Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/430

398 the sea in sacks. None of the other historians, however, make such a statement, nor is it confirmed by the criminal records of the Order. There it appears that four French knights, named respectively do Piscie, Regnault, d’Orleans, and de Vareques were deprived of their habits in the month of May, 1533, the two first for having killed four men in a galley, and the other two for being ringleaders in a tumult, and causing the death of the above four men. As, however, it was the custom of the fraternity, when capital punishment was deemed advisable, to deprive the culprit of his habit, and then to hand him over to the civil tribunal to be dealt with as an ordinary malefactor, it is possible that in the present instance that step was taken. In any case, the punishment inificted seems to have had the required effect of restoring peace to the convent.

It was amid scenes such as these that L’Isle Adam brought his long and glorious life to a close. A violent fever eventually induced that end which he had so often braved, but always escaped, at the hand of the Moslem. On the 22nd August, 1534, he expired, aged upwards of seventy years, to the intense grief of the whole community. Never had the fraternity sustained so signal a loss, and never was a chief more sincerely mourned. The heroism and grandeur of his character were such that the clouds of adversity only set it forth in greater lustre. The gallant defence of Rhodes, although ending in the worst disaster that had occurred since the loss of Jerusalem, has been so imperishably connected with him, that he has become more distinguished by his conduct during that calamitous epoch than many a successful leader. The skill in diplomacy which gained for his convent its new home in Malta has associated him inseparably with that island. Amid the long list of Grand- Masters whose names are written on the page of history, none have excelled, and but few have equalled, John Villiers de L’Isle Adam.