The Monks of War

by Desmond Seward

  A truce was arranged, but within a week it was broken. Then on 16 December Fra' Nicholas Fairfax ran the blockade in a brigantine, bringing all he could find – a cargo of wine and 100 Cretan arbalestiers.32 By now the city's walls were mounds of rubble, the brethren's remnant living in muddy holes where they sheltered from snow and sleet. On 17 December the Turks attacked, and again the day after. Powderless, weak from cold and hunger, reeling brethren still managed to hurl them back. Perhaps it was during this last ghastly struggle that a slain English brother's Greek mistress cut their two children's throats, donned his armour, took his sword and went to the trenches, where she fought until killed. But other Rhodians were deserting, despite summary executions. On 20 December the Grand Master asked for a fresh truce.

  Suleiman's terms were generous: in return for Rhodes, its archipelago with Bodrun and Kastelorizon, the brethren were free to leave with all their goods. The Turks would even supply ships. No churches would be turned into mosques and Rhodians would have freedom of worship, besides being dispensed from all taxes for five years. After the Grand Master had been entertained in the sultan's 'red pavilion', Suleiman, disdaining an escort, visited the ruined city, where Philippe showed him the pathetic barricades. Asked to enter Turkish service, he replied, 'a great prince would be dishonoured by employing such a renegade'. Later the sultan remarked how sorry he was to make 'that fine old man' leave his home.33

  On the night of 1 January 1523 a single trumpet sounded and then, to the besiegers' amazement, the brethren marched out in parade order, armour burnished, banners flying and drums beating. Then they embarked for Crete, with their most precious relics (the icon of Our Lady of Philermo and the hand of St John the Baptist), their archives and the key of the City of Rhodes. From the Grand Master's galley there flew at half-mast a banner of the Sorrowing Virgin, holding the dead body of her Son, and bearing the words Afflictis tu spes unica rebus – 'in all which afflicts us thou art our only hope'. Yet though the Emperor Charles V might comment 'nothing in the world was so well lost as Rhodes', the Hospitallers who sailed away into the snowy darkness knew that Jerusalem had fallen once again.

  VI

  THE LAST CRUSADE

  1523–1571

  Malta, Lepanto and the Counter-Reformation

  So they are seen to be a strange and bewildering breed, meeker than lambs, fiercer than lions. I do not know whether to call them monks or knights because though both names are correct, one lacks a monk's gentleness the other a knight's pugnacity.

  Bernard of Clairvaux, c. 1128, 'De Laude Novae Militiae'

  15

  THE BATTLE FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN

  It seemed unlikely that the Order of St John would survive, its homeless brethren wandering anxiously from refuge to refuge – from Messina to Cumae, from there to Civita Vecchia, thence to Viterbo, then Cornetto, and Villefranche, and finally to Nice. In 1524 the Emperor Charles V offered Malta and Tripoli, but the religion had not yet abandoned all hope of Rhodes. Then in 1527 Henry VIII announced that the English langue would become a separate brotherhood with the task of defending Calais, and the alarmed Grand Master came to England; Henry was upset that he had not been consulted about the Order's future. However, Fra' Philippe flattered him with the title 'Protector of the Religion', besides agreeing to retain the Turcopolier designate John Rawson1 as Irish prior because of his success 'in civilizing the natives', while in return the king allowed Fra' William Weston to be installed as Grand Prior of England.2 The Master held deep misgivings about the emperor's offer, which entailed swearing fealty, but, after his captain-general failed to hold Modon in the Morea despite its capture, was compelled to accept in 1531. Many years would elapse before the brethren were reconciled to Malta.

  This new kingdom, even smaller than Rhodes – seventeen miles by eight – was arid and treeless, its thin soil criss-crossed by dry stone walls and bare ravines. There were no rivers, not even streams. Gozo was no better, Comino and Cominetto hardly more than rocks. Most of the 20,000 inhabitants spoke 'a sort of Moorish' though their nobles were Aragonese or Sicilian. Neither the capital, Citta Notabile – modern Mdina – 'an old, deserted town', or the few mean villages held any charm for Aegean exiles. Inside Grand Harbour two rocky spits divided by a deep creek project from the eastern shore. On the northern one was a fishing village, Birgu, guarded by a ramshackle tower mounting three old cannon, Fort St Angelo. Later the creek would become the Harbour of the Galleys, the southern spit Senglea. A hilly peninsula, Monte Sceberras, separated Grand Harbour from another large bay, Marsamxett.3

  The convent was established in Birgu, protected by earthworks rather than ramparts. Auberges, installed in little houses, were for reasons of economy occupied only by young knights, who slept in dormitories. Commanders were expected to buy their own houses with revenues or prize money, though they must say office and hear Mass every day, dining 'in hall' four times a week. Outside, brethren retained the habit only for formal or conventual occasions, but their new dress was clerical enough – a white linen cross sewn on the black doublet and a white enamelled cross hanging from their necks. The make-shift convent's scattered buildings were uncloistered by a collachium, and whoring and duelling were not unknown. Serious crime earned incarceration in the peculiarly grim dungeons of St Anthony, or 'loss of the habit'. When an English brother murdered his Maltese mistress at the same time as a chaplain-novice was caught pilfering jewels from Our Lady of Philermo's shrine, the miserable pair were tied in sacks, rowed out to sea and thrown overboard. In 1532 a gentleman-in-waiting of the Prior of Rome killed a Provençal knight in a duel; uproar broke out, with a pitched battle in the streets between the French, Italian and Spanish langues. Nomadic life had unsettled the Order.

  In 1534 Grand Master de l'Isle Adam, who was over seventy-five and quite worn out, died, still homesick for Rhodes. He left a formidable fleet. Its basic warship continued to be the galley, best suited for a small navy's hit-and-run tactics. The great carrack of the Religion, bluff-bowed, four-masted and square-rigged, sometimes accompanied caravans, though her purpose was essentially defensive, to convey a valuable cargo or important embassy. Sailing from Candia to Messina in 1523, Fra' William Weston had commanded such a vessel, capable of carrying 500 men with provisions for six months, her hull lead-plated against gunfire, like the six-decked 1,700-ton Santa Anna, built for the Order in 1530. Other ships included brigantines – light, deckless, square-rigged two-masters useful as troop carriers – besides a swarm of feluccas and tartans, the saettas ('arrows') who nosed out prey for galleys. Despite vows of poverty, brethren were allowed to keep a portion of their prize money, the spoglio, though, except for one-fifth which could be willed away, their fortunes reverted to the Religion when they died. In its straitened circumstances the convent now sold knights the privilege of fitting out their own galleys.

  In 1535 the emperor attacked Tunis, recently seized by Khair ed-Din Barbarossa, Dey of Algiers; his ships were commanded by the redoubtable Andrea Doria, while the Religion sent four galleys, the great carrack and eighteen brigantines under its Vice-Admiral, Fra' Ottavio Bottigella, Prior of Pisa. Though garrisoned by 6,000 Turks, Goletta was quickly stormed, the knights leading the assault, while, as soon as Barbarossa marched out from Tunis, some brethren among his prisoners (led by Paolo Simeoni, the hero of Leros) overpowered their jailers and captured the citadel, whereupon the Moslem army outside the walls fled and Simeoni opened the gates to the imperial troops. The brethren entertained Charles to a victory banquet on board the Santa Anna; finding the splendour of their table équipage and air of magnificence unedifying, he muttered sarcastically, 'What do they do for God?' Bottigella broke in: 'They go before God without weapons or uniform, but in sandals, a plain habit and a hairshirt – they do not stand, they prostrate themselves. If your Majesty joined them you'd be given a choir stall, a black cowl and a rosary.'4

  The Reformation was beginning to sap the brethren's strength. In 1545, when the Margrave of Brandenburg turned Protestan
t, the Johanniterorden was lost. Ironically the indirect architect of the English langue's destruction, Clement VII, had once been Fra' Giuliano de' Medici, Grand Prior of Capua. In May 1540 the English priory was dissolved and its brethren pensioned off. Irish houses, most of which had been held by Prior Rawson himself, were also confiscated. Only the Scots priory remained, with its single commandery at Torphichen. The ten English brethren at Malta obtained funds from the common treasury, but English bailiwicks were not refilled as they fell vacant.5 In 1539 Fra' Thomas Dingley, commander of Baddesley, had been beheaded together with a Knight of Honour, Adrian Fortescue,6 for denying the Royal Supremacy; then in 1541 another professed brother, Fra' David Gunston, was hanged, drawn and quartered. Two more professed brethren, William Salisbury and John Forest, died in prison, providing ten martyrs in all. Their langue numbered fewer than fifty and Knights of Honour were even fewer, yet St John gave more lives for the papacy than any Order in England save the Carthusian. In Fuller's words, 'The Knights Hospitallers, being gentlemen and soldiers of ancient families and high spirits, would not be brought to present to Henry VIII such puling petitions and public recognitions of their errors as other Orders had done.'7

  Adrian Fortescue, born in the 1470s, became the protomartyr and patron of the English Knights of Malta. His daughter had married the tenth Earl of Kildare, 'Silken Thomas', whose uncles, James and John FitzGerald, were Knights of Honour, and it was probably they who recruited Sir Adrian into the Order in 1532. Two years later his son-in-law proclaimed himself King of Ireland, besieging Dublin; defeated, he was hanged in chains at Tyburn with his uncles. Such relatives cannot have endeared Fortescue to Henry VIII. However, when he was executed in 1539, it was for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy.

  His maxims reveal something of his personality.

  Above all things love God with all thy heart. Desire his honour more than the health of thine own soul . . . Repute not thyself better than any other person, be they never so great sinners, but rather judge and esteem yourself most simplest. Judge the best. Use much silence, but, when thou needs must, speak. Delight not in familiarity of persons unknown to thee. Be solitary as much as is convenient with thy estate . . . Pray often . . . Be pitiful to poor folk and help them to thy power, for then thou shalt greatly please God. Give fair language to all persons, and especially to the poor and needly . . . Continue in dread and ever have God before thine eyes . . . If by chance you fall into sin, despair not.

  An early seventeenth-century painting by an unknown artist, now in the Palazzo Malta at Rome, portrays Sir Adrian with his head miraculously reunited to his body – the sword still in his neck. He was beatified in 1970. His feastday is 9 July, the anniversary of his execution on Tower Hill.

  At Burton Lazars, 'a very fair hospital and collegiate church' with a Master and eight brethren, St Lazarus's statue and holy well still attracted pilgrims. In 1540 Dr Thomas Legh, 'of a very bulky and gross habit of body', an agent of Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, became its last Master; the Duke of Norfolk wrote: 'alas what pity it were that such a vicious man should have the governance of that honest house' – by 1544 Burton Lazars was dissolved.8 Its community had long ceased to be Knights. However, St Lazarus continued a shadowy existence in France and Piedmont.'

  Each year more korsanlar raided the Mediterranean coast, almost within sight of the Eternal City itself. Tripoli was in particular danger, and as late as 1551 St John considered transferring the entire convent to this cluster of oases, hemmed in by burning sand and stony hills. Torghut was now the most dreaded corsair and installed himself at Mahedia between Tunis and Tripoli, where he became such a nuisance that in 1550 the emperor sent an expedition, including 140 brethren, to burn out this wasp's nest. Torghut, 'Sword of Islam', swore vengeance. In July 1551 he cast anchor in the Marsamxett. Birgu was too formidable so he besieged Mdina, devastating the island. The Turcopolier, Fra' Nicholas Upton, optimistically appointed on the death of Henry VIII, rode out with thirty knights and 400 local horse to inflict casualties; the victory was marred by Upton, an immensely fat man, expiring from heat stroke. The corsair then set sail for Tripoli, where an inadequate garrison sweltered in a rickety castle. Its governor, the Marshal Gaspard de Vallier, fought bravely, but no relief, not even a messenger, came, and he surrendered. He returned to a grim welcome. There had been criticism in the convent of Grand Master d'Omedes, who gave way to senile rage, and the marshal was deprived of the habit and imprisoned; had not a courageous brother remonstrated, the infuriated old man would have beheaded him.10

  Yet caravans were increasingly successful. The Religion's naval hierarchy had taken on its final form with a Grand Admiral – sometimes represented by a Vice-Admiral – and a Captain-General of the Galleys. The Patrons, now called captains, were each assisted by a lieutenant and a ship-master, the latter a hired mariner. Moslem traders dreaded Strozzi and Romegas no less than Christian merchantmen feared Torghut. Leone Strozzi was appointed captain-general when young but left the Order to fight Charles V, after his father, a prisoner of the emperor, had committed suicide. A bitter, quarrelsome man, he had eventually to leave France, but Omedes refused to take back this stormy petrel, who set up as corsair, calling himself 'the Friend of God alone'. Strozzi's little fleet became a byword, for he was a superb seaman who feared nothing, and the religion gladly reinstated him when he next applied; but Fra' Leone resigned once again to wage a vendetta on the Medici, dying in an obscure raid on the Tuscan coast. In his Memoirs Benvenuto Cellini says of Strozzi, 'That excellent officer was one of the greatest men of the age in which he lived and at the same time one of the most unfortunate', while that fierce old soldier, Blaize de Montluc, described the Prior of Capua as 'one of the bravest men that these hundred years have put to sea'.11 The most famous of the Order's sailors was Mathurin d'Aux de Lescout Romegas, who never attacked an enemy ship without taking or sinking it, frequently engaging half a dozen Turkish vessels singlehanded. He was indestructible. On the night of 23 September 1555 a terrible storm struck Malta, sinking every ship in Grand Harbour. Next morning, knocking was heard from the keel of Romegas's galley, floating bottom up; planks were prised loose, whereupon out crawled the ship's monkey, followed by the redoubtable captain.12

  Omedes decreed that postulants must show four proofs of nobility, though the Order admitted aspirants with insufficient quarterings, the usual fault being a rich mother of plebeian origin, as Knights 'of Grace'; later, these inferior brethren were barred from promotion to bailiff, though many became Knights 'of Justice' (i.e. by right of birth) by papal dispensation. The Religion's sisters had also to produce proofs of nobility, Sigena in Aragon attracting the daughters of the greatest families in Spain, while a convent was established at Malta. Their red habit was replaced by a black one in mourning for Rhodes, though the white cross was still worn; at Sigena the cross was red and the coif white, nuns carrying silver sceptres in choir on great feasts.13 Confratres, or Knights of Honour, had to have the same qualifications as professed knights, but Donats formed two classes, the plebeian being indistinguishable from serving brethren, those of noble birth aspirant Knights of Justice. Even chaplains and servants-at-arms must never have worked with their hands or engaged in shop-keeping and usually belonged to the haute bourgeoisie or the obscurer ranks of the petite noblesse. Serving brethren were non-commissioned officers, 'demi-chevaliers', rather than orderlies, some of the bravest being promoted to Knights of Grace. Many brothers came to Malta as pages, no more than twelve years old, though they had to be fifteen before entering the novitiate, which lasted a year and was undergone in a special house supervised by the Novice Master. However, a good number made their professions at home, to a knight of the local priory.

  Fra' Claude de la Sengle became Grand Master in 1553 and devoted himself to fortifying the convent. The star-shaped Fort St Elmo was built on Monte Sceberras, commanding the entrances to Grand Harbour and the Marsamxett, though Fra' Claude concentrated his chief efforts on the peninsul
a opposite Birgu, Fort St Michel being strengthened and bastions erected; grateful brethren surnamed the promontory 'Senglea'. In 1557 Fra'Jean Parisot de la Valette was elected Grand Master. A devout Gascon from Quercy born in 1494, this tall nobleman, bearded like a patriarch, silver-haired and burnt brown by the sun, 'in temperament rather melancholy',14 possessed complete self-control, invariably speaking in a low voice. 'Fra' Jehan' had never left the convent since his solemn profession – normally knights who had completed four caravans (eight cruises) and spent three years at Malta could expect to retire to their commandery for a well-earned holiday. This was not the case with Valette, who sailed on caravan after caravan. In 1541 his galley, the St Jean, was taken by the Turks and he survived a year as a galley slave. Now that he was Master, duelling, gambling and whoring were rigorously punished and conventual observance enforced, brethren being required to hear Mass and say office daily, besides attending Matins and Vespers at the convent church on important feasts. Financial administration was thoroughly overhauled. But Fra' Jean's main reforms were defensive, as befitted a veteran of Rhodes; Birgu's buildings were strengthened while a boom of steel links 200 metres long was forged at Venice to bar the Harbour of the Galleys.

  Queen Mary had revived the English langue in 1557; Clerkenwell was restored under Grand Prior Thomas Tresham15 with ten commanderies, the three bailiffs – Turcopolier, Prior of Ireland and Bailiff of Egle – reappointed and the little auberge in Birgu reoccupied by five brethren. But Elizabeth became queen and by 1559 the langue had again broken up. In 1564 the last Scots prior, Fra' James Sandilands,16 turning Protestant, was given his commandery by the Crown and became Lord Torphichen. The only English brother left in Malta was Oliver Starkey, Lieutenant Turcopolier and commander of Quenington, a quiet scholarly man who lived alone in a house in Majjistral Street next to the deserted auberge. Later he was made Latin Secretary to La Valette, a post which entailed drafting all diplomatic correspondence.