Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

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394 KNIGHTS
KNIGHTS
of responsions, as a tribute to be sent annually
to Rhodes for the recuperation of the always
di min ishing revenue of the Order .
Another important change in the organization
of the Order was made at a General Chapter
held about 1320 at Montpellier, under the
Grand Mastershi of Villanova . The Order
was there divided into languages, a division
unknown during its existence in Palestine .
These languages were at first seven in number,
but afterward increased to eight, by the
subdivision of that of Aragon . The principal
dignities of the Order were at the same time
divided among these languages, so that a
articular dignity should be always enjoyed
bby the same language . These languages, and
the dignities respectively attached to them,
were as follows :
1 . Provence : Grand Commander .
2 . Auvergne : Grand Marshal .
3 . France : Grand Hospitaler .
4 . Italy : Grand Admiral .
5. Aragon : Grand Conservator.
6 . Germany : Grand Bailiff .
7 . Castile : Grand Chancellor .
8 . England : Grand Tureopolier .
But perhaps the greatest of all changes was
that which took place in the personal character
of the Knights . "The Order," says
Taafe (Hist., iv ., 234), "had been above two
hundred years old before it managed a boat,
but was altogether equestrian during its two
first, and perhaps most glorious, centuries ."
But on settling at Rhodes, the knights began
to attack their old enemies by sea with the
same prowess with which they had formerly
met them on land, and the victorious contests
of the galleys of St . John with the Turkish
corsairs, who were infesting the Mediterranean,
proved them well entitled to the epithet
of naval warriors .
In the year 1480, Rhodes was unsuccessfully
besieged by the Ottoman army of Mohammed
II., under the command of Paleologus
Pasha. After many contests, the Turks were
repulsed with great slaughter . But the attack
of the Sultan Solyman, forty-four years afterward,
was attended with a different result, and
Rhodes was surrendered to the Turkish forces
on the 20th of December, 1522 . The terms of
the capitulation were liberal to the knights,
who were permitted to retire with all their personal
property; and thus, in the Grand Mastership
of L'Isle Adam, Rhodes ceased forever
to be the home of the Order, and six days
afterward, on New Year's Day, 1523, the fleet,
containing the knights and four thousand of
the inhabitants, sailed for the island of
Candia.
From Candia, where the Grand Master remained
but a short time, he proceeded with
his knights to Italy . Seven long years were
p assed in negotiations with the monarchs of
Europe, and in the search for a home . At
length, the Emperor Charles V ., of Germany,
vested in the Order the complete and perpetual
sovereignty of the islands of Malta and
Gozo, and the city of Tripoli; and in 1530,
the knights took formal possession of Malta,
where, to borrow the language of Porter (Hilt .,
ii ., 33), "for upwards of two centuries and a
half, waved the banner of St . John, an honor
to Christianity and a terror to the infidel of
the East ." From this time the. Order received
the designation of "Knights of Malta," a title
often bestowed upon it, even in official documents,
in the place of the original one of
" Kn ights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem
."
For 268 years the Order retained possession
of the island of Malta . But in 1798 it was surrendered
without a struggle b y Louis de Hompesch,
the imbecile and pusillanimous Grand
Master, to the French army and fleet under
Bonaparte ; and this event may be considered
as the commencement of the suppression of
the Order as an active power .
Hompesch, accompanied by a few knights,
embarked in a few days for Trieste, and subsequently
retired to Montpellier, where he
resided in the strictest seclusion and poverty
until May 12, 1805, when he died, leaving behind
him not enough to remunerate the physicians
who had attended him .
The great body of the knights proceeded
to Russia, where the Emperor Paul had a few
years before been proclaimed the protector
of the Order . On the 27th of October, 1798 a
Chapter of such of the knights as were in §t .
Petersburg was held, and the Emperor Paul I .
was elected Grand Master . This election was
made valid, so far as its irregularities would
permit, by the abdication of Hompesch in
July, 1799 .
At the death of Paul in 1801, his successor
on the throne, Alexander, appointed Count
Soltikoff as Lieutenant of the Mastery, and
directed him to convene a Council at St. Petersburg
to deliberate on future action . This
assembly adop ted a new statute for the election
of the Grand Master, which provided
that each Grand Priory should in a Provincial
Chapter nominate a candidate, and that out
of the persons so nominated the Pope should
make a selection . Accordingly, in 1802, the
Pope appointed John de Tommasi, who was
the last knight that bore the title of Grand
Master .
On the death of Tommasi, the Pope declined
to assume any longer the res ponsibility
of nominating a Grand Master, and appointed
the Bailiff Guevarr Luardo simply as Lieutenant
of the Mastery, a title afterward held
by his successors, Centelles, Busca, De Candida,
and Collavedo . In 1826 and 1827, the
first steps were taken for the revival of the
English language, and Sir Joshua Meredith,
Bart ., who had been made a knight in 1798 by
Hompesch, being appointed Lieutenant Prior
of England, admitted many English gentlemen
into the Order .
But the real history of the Order of St . John
of Jerusalem ends with the disgraceful capitulation
at Malta in 1798 . All that has since remained
of it, all that now remains-however
imposing may be the titles assumed-is but
the diluted shadow of its former existence .