Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/113

Rh energetic measures to recruit the ranks of his fraternity, and to restore some semblance of credit to its exhausted treasury. Every preceptory in Europe was drained of its members, even novices being included in the conscription; vast sums of money were also remitted from the same sources, so that before long we find that with the re-vivifying power so peculiar to it, the Order was once more flourishing with as stately a grandeur as of old, still remaining, in conjunction with the Templars, the principal, nay, almost the only support of the kingdom.

Until this time it had been an invariable rule, in order to prevent a knight from yielding himself a prisoner, that no member so situated should, on any account, be ransomed by the public treasury. Now, however, when their numbers had become so suddenly and fearfully diminished, it was thought advisable to depart from a rigid adherence to this regulation. Chateauneuf therefore despatched an embassy to the sultan of Egypt, requesting permission to ransom all members of the fraternity then in his hands. The sultan, however, was sufficiently acute to see that if it were in the interest of the Hospitallers thus to purchase the freedom of their brethren, it must naturally be a wise policy on his part to refuse sanction to such a request. This he accordingly did, quoting to the envoys, in support of his decision, the regulation of their Order, which forbade any such traffic. The unfortunate captives were in consequence corn- polled to remain in slavery, whilst the envoys returned to Acre, mortified at the failure of their errand, on which much money had been uselessly spent in bribing the officers of the sultan’s court, only to receive in the end an ignominious rebuff. This refusal has been very generally attributed to the influence of the emperor Frederic, who was at the time in close affiance with the sultan, and whose persevering antipathy to the military Orders has already been touched upon.

Whilst thus striving to restore the fortunes and power of the institution, after the rude shock it had so lately received, Chateauneuf was not unmindful of its interior discipline. We may gather from several different facts that at this time the most rigid austerity was being once more enforced. In support of this statement we find a special license issuing from the Pope, in which permission is given to the brethren to enter into