Henry Sinclair

There are some claims that a man named Henry Sinclair was the first European to discover North America and create a colony. Here is the basic story of Henry Sinclair.

Robert of St. Clair Normandy
Sir William Sinclair
Sir Henry, William, Annabel, Gregory
Sir William, John Wolf killed 1330
William, Margaret, Thomas, John 1367
Henry, David
-Henry Sinclair was a vassal of the Kings of both Scotland and Norway, considerably wealthy and powerful, owned a fleet of 13 ships, also a Duke in Denmark
-1358 at 13 proclaimed Lord of Rosslyn, nary granddaughter of King of this week Sweden, Norway and Scarnia (magnus Eriksson 4 of Sweden, 7 of Norway)
-at death of maternal grandfather became competitor for Earl of Orkney
-1379 King Haakon Magnusson 6 of Norway invests Henry as Earl of Orkney and Lord of Shetland with stipulation to not build castles
-breaks agreement and builds Kirkwall Castle, Charter from King Robert 3 to build Roslin dumgeon and walls
-1389 coronation of King Eric of Norway
-1391 Henry assisted with conquest of faeroe, meets Venetian Nicolo Zeno made him captain of his fleet
-Nicolo and brother Carlos the lion pioneered the use of Canonns, Carlos might have been a Mediterranean pirate
-next Congress the Shetland Islands
-goes with Nicolo and Antonio to discover rumored rich and populous land to the west
-landed southwest of Ireland to Icara Kerry Island, sailed on to Greenland 1392, any Norse settlements would have been in decline, 1406-1410 Norwegian ship winter at abandoned settlement, only find wild cows
-April 1397/1398 leaves Orkney with 12 or 13 ships to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, most of the ships returned
-two remained and continue to Massachusetts, Rhode Island and returned year after

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.
Zichmni d'Orcades Engroueland translated as Sinclair of Orkney Greenland
They also describe Berman pitch deposits, great many people half wild, and living in caves, small stature and very timid. It exactly matches a place in Nova Scotia and the Micmac natives.

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 Henry's lifetime.

There is 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. 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).

The Sinclairs and their French relatives the St. Clairs were instrumental in creating the Knights Templar. He claims that the founder of Templars Hugh de Payns was married to a sister of the Duke of Champaine (Henri de St. Clair), who was a powerful broker of the first Crusade and had the political power to nominate the Pope, and to suggest the idea and empower it to the Pope.

It is speculated that the Knights Templar discovered under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem a royal archive dating from King Solomon's times that stated that Phoenicians from Tyre voyaged to a westerly continent following a star called "La Merika". The Templars knew that to sail to that continent, they had to follow a star by the same name, which became the origin of the name "America". 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).