Knights of Malta, 1523 1798 by R. Cohen
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R. Cohen >> Knights of Malta, 1523 1798
KNIGHTS OF MALTA
1523-1798
BY R. COHEN LATE SCHOLAR OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD
1920
THE LOTHIAN PRIZE ESSAY FOR 1920 (UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
SETTLEMENT AT MALTA, 1523-1565
Departure from Rhodes--Residence in Italy--Settlement in
Malta, 1530--Condition of the Mediterranean--The
corsairs--Turkey--Fortification of Malta--Loss of English
"Langue"--Enterprises of the Order--Solyman decides to attack Malta
CHAPTER II
THE SIEGE OF MALTA, 1565
Preparations--Size of opposing forces--Siege of St. Elmo--Arrival of
Dragut--Capture of St. Elmo, June 23--Death of Dragut--Siege of main
fortresses--Great losses on both sides--Arrival of reinforcements from
Sicily--Turks evacuate island
CHAPTER III
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN
Classes in the Order--Langues--Chapter-General--Councils--Grand
Master--Bishop of Malta--Finances--Justice--Criminal Council--Court of
Egard--The Hospital
CHAPTER IV
THE DECLINE, 1565-1789
Decadence of Turkey--Knights become anachronism--Valetta
built--Fortifying the island--Disturbances in the Order--Quarrels
with different Powers--Treatment of the Maltese--Buildings in
Valetta--Papal interference--Naval operations--Independence of the
Order
CHAPTER V
THE FALL, 1789-1798
Attacks on the Order during the French Revolution--French
estates confiscated--Poverty of the Order--Tsar Paul I.--French
schemes--Napoleon appears off Malta--Condition of the island--Its
capture--Dispersion of the Order
APPENDIX I.
APPENDIX II.
BOOKS CONSULTED
NOTE ON THE AUTHORITIES
KNIGHTS OF MALTA
CHAPTER I
SETTLEMENT AT MALTA 1523-1565.
On January 1, 1523, a fleet of fifty vessels put out from the harbour
at Rhodes for an unknown destination in the West. On board were the
shattered remnants of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, accompanied
by 4,000 Rhodians, who preferred the Knights and destitution to
security under the rule of the Sultan Solyman. The little fleet was
in a sad and piteous condition. Many of those on board were wounded;
all--Knights and Rhodians alike--were in a state of extreme poverty.
For six months they had resisted the full might of the Ottoman Empire
under its greatest Sultan, Solyman the Magnificent; Europe had looked
on in amazed admiration, but had not ventured to move to its rescue.
Now they were leaving the home their Order had possessed for 212
years, and were sailing out to beg from Christendom another station
from which to attack the infidel once again.
The Knights of Rhodes--as they were called at the time--were the
only real survivors of the militant Order of Chivalry. Two centuries
earlier their great rivals, the Templars, had been dissolved, and a
large part of their endowments handed over to the Hospitallers. The
great secret of the long and enduring success of the Order of St. John
was their capacity for adapting themselves to the changing needs of
the times. The final expulsion of the Christians from Syria had left
the Templars idle and helpless, and the loss of the outlets for their
energy soon brought corruption and decay with the swift consequence of
dissolution. All through the history of the great Orders we find
the Kings of Europe on the lookout for a chance to seize their
possessions: any excuse or pretext is used, sometimes most
shamelessly. An Order of Knighthood that failed to perform the duties
for which it was founded was soon overtaken by disaster.
The Hospitallers had realised, as early as 1300, that their former
role of mounted Knights fighting on land was gone for ever. From their
seizure of Rhodes, in 1310, they became predominantly seamen, whose
flag, with its eight-pointed cross, struck terror into every infidel
heart. Nothing but a combination of Christian monarchs could cope with
the superiority of the Turk on land: by sea he was still vulnerable.
The Knights took up their new part with all their old energy and
determination: it is but typical that henceforward we never hear of
the "Knights" of Malta fighting as cavalry.
After various adventures the fleet found itself united at Messina,
whence it proceeded to Baiae. The election to the papacy of the
Cardinal de' Medici--one of their own Order--as Clement VII., gave the
Knights a powerful protector. He assigned Viterbo as a residence for
the Order till a permanent home had been discovered.
Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Grand Master of the Order, was faced with
many difficulties. Remembering the fate of the Templars, he was afraid
that the Order would disperse, and its present helpless condition was
surely tending to disintegration. At this time the war between Charles
V. and Francis I. was at its height, and the quarrel between France
and Spain was reflected within the ranks of the Hospitallers. As the
French and Spanish Knights formed the greater part of the members, the
unity of the Order was threatened by the quarrels between them
that arose out of national sentiment. The Reformation was rapidly
spreading, and was likely to prove dangerous to the lands of the Order
in Northern Europe, and various monarchs were meditating the seizure
of the Hospitallers' estates now that the Order was temporarily
without a justification for its existence.
The Grand Master showed himself a skilful diplomat, as well as a brave
soldier. From 1523 to 1530 the Order remained without a home, while
L'Isle Adam visited the different European courts to stay the grasping
hands of the various Kings. All this time negotiations were proceeding
between Charles V. and the Knights for the cession of Malta. The
harsh conditions which the Emperor insisted upon in his offer made
the Knights reluctant to accept, while his preoccupation with the war
against France made negotiations difficult. Further, the cause of
the Knights had been damaged when the Pope--who had acted as their
intercessor--joined the ranks of Charles's enemies, and Clement
VII. was now a prisoner in the Emperor's hands. In March, 1530, an
agreement was finally arrived at, which was the most favourable
the Emperor would grant. One harassing burden the Knights could not
escape: Charles insisted that Tripoli must go with Malta, a gift which
meant a useless drain upon their weak resources, and which fell
in 1551 to Dragut-Reis and the Turkish forces at the first serious
attack. L'Isle Adam had insisted that he could not take the island
over as a feudatory to the King of Spain, as that was contrary to the
fundamental idea of the Order--its impartiality in its relations to
all the Christian Powers. The only condition of service, therefore,
that was made was nominal: the Grand Master henceforth was to send, on
All Souls' Day, a falcon to the Viceroy of Sicily as a token of feudal
sub-mission.[1]
This was a splendid bargain for the Emperor. Malta had hitherto been
worthless to him, but henceforth it became one of the finest bulwarks
of his dominions. To understand the supreme value of the island, we
must take a glance at sea power in the Mediterranean in the sixteenth
century.
The beginning of the century had seen the growth of the Corsairs'
strength to a most alarming extent. While all the European Powers were
fighting among themselves, these Barbary Corsairs (as they were later
called) had become the terror of the Western Mediterranean. Spain, by
its unrelenting persecution of the Moriscoes, following on centuries
of bitter conflict between Christian and Mussulman, had earned the
undying hatred of the dwellers on the North African coast, many of
whom were the children of the expelled Moors. These Moors had wasted
their energy in desultory warfare up to the beginning of the sixteenth
century, when the genius of the two brothers, Uruj and Khair-ed-Din
Barbarossa, had organised them into the pirate State of Algiers, which
was to be a thorn in the side of Christendom for over three centuries.
The Corsairs were not content with merely attacking ships at sea: they
made raids on the Spanish, Italian, and Sicilian sea-boards, burning
and looting for many miles inland. The inhabitants of these parts were
driven off as captives to fill the bagnios of Algiers, Tunis, Bizerta,
and other North African towns. These prisoners were used as galley
slaves, and the life of a galley slave was generally so short that
there was no difficulty of disposing of all the captives that could
be seized. Cupidity, allied with fanaticism, gave this state of war a
cruelty beyond conception: both sides displayed such undaunted courage
and such fierce personal hatred as to make men wonder, even in
that hard and bitter century. Those low-lying galleys, which were
independent of the wind, were ideal pirates' craft in the gentle
Mediterranean summer, and many a slumbering Spanish or Italian village
would be startled into terror by their sudden approach. The audacity
of their methods is illustrated by the raid on Fundi in 1534,
when Barbarossa swooped down on that town simply to seize Giulia
Gonzaga--reputed the loveliest woman in Italy--for the Sultan's harem:
the fair Duchess of Trajetto hardly escaped in her nightdress.
The Eastern Mediterranean, after the capture of Rhodes, was almost
entirely a Turkish preserve. Though Venice at this period still kept
her hold on Cyprus and Crete, the former of which was not yielded by
the Republic till 1573 and the latter till 1669, yet the Treaty of
Constantinople in 1479 had definitely reduced the position of Venice
in the Levant from an independent Power to a tolerated ally. The
growth of the Ottoman sea power had been alarming enough, but it
became a distinct menace to the Christian Powers of the Mediterranean
when the Corsair chiefs of the North African coast became Turkish
vassals. All the African coast from Morocco to Suez, the coast of Asia
Minor, and the European coast from the Bosphorus to Albania (with the
exception of a few islands), were in Turkish hands. From 1475, with
the conquest of the Crimea, the Black Sea had become a Turkish lake,
and under Solyman the Magnificent the Turks had become masters of Aden
and the Red Sea, with a strong influence along the Arabian and Persian
coasts.
Malta, then as always, was of supreme strategic importance for the
domination of the Mediterranean. It lay right in the centre of the
narrow channel connecting the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, and,
in the hands of such a small but splendidly efficient band of sailors
as the Knights Hospitallers, was sure to become a source of vexation
to the mighty Turkish Empire. Though not so convenient as Rhodes for
attacking Turkish merchant shipping, yet it had one advantage, in that
it lay close to Christian shores and could easily be succoured in the
hour of need. A small, highly defensible island, strengthened by all
the resources of engineering, it could, and did, become one of
the most invulnerable fortresses in the world, and of the utmost
importance for the control of the Mediterranean.
Charles V., therefore, made a splendid bargain when he handed over
the neglected island to the Order of St. John, even had the gift been
unconditional. The Knights rendered him valuable service by sharing in
the several expeditions the Spaniards undertook to the African coast.
Barbarossa, by the capture of Tunis from the old Hafside dynasty in
1534, threatened the important channel between Sicily and Africa,
which it was essential for Charles V. to keep open. In the next year,
therefore, the Emperor attacked the town and conquered it without
much difficulty. The victory was unfortunately stained by the inhuman
excesses of the Imperial troops, and Charles's hold on Tunis was
very short-lived. In 1541 came the miserable fiasco of the Spanish
expedition to Algiers. Here, also, the Knights behaved with their
usual bravery; but Charles's disregard of the advice of his Admiral,
Andrea Doria, resulted in the failure of the whole expedition. In
these and other expeditions the Knights took part: some--like the
attack in 1550 on Mehedia[2]--were successful, others--like the siege
of the Isle of Jerbah in 1559--ended in disaster.
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. The
intention of the Knights, even from the beginning, was to make the
main peninsula, Mount Sceberras, the seat of their "Convent"; but
as that would mean the leveling of the whole promontory, a task
of enormous expense and difficulty, and as immediate defence was
necessary, they decided to occupy the Peninsula of St. Angelo for the
present. Wedged between St. Angelo and the mainland there was a
small town, "Il Borgo": this, for the present, the Knights made their
headquarters, drawing a line of entrenchments across the neck of the
promontory to guard it from the neighboring heights.
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 Citta 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. They recommended strengthening Il Borgo and St. Angelo, and
pointed out that the whole promontory was commanded by St. Julian, the
southernmost of the three projections into the Grand Harbour. Further,
as it was necessary to command the entrances both of Marsa Muscetto
and of the Grand Harbour, the tip, at least, of Mount Sceberras should
be occupied, as the finances of the Order would not allow of anything
further being done. These recommendations were carried out, and Fort
St. Michael was built on St. Julian and Fort St. Elmo on the end
of Mount Sceberras. A few years later the Grand Master de la Sangle
supplied the obvious deficiencies of St. Julian by enclosing it on the
west and the south by a bastioned rampart.
Now the commitments of the Order in Tripoli proved a constant drain on
its resources. Time after time Charles V. was appealed to for help in
holding Tripoli, which was very difficult to fortify because of the
sandy nature of the soil, and difficult to succour because of its
distance from Malta. But Charles V. was at once reluctant to let go
his grip of any parts of the African coast, and too much absorbed by
his own troubles to be able to render much help, however much he might
have desired to do so. It was obvious that the first determined attack
of the Turks would mean the fall of Tripoli. In 1551, after putting in
an appearance off Malta, Dragut, the successor of Barbarossa, sailed
to Tripoli and easily captured the place owing to the disaffection of
the mercenary troops in the garrison.
During this period, 1523-1565, the Order lost for ever one of the
eight national divisions or "langues." Henry VIII., soon after the
fall of Rhodes, had shown himself unfriendly to the interests of the
Order, but had been appeased by a visit of L'Isle Adam in February,
1528.[4] But Henry's proceedings against the Pope and the monasteries
inevitably involved the Order of St. John, which had large possessions
both in England and in Ireland. The Grand Priory of England was
situated at Clerkenwell, and the Grand Prior held the position in the
House of Lords of the connecting link between the Lords Spiritual and
the Barons, coming after the former in rank and before the latter.
There is extant a letter written by Henry VIII. in 1538 to the Grand
Master, Juan d'Omedes, wherein conditions are laid down for the
maintenance of the Order in England. The two main stipulations were,
that any Englishman admitted into the Order must take an oath of
allegiance to the King, and that no member in England must in any way
recognise the jurisdiction or authority of the Pope. Henry was well
aware that the Knights could never consent to terms such as these,
which were the negation of the fundamental principle of international
neutrality of their Order. Henry's offers were refused, and the
English langue, which had a brilliant record in the Order, perished.
Many of the Knights fled to Malta; others were executed for refusing
obedience to the Act of Supremacy. A general confiscation of their
property took place, and in April, 1540, an Act of Parliament was
passed vesting all the property of the Order in the Crown, and setting
aside from the revenues of such properties certain pensions to be
paid to the Lord Prior and other members. The Grand Prior, Sir William
Weston, died soon after, before he could enjoy his pension of L1,000 a
year.
With the accession of Mary, in 1553, negotiations were at once opened
with the Knights for the restoration of the English langue, and during
her reign the old Order was restored once again, though the lands
were not returned. But Elizabeth, in the first year of her reign,
suppressed the Knights for good and all.
In North Africa, Philip II., on his accession, had taken over the
troubles of his father, and after the Corsairs had failed in their
attack on the Spanish ports of Oran and Mazarquivir, he carried the
war once more into the enemy's territory. Finding themselves isolated,
they appealed to their overlord, the aged Sultan Solyman, to help them
against Spain.
The most important seaman on the Turkish side was Dragut--Pasha
of Tripoli since 1551--who had been the greatest of Barbarossa's
lieutenants. In 1540 Dragut had been surprised and captured by
Giannetin Doria, the nephew of the great Admiral, and had served four
years chained to the bench of a Genoese galley. One of the last acts
of Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa had been to ransom his follower in the
port of Genoa, in 1544, for 3,000 crowns, an arrangement of which the
Genoese afterwards sorely repented. Dragut had the ear of the Sultan
when the appeal for help came from Africa, and his suggestion was to
attempt the capture of Malta. It had become more and more certain
that the Turks would not leave the island unassailed. Not only did the
Knights lend splendid help to the various Christian Powers, but they
were in themselves a formidable foe. 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. The state of war between the
Order and the Mussulman was recognised by all as something unique;
neither side dreamt of a peace or a truce, and only once in the
history of the Order does there seem to have been the suggestion of
an agreement. The fanaticism which actuated the Knights in their
determination to destroy the infidel made them formidable enemies,
despite their fewness in number. Solyman the Magnificent must have
often repented of his clemency in letting the Knights leave Rhodes
alive, and in 1564 he decided it would be a fitting end to his reign
if he could destroy the worst pest of the Mediterranean by capturing
Malta and annihilating the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Appendix I.]
[Footnote 2: The chroniclers, such as Vertot, often call this town,
which was the ancient Adrumetum, "Africa," and it is therefore
necessary to watch their use of that word carefully.]
[Footnote 3: See map on p. 19.]
[Footnote 4: This visit caused a great sensation in Europe, as De
L'Isle Adam crossed the Alps in the depth of winter, and this haste to
pay his respects touched the King of England.]
CHAPTER II
THE SIEGE OF MALTA
1565.
The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in 1565 was Jean Parisot de
la Valette. Born in 1494 of a noble family in Quercy, he had been
a Knight of St. John all his life, and forty-three years before had
distinguished himself at the siege of Rhodes. He had never left
his post at the "Convent" except to go on his "caravans,"[1] as the
cruises in the galleys were named. As a commander of the galleys of
the "Religion," as the Order called itself, he had won a name that
stood conspicuous in that age of great sea captains; and in 1557, on
the death of the Grand Master de la Sangle, the Knights, mindful of
the attack that was sure to come, elected La Valette to the vacant
office. No better man could be found even in the ranks of the Order.
Passionately religious, devoted body and soul to his Order and faith,
Jean de la Valette was prepared to suffer all to the death rather than
yield a foot to the hated infidel. Unsparing of himself, he demanded
utter sacrifice from his subordinates, and his cold, unflinching
severity would brook no hesitation.
Both sides spent the winter and spring of 1565 in preparations for
the great attack. The Grand Master sent a message to all the Powers
of Europe; but Philip II., who sent him some troops, and the Pope,
who sent him 10,000 crowns, alone responded to his appeal. The message
sent to the various commanderies[2] throughout Europe brought the
Knights in haste to the defence of their beloved Convent. The Maltese
Militia was organised and drilled and proved of great value in the
siege, and even 500 galley slaves were released on promise of faithful
service. Altogether La Valette seems to have had at his disposal about
9,000 men (though the authorities differ slightly as to the exact
figures). Of these over 600 were Knights with their attendants, about
1,200 were hired troops, about 1,000 were volunteers, chiefly from
Italy, and the remainder Maltese Militia and galley slaves.
The Turkish fleet at the beginning consisted of 180 vessels, of which
130 were galleys; and the troops on board consisted of about 30,000
men, of whom 6,000 belonged to the select troops of the Janissaries.
Twice during the siege the Ottomans received reinforcements: first,
Dragut himself with 13 galleys and 1,600 men, and later, Hassan,
Viceroy of Algiers and son of Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa, with 2,500
Corsairs. Altogether the Ottoman forces at the maximum, inclusive of
sailors, must have exceeded 40,000 men. A small reinforcement of 700
men, of whom 42 were Knights, contrived to steal through the Turkish
lines on June 29; but that was all the help the garrison received
before September.
[Illustration: PLAN TO ILLUSTRATE SIEGE OF MALTA 1565]
The Turkish army was under the command of Mustapha Pasha, and the
fleet under that of Piali. Both had received orders not to take any
steps without the advice of Dragut. It would have been far better for the
Turkish cause had the Corsair been in supreme command, for his skill
as an artilleryman was famous. But there had always been trouble in
the Ottoman fleet when a Corsair was in command. The proud Turkish
generals were unwilling to be under the orders of men who were of
doubtful antecedents, and whom they despised in their hearts as
low-born robbers. Even Barbarossa, acknowledged by all to be the
greatest seaman in the Turkish Empire, could not enforce strict
obedience in the campaign of Prevesa in 1538. The Grand Vizier Ibrahim
had seen the folly of putting generals in command of fleets, and had
therefore secured the promotion of Barbarossa: but Ibrahim was now
dead, and Solyman, bereft of his wise counsel, made a compromise.
On May 18 the Turkish fleet was sighted off the island, and almost
immediately the army disembarked, partly at Marsa Scirocco, and partly
at St. Thomas's Bay. The first misfortune was the non-appearance
of Dragut at the rendezvous, and in his absence Mustapha and Piali
decided to attack St. Elmo and to leave to Dragut the responsibility
of sanctioning the operations or breaking them off. Batteries were
erected on Mount Sceberras, in which ten 80-pounders were brought into
action, besides a huge basilisk throwing balls of 160 pounds, and two
60-pounder _coulevrines_. The Turks at the height of their power put
great faith in novel and massive artillery, which, though clumsy,
and at times more dangerous to their own gunners than the enemy, was
terribly effective at the short distance it was placed from St. Elmo.
The walls of the fortress soon began to crumble under the continuous
bombardment, and the garrison, which had been increased to 120
Knights and two companies of Spanish infantry, soon felt the position
untenable without reinforcements. As an attack had not yet been
delivered La Valette was incensed at the appeal for help and offered
to go himself to hold the fort; his council dissuaded him from doing
so, and he permitted 50 Knights and 200 Spanish troops to cross to St.
Elmo. It was of the utmost importance that St. Elmo should be held to
the last minute. Not only did it delay the attack on the main forts,
but Don Garcia de Toledo, the Viceroy of Sicily, had made it a
condition in his arrangements with the Grand Master, before the siege,
that St. Elmo must be held if the reinforcements from Sicily were to
be sent.