Knights of Malta

“ Great as were those others who perished, faithful to the death as were those noble knights who died to a man in the culminating agony of St. Elmo, adroit, resourceful, master of himself and others as was the famous Dragut, there is one name and one alone that shines like a beacon light upon a hill-top when we think of the siege of Malta. ”

“ The position of the Maltese became worse and worse as the Order declined. The natives, who had enjoyed a considerable measure of local autonomy under Spanish rule, had been very reluctant to submit to the Knights, and had protested to Charles V. against their surrender to the Order, as a violation of the promise given in 1428 by Alphonse of Sicily that Malta would never be separated from the Sicilian Crown. They knew that the Order would conduct itself in Malta as a garrison in a fortress, and that this would mean strict military control over the inhabitants. ”

“ The Knights of Malta threw themselves into the struggle on the side of the Venetians, feeling bound in honour to do so, as the refuge of Maltese galleys in Venetian harbours was the Turkish pretext for war. In 1656 Mocenigo, the Venetian Admiral, with the aid of the Knights, won a brilliant victory off the Dardanelles, capturing Lemnos and Tenedos. This imminent peril brought Mohammed Kiuprili to power as Grand Vizier, and the war was thenceforward conducted with great energy by the Turks. ”

“ Our story of Malta would be incomplete unless we gave a succinct and consecutive account of the famous Order of the Knights of St. John, to whom we have so often alluded in the foregoing pages, and who have left upon this island more of their personality than all the other sovereignties that preceded or have succeeded them. While we freely reprehend their many and glaring faults, we are forced to admire and praise their energy, their heroic bravery, and their undoubted spirit of enterprise. ”

“ It was also probable that the Turks would again besiege the Knights, as they had done at Rhodes in 1480 and 1522, and the Maltese were strongly averse to being drawn into such danger.
During the residence of the Knights the native population of Valetta was considerably modified. Some of the Rhodians who had, in 1523, accompanied the Knights, came with them to Malta; mercenaries who fought for the Order sometimes stayed on in the island, and many in this new population were illegitimate children of the Knights. ”

“ When it became certain that Malta was to be its permanent home—for L'Isle Adam had at first cherished hopes of recapturing Rhodes—the Order proceeded to take further measures for its security. Both St. Angelo and Il Borgo were strengthened with ramparts and artillery, and the fortifications of the Città Notabile, the main town in the centre of the island, were improved. In 1552 a commission of three Knights with Leo Strozzi, the Prior of Capua, at its head—one of the most daring Corsairs of the day—made a report of the fortifications of the island. ”

“ But though honour has been justly termed “an empty bubble,” yet to all men’s eyes its colours are so very beautiful, that they allure and encourage us to contend with difficulties which no other advocate could persuade us to encounter; and so it was that the Knights of Malta, seeing they had no alternative, sternly accepted the hot barren home that was offered to them, and in the very teeth, and before the beard of their barbarous enemy, these lions of the Cross landed and established themselves in their new den. ”

“ He had left his own son with La Valette, so he could hardly be indifferent to the fate of the fortress, and Malta in Turkish hands would soon have proved a curse to Sicily and Naples. Whatever may have been the cause of his delay, the Viceroy hesitated till the indignation of his own officers forced him to move, and then the battle had almost been won by the unaided efforts of the Knights. On August 23 came yet another grand assault, the last serious effort, as it proved, of the besiegers; it was thrown back with the greatest difficulty, even the wounded taking part in the defence. ”

“ Another result of the wars of France and Spain was the frequent internal quarrels at Malta. As the feelings of the two nations towards each other were often embittered, it is not surprising to find that French and Spanish Knights would come to open blows in the streets of Valetta. The unhealthy life of those young and idle aristocrats was conducive to turbulence, and the Grand Masters often adopted the policy of sending them to sea as soon as trouble was foreseen. The French were generally in the preponderance, as we can see from the great number of French Grand Masters ”

“ In their most prosperous days in Malta, the Knights proper, that is, those holding full membership in the order, never numbered more than six or seven hundred, but there were various grades of men-at-arms, and of trained native Maltese, attached to the service of the Knights, thus swelling the fighting force to a fairly effective body. ”

“ We wished to save the honour of the knights—that was all; for no one who has seen Malta can imagine that an island surrounded with such formidable and perfect fortifications would have surrendered in two days to a fleet which was pursued by an enemy. The impregnable fortress of Malta is so secure against a 'coup de main' that General Caffarelli, after examining its fortifications, said to the General-in-Chief, in my presence, "Upon my word, General, it is luck: there is some one in the town to open the gates for us." ”

“ At the height of their prosperity the Knights derived a very considerable revenue from their galleys, and just as Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli throve on piracy, even so the wealth of the East contributed largely to the splendour of Malta. But during the seventeenth century various Christian Powers, such as Venice or France, insisted on restricting the Knights' claims to unlimited seizure of infidel vessels and infidel property on board ship. ”

“ The hoods and capes are black, and are worn as a penance for the frailty of the women of Malta when the French took the place and robbed the churches, and pillaged the storehouses of the Knights, and bore themselves with less restraint than the infidel Turks had done.
Malta retains a slight suggestion of mediævalism in the garb of the Capuchin monks, whose tonsured heads and bare feet and roped waists look like a masquerade in their close proximity to the young officers in tweeds and varnished boots. ”

“ The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta—A brief sketch of the Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donné, subsequently Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days. ”

“ The capitulation of the fortress of Valetta, at Malta, was signed, two years after it had been taken from the knights by the French. It was agreed that the French troops should march out with the honors of war as far as the sea shore, where they should ground their arms, and then be embarked for Marseilles as prisoners of war until exchanged, and Malta has remained in the hands of the British. ”

“ The knights lived apart from the Maltese, and derived their principal revenues from estates of the Order in the richest countries of Europe. They accumulated wealth by war, or by privateering against the Turks and their allies. The African Arabs under Selim Pasha in 1551 ravaged Gozo, after an unsuccessful attempt on Malta, repulsed by cavalry under Upton, an English knight. ”

“ It lasted for nearly four months, and was characterized by unrelenting desperation on both sides, reviving again the bloody scenes which were enacted at Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes. The thirty-five years which had transpired since the Knights took possession of Malta had been largely devoted to strengthening their means of defense, and [Pg 291] in supplying their armory with the most effective death-dealing weapons. The present site of Valletta, it should be remembered, was then simply the bare promontory of Mount Sceberris. ”

“ Malta remains to-day a British colony, small in size—not much bigger than the Isle of Wight—but having a numerous population of people speaking their own language, and at the same time loyal to King George and the British Empire.
Malta is chiefly valuable as having a harbour, dockyard, and coal stores for our Mediterranean Fleet, and is therefore strongly fortified and garrisoned by British troops, both infantry and artillery. ”

“ A score of Knights were quite sufficient to man each galleon, aided by a hundred or thereabouts of the trained seamen of the island. The slaves at the oars were not depended upon to act as belligerents, nor were the few hands who managed the sails and the running gear of the vessels. The Maltese had long before signalized themselves for valor and skillful seamanship under their own commanders, by capturing the entire Venetian fleet, together with Andrea Dandolo, the admiral who commanded it. ”

“ After a brief Residence at Malta, the knights passed the rest of their time in their own countries, or only made a visit now and then to the island. While there, having but little military duty to perform, they beguiled their idleness by paying attentions to the fair.
There was one circle of society, however, into which they could not obtain currency. This was composed of a few families of the old Maltese nobility, natives of the island. These families, not being permitted to enroll any of their members in the order, affected to hold no intercourse with its chevaliers ”

“ Further, the absolute possession of Rhodes, and later of Malta, tended to give the Grand Masters the rank of independent Sovereigns, and the outside world regarded them as territorial potentates rather than as heads of an Order of aristocratic Knights.
But when the Order's existence was no longer threatened the Grand Master's position was assailed from many sides. No one, while reading the history of the Knights, can fail to be impressed by the numerous disturbances among them during the last 200 years of the Order. ”

“ Flies and beggars congregate here in almost equal numbers, forcing upon one's attention the puzzling problem of hunger and plenty existing in juxtaposition. Here and there are seen the spacious and elegant palaces formerly occupied by the rich, comfort-loving, luxurious Knights, which are now devoted to English government offices, as barracks, a public library, and law courts, or are improved for club purposes. It is a wealthy nation which holds sovereignty in Malta to-day, and her officials, civil or military, are lodged like princes. ”

“ This order took its name from John, patriarch of Alexandria, and from the place of their abode (Jerusalem.) These knights subsequently resided at Rhodes (between 1310 and 1523) . Being driven out by the Turks in 1523, they took up their abode in Malta, and were called “Knights of Malta.”
Knights of St. Lazare (2 syl.) , a religious and military order of Knights Hospitallers, established in the twelfth century, and confirmed by the pope in 1255. Their special mission was to take care of lepers. The name is derived from Lazarus, the beggar, who lay at the gate of Divês. ”

“ We were speaking of the peculiar order of the Knights of St. John. The natives of Malta furnished no members to the ranks of the brotherhood. They might and did serve effectively as men at arms, and joined in defensive and offensive warfare as common soldiers. A certain exclusiveness was always maintained by the fraternity as to admitting individuals to full membership, it being realized from the outset that an indiscriminate policy in this respect would tend to belittle the order and weaken its influence, as well as to introduce an undesirable element into its ranks. ”

“ The swords are broad, straight, and long, but require no particular description, as, by a vicissitude somewhat singular, they are in fact the very blades formerly wielded by the knights of Malta. These swords are sent from Malta to Bengazee, in the state of Tripoli, where they are exchanged for bullocks. They are afterwards carried across the desert to Bornou, thence to Haussa, and at last remounted at Kano, for the use of the inhabitants of almost all central Africa. The shields, covered with the hides of tame or wild animals, are generally plain and round. ”

“ Never surely had men deserved more nobly the homage of mankind. In all history there is no record of such a siege, of such a disproportion in the forces, of such a glorious outcome. The Knights of Malta live for ever among the heroes of all time.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] See an excellent account of the galleys and discipline of the Knights of St. John in Jurien de la Gravière, les Derniers Jours de la Marine à Rames, ch. ”

“ Their fleet was always small, six or seven galleys, but they became the dread of every Turkish vessel in the Mediterranean. Annually these red galleys, headed by their black capitana, swooped down on the Turkish shipping of the Levant and brought back many rich prizes. Malta grew steadily in wealth, and the island became full of Turkish slaves. The generals of the Maltese galleys, Strozzi, La Valette, Charles of Lorraine, and De Romegas, were far more terrible even than the great Corsairs, because of their determination to extirpate the infidel. ”

“ Such was the importance of Malta when the Knights took over the island in 1530. The first need was to put it into a state of defence. On the northeast of the island was the promontory of Mount Sceberras, flanked by the two fine harbours, the Marsa Muscetto and what was later known as the Grand Harbour. [3] The eastern side of the Grand Harbour was broken by three prominent peninsulas, later occupied by Fort Ricasoli, Fort St. Angelo, and Fort St. Michael. The only fortification in 1530 was the Fort of St. Angelo, with a few guns and very weak walls. ”