Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/159

Rh which their pious founders little dreamed, and which were concealed from all such as embraced their profession on the ancient principles of the Order. Sir Walter, who was undoubtedly a careful portrayer of character, and one thoroughly well versed in the traditions of the age of which he wrote, would never have ventured upon such a trait as this had he not been well assured of its probability. All the concurrent testimony of the time points in that one direction, and thereby accounts for the apparent anomaly which left the one fraternity intact whilst the other was destroyed.

Nevertheless, whatever may have been, their crimes, whatever their vices, it is impossible to study this last sad scene in their eventful career without a strong feeling of pity for their cruel fate. However they may have degenerated in their later years, they had for two centuries borne their part nobly in the struggles of the East, and had earned for themselves a reputation which should have saved them from so disastrous an end. Within these pages their name will not again appear; from this time their brethren of the Hospital will be left to struggle on alone; but the ill-disciplined gallantry and the impetuous valour of the Templar, now that he is no more, may well be pleaded in palliation of those crimes which so unfortunately darkened his fair fame.