Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/256

230 bore but a very slender proportion to the cost incurred in fitting out the expedition.

From the fact that no effort was made on the part of the Rhodian navy to prevent this incursion, or to attack the Turkish fleet, it may be assumed that they were at the time cruising elsewhere. This seems the more probable, because immediately afterwards, the council made a decree that a galley, fully manned and armed, and with forty knights always ready to embark in her, should be held constantly in readiness in the harbour of Rhodes, to oppose any sudden and unforeseen invasion. At the same time another fort was built on the southern extremity of the bay of Malona, to add to the protection already afforded on the north side by the castle of Archangelos.

It had been a leading principle in the diplomacy of the fraternity to maintain, as far as possible, peaceable relations with one of its Moslem neighbours when prosecuting war with the other. They were now dismayed to find that at the time when a fierce attack might at any moment be looked for from Mahomet and the Ottoman army, a cause of quarrel was springing up with the sultan of Egypt, with whom they were most anxious to keep on friendly terms. This dissension arose from a disputed succession to the crown of Cyprus, which John III. had, at his death, left to his daughter Charlotte, widow of John of Portugal, and afterwards married to Louis of Savoy. He had also an illegitimate son called James, whose ambitious spirit led him to endeavour to wrest the throne from his sister Charlotte. Louis of Savoy, however, who was ruling over the island in his wife’s name, drove the pretender away, and James thereupon took refuge with the sultan of Egypt. The king of Cyprus had of late years always paid an annual tribute to this potentate, and James, in order to enlist the interests of the sultan on his side, promised to double the amount if he were placed on his sister’s throne. Charlotte, on the other hand, threw herself on the protection of the knights of Rhodes, amongst whom the justice of her cause, and, as some say, the beauty of her person, raised for her many warm partisans. An embassy was despatched to the sultan of Egypt on the subject of James’s pretensions. That ruler, who was at the moment unwilling