I am very sad to read of the death of Michael Baigent. He was financially ruined by his court case with Dan Brown and this affected his health. It was a tragedy that he and Richard Leigh took Brown to court for plagiarism. They were right but their own material from the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail had become so widespread the case could not be proved. In fact the whole idea that the actually fictitious society the Priory of Sion was involved with a bloodline from Jesus was invented, or suggested, by Richard Leigh in 1979. The creator of the Priory, Pierre Plantard, was horrified by the idea. If Leigh and Baigent had admitted the idea was their intellectual property rather being possibly true their case might have been won. I met Michael several times in the 80s and we organised an event at Shugborough together. He gave me copies of all his 18thc research and we still corresponded in the 90s. He was always very helpful and simply a very nice man who was also extremely intellectually honest. He enjoyed making suggestions, not claiming they were true. Richard Leigh his co-author died a few years ago - very much a joker but a very intellectual one. Henry Lincoln is still alive and well but has separated himself from the whole bloodline farrago. He was a big influence on me in a positive way I now feel. Something of a guru in spite of the completely nonsensical world he was surrounded by. It was all absolute tosh but how much it taught me! And, after all, Henry had written for Dr Who and acted in The Avengers!
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 13:17:49 +0000
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