(Vol. vii., p. 407.)
May I be allowed to inform your correspondent R. L. P. that he is in error,
when supposing that the English knights were deprived of their property by
Queen Elizabeth, as it was done by act of parliament in the year 1534, and
during the reign of Henry VIII.
For the information sought by your correspondent R. L. P., I would refer
him to the following extract taken from Sutherland's _History of the
Knights of Malta_, vol. ii. pp. 114, 115.:
"To increase the despondency of L'Isle Adam [the Grand Master of the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem], Henry VIII. of England having come to
an open rupture with the Pope, in consequence of the Pontiff's steady
refusal to countenance the divorcement of Catherine of Arragon his
queen, commenced a fierce and bloody persecution against all persons in
his dominions, who persisted in adhering to the Holy See. In these
circumstances, the Knights of St. John, who held themselves bound to
acknowledge the Pope as their superior at whatever hazard, did not long
escape his ire. The power of the Order, composed as it was of the
chivalry of the nation, while the Prior of London sat in parliament on
an equality with the first baron of the realm, for a time deterred him
from openly proscribing it; but at length his wrath burst forth in an
ungovernable flame. The knights Ingley, Adrian Forrest, Adrian
Fortescu, and Marmaduke Bohus, refusing to abjure their faith, perished
on the scaffold. Thomas Mytton and Edward Waldegrave died in a dungeon;
and Richard and James Bell, John Noel, and many others, abandoned their
country for ever, and sought an asylum at Malta[4], completely stripped
{629} of their possessions. In 1534, by an act of the legislature, the
Order of St. John was abolished in the King of England's dominions; and
such knights as survived the persecution, but who refused to stoop to
the conditions offered them, were thrown entirely on the charity of
their brethren at Malta. Henry offered Sir Wm. Weston, Lord Prior of
England, a pension of a thousand pounds a year; but that knight was so
overwhelmed with grief at the suppression of his Order, that he never
received a penny, but soon after died. Other knights, less scrupulous,
became pensioners of the crown."