Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/179

Rh This was not the only incident which occurred to disturb the serenity of Gown’s administration. The due governance of the dignitaries and principal officers of the institution, residing, as so many of them did, far away from his own immediate supervision, became a matter of ever-increasing difficulty. Possessed as they were of considerable patronage and with control over large sources of wealth, they were enabled to ingratiate themselves with the higher powers in the various countries where they were residing. Finding themselves, for this reason, protected and supported by the monarch, they were able to bid defiance to the authority of the Grand-Master. Gown became so discouraged and so deeply hurt at the position in which he found himself, that he twice petitioned the Pope to allow him to resign his office. On the first occasion he was induced by the pontiff, after much persuasion, to retain his dignity, but on the second application his request was complied with. Meanwhile, however, he had died of apoplexy in the latter part of the year 1353, and was succeeded by Peter de Cornillan, the grand-prior of St. Gilles.

At this time there resided at the papal court of Avignon, as ambassador from Rhodes, a knight of the name of Heredia. This envoy had found means to ingratiate himself with the pontiff to such an extent that he became his principal confidant and councillor in all affairs of state. By the influence, if not by the direct nomination of the Pope, he had been appointed prior, both of Castile and St. Gilles, as well as castellan of Emposta, dignities which elevated him far above any of his confrères then resident in Europe. To be the recipient of such unblushing favouritism naturally rendered him very unpopular with the members of his Order, who felt that he was monopolizing patronage to which they were justly entitled. He was a man of a naturally ambitious turn of mind, and was much chagrined at feeling that the dislike of the fraternity was such as to prevent his ever reaching the object of his aspirations—the Grand-Mastership at Rhodes. Under these circumstances the idea suggested itself to his scheming brain, that if he could procure the removal of the convent from that island he might himself be nominated, by his friend the Pope, to supreme rule therein under the title of Bailiff. He felt that were he once