmins Recently read a book my son Mark sent me written by a European genealogist named Gardner on the bloodline of Jesus. While I think Gardner has distinct failings as a writer, and his naturalistic explanations of many of the miracles are rather contorted, he is a noted genealogist connected with several European royal houses and I learned things from him which I want to pass on. First of all, I've often wondered about the derivations of Aix , as in Aix la Chapelle and Aix en Provence . Gardner says this is a medieval corruption of the Latin Acqua , or "water". First departure was Acqs , thus Aix . So it's "Chapel by the water" (probably the Rhine, and "Waters of Provence" -- probably the Rhone (or Gironne). Significant thing I learned was that Sir Lancelot's name "du Lac" was itself a corruption of de l'Aqcs -- his family name. He was it should be recalled from the Arthur legend, the son of The Lady of the Lake -- actually de l'Aqcs , which renaissance writers wrongly interpreted as du Lac Not of great importance, but perhaps useful to know in a trivia game. Having gotten himself into the middle of the King Arthur legend, Gardner (using the genealogy of the Royal Family of Great Britain), traces Arthur back to a Celtic Scottish lineage, making him an early ancestor of both Shakespeare's Banquo and King McBeth. As for the tradition that he was of Welch ancestry, Gardner points out that until the Saxon intruded themselves into Cumbria, the Lowland Scots and their cousins the Welch, were in constant contact via Celtic Cumbria. The McKays are descendants of Arthur's foster brother Kay. Gardner traces the Arthurian line down to Robert the Bruce, who, I discover for the first time, was a near ancestor of the first Grand Stewards of Scotland. So the Stewarts -- from whom I descend through a great grandmother, truly had a near claim to the Scottish throne and were not the brazen usurpers I'd always thought. Gardner not only traces the bloodline of Jesus to the Bas Pyrenees (a fact I've provisionally accepted for a long time), but also to Britain. I've also provisionally accepted the tradition that Jesus came to England with his Uncle Joseph of Arimithea -- a strong British tradition. But Gardner makes the story a bit more complicated, if also a bit more acceptable, arguing that it wasn't the Savior who came, but his son (also called Jesus) who half a generation later accompanied his Great Uncle Joseph on one of his voyages from the Marseilles or Bordeaux regions (Joseph was a tin merchant). And according to Baigent's Holy Blood & Holy Grail account, Jesus Jr. was by this time living -- in hidden exile to save his life -- with his mother in the Bas Pyrenees not far from Marsailles. This Jesus Jr, according to Gardner,. had a brother called Joseph, presumably after his grandfather Joseph of the biblical Joseph and Mary story. The two also had a sister called Tamar ("palm tree"). As I've previously written, based on Baigent's account, this bloodline founded the Merovingian line -- the first Frankish kings. Gardner also has Jesus Christ's brother James visiting Great Britain, also establishing a lineage there. As Jesus' next younger brother and survivor, James became the de jure successor to the throne of King David until Jesus, Jr. came of age. Gardner has the two bloodlines merging in the Stewart Royal House several generations later, the Stewarts thus descending from both Christ's sons and his brother James' descendants, are the only royal line to trace descent from both lineages. Gives new perspective on the Stewarts' claim to divine right. This continues a tradition taught (without such detailed genealogical tables) by several early members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve (but no longer openly espoused because it brought too many attacks on the LDS Church for heresy from Christian tradition). Gardner explains the burial of this knowledge on the politics of Rome which wished to monopolize control over both the religion and politics of Europe and found what Gardner calls "The Grail Line" a major competitor to such claims (he accepts Baigent's story of The Holy Grail (Le San Greal), being a deliberate corruption of le sang real (the royal blood). Gardner is able to establish his genealogies from documents carefully saved from the deliberate destruction by the Catholic Church by the Priory de Sion established to protect the heritage of the Sang Real and headed, as Baigent also has it, by such notables as Leonardo, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. This makes sense 'cause all three are known to have been involved with Masonry (which both Baigent and Gardner credit with carrying on an anti-catholic, but not anti-Christian tradition. Indeed, Gardner credits the early Cathars with continuing the purer Christian tradition also followed by James' followers in Jerusalem) Not only does the LDS Church believe (if it no longer openly teaches) that Jesus had children, but it also holds that Masonry is a valid tradition tracing its origins to the builders of Solomon's temple and that many of its signs and tokens are slightly corrupt versions of the original teachings delivered to Father Adam. When my mother worked for two of the Apostles, she used to bring home copies of a magazine widely read in the Church Office Building called British Israel , which ran articles seeking to establish that the wandering tribes had settled in Great Britain and that the British were descendants of these tribes. And, of course, we all know from our Patriarchal Blessings that we are descended from the tribe of Ephraim. So it kind of comes together whether from our Timmins Bas Pyrenees descent or from our Scottish Stewart blood (Gardner points out that the British Royal line returned to the traditional spelling Stewart after only a couple of generations of Mary Queen of Scots' adoption of the French spelling Stuart, which I was pleased to learn. (Will Stuart have to change how he spells his name?) So we have a double chance of having inherited a drop of sang real ! Not that it matters much. According to British tradition, the Royal Stewart line died out when Bonny Prince Charlie died without issue, leaving his claim to the British throne to his Uncle who was a celibate Catholic Cardinal. But Gardner says this wasn't so. Charles Edward Stuart married a second time after his first (barren) wife died, and left posterity. This was deliberately covered up by the Hannoverians (now the Windsors -- they changed their name during WW I when the Brits were naturally a bit peeved about the German decent of their Royal Family) -- who had succeeded to the throne because King George I's mother was a second order Stuart heiress. So, claims Gardner, the living de jure heir is a guy named Michael James Alexander Stewart -- to whom Gardner ascribes the title Prince , but who remains unacknowledged by any British royalist of today. Which, again doesn't matter much because the notion of royalty is becoming more than a bit tattered and Britain is likely to become a republic within the lifetime of adult readers of these pages. (Indeed, the Labor Party is currently running primarily on a platform of reforming the House of Lords to remove its hereditary basis. John Major and his Tory supporters clearly see this a threat to the Royal Family, who's own only claim to position is also hereditary. I suspect that if he weren't afraid of the backlash, the Labor leader Tony Blair would also espouse the disestablishment of the Royal Family (which I for one would support, though I'm otherwise a Tory sympathizer). And thus endeth my lecture for today.