THE DECLINE
1565-1789.
The history of the Order of St. John after the siege of Malta in
1565 is a sad story of gradual and inevitable decay. The magnificent
heroism of the Knights at the siege raised their fame throughout
Europe to the highest pitch, and the siege was rightly regarded as one
of the first decisive checks received by the Ottoman conquerors.
It is easy to imagine the anxious expectation of Europe in that summer
of 1565, when the heretic Queen of England ordered prayers to be
offered in the diocese of Salisbury for the safety of the Knights of
St. John.
The Battle of Lepanto, six years later, despite its lack of immediate
results, dissolved the spell which the invincibility of the Ottoman
fleet had woven, and in the seventeenth century the Turkish Empire
showed plainly that it had passed its meridian. Now that they were in
a weakened condition, the Ottomans, though never fully regarded as a
European Power, were more acceptable to the Christian States, most
of whom followed the example of Francis I. and concluded commercial
agreements and treaties with the Porte. The Turk was no longer
regarded as a being beyond human intercourse, and the Levant trade
was too valuable to be ignored by France, England, or the Italian
republics.
The Knights of Malta, with their attitude of truceless war against the
infidel, were thus becoming more and more of an anachronism as time went
on. They never concluded peace with the Sultan, and always regarded
the possessions of the infidel as fair and lawful booty. It was
obviously impossible for the Christian States trafficking in Turkish
waters to allow such a theory to go unchallenged, and we therefore
find the Order quarrelling with the Pope, Venice, England, and France,
as to their rights of seizure of Turkish goods in Christian vessels
or of Turkish vessels in Christian harbours. In 1582 this led to
a dispute with Gregory XIII., and in 1666 with Louis XIV., and the
Knights were forced to confine their attentions to Turkish vessels
trading between Turkish ports. England was destined later to incur
similar trouble with neutrals for a similar theory of international
law.
Had the Knights wished, their unending warfare against the Mohammedan
would have found a suitable enemy in the Barbary Corsairs, who were
a plague to Europe right to the year 1816; but though we find many a
struggle between Knight and Corsair in the seventeenth century, the
sloth and decadence that were mastering the Order made it gradually
neglect its duty in that direction. Whatever energies they had
were more profitably spent in the Levant; for the Knights, in their
seafaring expeditions, became little more than Corsairs themselves.
When it was necessary, as at the twenty-five years' siege of Candia
(1644-1669), the Knights displayed once more that magnificent heroism
that had made their name ring throughout the world. We find through
the seventeenth century many a display of bravery, but they became
more and more infrequent, till, in the eighteenth century, the Order's
squadron was used for little else but show voyages to different
Mediterranean ports. It was becoming too great a task even to raid
Turkish merchantmen.
After the siege it was determined to move the _chef-lieu_ of the Order
from Il Borgo to Mount Sceberras, and on March 28, 1566, the building
of Valetta was commenced. It was originally intended to bring the hill
down to a certain level and on the plateau thus constructed to build
the city. The fear of another Turkish invasion, however, did not allow
of the completion of this plan, with the result that Valetta consists
of a long, narrow plateau with slopes descending to Marso Muscetto on
one side and the Grand Harbour on the other. The difficulty of moving
about in this hilly town is commemorated in Byron's lines:
Adieu, ye joys of La Valette,
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat,
Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs,
How surely he who mounts you swears.
Each Grand Master strove to enlarge and strengthen the town's
fortifications, with the result that, in the eighteenth century,
Valetta was recognised as one of the greatest fortresses in the world.
The building and upkeep of these fortifications proved a great drain
upon the resources of the Order, and served but little purpose, except
that of ministering to the vanity of successive Grand Masters, who
desired to leave behind them memorials of themselves by bestowing
their name upon a new fort or outwork. The continual increase of
security and strength did not serve to improve the daring of the
Knights, but rather helped to engender a condition of sloth that was
destined to prove fatal.
This period is marked by constant tumults among the members of the
Order and by acts of defiance against the Grand Masters. Even in the
days of its glory there had been much jealousy and friction between
the different nationalities composing the Order. The three French
langues of Provence, Auvergne, and France, by acting together,
exercised a preponderant influence; they contributed half the revenues
of the Order, and were generally able to secure their object against
the opposition of the remaining Knights. The constant wars between
Spain and France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led to
constant troubles at Malta, and the Grand Masters throughout this
period had great and increasing difficulty in preserving the Order's
neutrality. Many Knights broke their Oath of Obedience by enlisting in
the French and Spanish armies. When this was discovered, the offended
King would make out that the Order had taken sides and would threaten
it with his vengeance. As the Order possessed many estates in both
kingdoms, the Grand Masters were in constant fear that these would be
encroached upon if an excuse could be found to justify such an
action. But Spain, while it possessed the kingdom of the Two Sicilies,
possessed an even surer method of punishing the Order. Malta,
despite all the care lavished upon it, has never been able to produce
sufficient corn for its population, and for this reason imported food
regularly from Sicily, where the Order had built granaries for storing
the corn while awaiting transshipment. As soon as the Knights offended
the King of Spain Malta was plunged into scarcity, and the unhappy
natives had often to suffer heavily because the Grand Master was a
Frenchman.
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; and the increasing greatness of
the French monarchy in the seventeenth century was reflected at 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. 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. For,
though the vow of chastity was insisted on to the end as a condition
of entrance into the Order, in practice, by the eighteenth century, it
had become entirely ineffective.
At first the Knights made but slight inroads on the privileges of
the natives, curtailing them only so far as was necessary for their
military security, and imposing but few taxes upon them. As the island
grew rich with the wealth brought in by the raids of the Knights, the
condition of the Maltese also improved, and while the Order flourished
it was not an excessive burden to the natives. But when the
Knights started upon their decline the condition of the islanders
deteriorated. They had always suffered from the occasional scarcity
due to the ill-humour of the Spanish King or the natural failure of
the Sicilian harvest. But now the taxes became heavier and heavier,
and the free services of the Maltese, either as labourers in the
constant fortifying of Valetta, or as soldiers in the garrison, or
as sailors in the fleet, were more and more rigorously exacted. Many
natives lost their lives while fighting with the Order, and from the
generous behaviour of Grand Masters to the native women and
children, which we find mentioned in chronicles, we can see there was
occasionally acute distress in the island.
In its degeneracy the Order treated the Maltese with boundless
contempt, as might be expected from spoiled members of the great
European aristocracies towards petty islanders. One of the most
intolerable forms of the arrogance of the Knights during their last
years at Malta was their disgusting behaviour towards the womenfolk
of the natives; complaint was dangerous and futile. When the British
captured the island in October, 1800, the mere proposal to restore
the Order raised such a storm of protest from the Maltese as to prove
conclusively to all how hated had been the domination of the Knights.
The splendour of the Knights at the height of their greatness can be
judged from the many magnificent buildings they constructed in the
island. The Church of St. John in particular received such careful and
lavish attention that it became one of the most splendid churches in
Christendom, being especially famous for its wonderful mosaic floor.
The "auberges" of the various langues were also built in the most
magnificent manner, and the palace of the Grand Master at Valetta was
a sumptuous building worthy of a king.
The decline of the Order brought with it a diminution of respect
from the nations of Europe, and we read of constant and increasing
interference from outside in the affairs of the Order. The greatest
offender was the Pope, who had always enjoyed a nominal headship over
the Order, and who had been kept at a distance with difficulty even
while the Knights had been at Rhodes. The creation of a bishopric at
Malta, the introduction of the Inquisition, and then of the
Jesuits, had led to constant quarrels between the Knights and the
ecclesiastics, and from these had arisen the evil practice of appeals
to the Curia. In the seventeenth century the Popes regarded the
valuable patronage of the langue of Italy as in their gift, and the
Grand Masters were powerless to protect their defrauded Knights. The
depths of the Order's humiliation were shown by the demand of Pope
Urban XIII., in 1642, that the Order's galleys should help him fight
the League of Italian Princes which had been formed to resist his
invasion of Parma. Lascaris, the Grand Master, was unable to refuse,
and for the first time the famous red galleys were seen arrayed
against Christian neighbours.
The operations of the Knights in the seventeenth century were mainly
carried out in alliance with the Venetians, who were the one Power
who continued to resist the Turk at sea. They were still lords of
the great island of Crete, which lay athwart the trade routes of the
Levant, and only by its conquest would the Ottoman control of the
Eastern Mediterranean be complete. In 1645 Ibrahim I. declared war on
Venice and besieged Candia; but the attack was so remiss that success
seemed impossible. 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. Year after year volunteers
flocked to Candia to save the last Christian outpost in the Levant,
but it was all fruitless, and in 1669 the island, with the exception
of three ports, was surrendered to the Turks--their last important
conquest in Europe, and the final term of their advance.
The seventeenth century saw the gradual displacement of galleys in
favour of sailing ships. The long voyages across the Atlantic and to
the East had given great impetus to the development of the sailing
vessel; its increasing use, and the entrance of England and Holland
into the Mediterranean, had shown the Powers of that sea its
superiority over the galley; finally, slaves were becoming more
difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities, while criminals had
never been a satisfactory source of supply. The Knights were slow in
changing the oar for the sail, and to the end kept a small squadron of
galleys as well as men-of-war. When Napoleon captured the island, in
1798, he found there two men-of-war, one frigate, and four galleys.
The pride and the renown of the Order had always demanded a salute
from the warships of other nations, and even the mighty Louis XIV.
yielded this privilege to the little squadron. There is extant an
interesting correspondence between Charles II. and the Grand Master,
Nicholas Cottoner, on the subject of salutes. A squadron of the
British Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Narborough, had refused to
salute Valetta unless assured of a response from the guns of the
fortress--a mark of respect that the Order was unwilling to pay to the
British flag. The Grand Master had also ventured to doubt Narborough's
rank as Admiral, but the affair was amicably settled to the
satisfaction of all.
Though the decline of the Order was obvious to Europe throughout the
eighteenth century, and the value of such a fortress as Malta to a
Mediterranean Power apparent to all, yet there is little definite
proof of any desire to wrest the island from the Knights. Of all the
nations round the Mediterranean, France alone could be said not to be
in a state of decay; Venice, Genoa, and Turkey were becoming more and
more feeble at sea, and there was little fear of an attack on Malta
from any of them; and though Spain paid great attention to her fleet
in the second part of the eighteenth century, there was little reason
to fear her aggression. Britain was acquiring greater and greater
interests in the Mediterranean, but most of her attentions were
directed to Spain and France. While the Knights kept their neutrality,
however decadent and feeble they might be, there was little fear of
their being disturbed. Europe still respected the relics of a glorious
past of six centuries of unceasing warfare against the Moslem; but the
moment that past with its survivals became itself anathema the Knights
and their organisation would collapse at once. The French Revolution
meant death to the Knights of the Order of St. John as well as to
other bodies of aristocrats.