Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/444

412 in exacting the payment of tithes, was arrogating to himself a privilege such as had never been assumed by the pontiffs of Rome, even in the days of their most dictatorial authority. One of the great sources of revenue enjoyed by the treasury was the payment of the first year’s income by the successor to a vacant commandery. It was this of which Henry contemplated the spoliation. It is true that he substituted the second year’s revenue for the benefit of the treasury, but in so doing he only mulcted the unfortunate commanders by so much additional taxation.

It is greatly to the credit of the members of the English langue that they did not permit the natural desire of retaining their large possessions in England to outweigh their sense of religious duty. Hard as the terms were which Henry was endeavouring to impose on them, they were such as many men would have deemed preferable to absolute confiscation; but the Order of St. John was not prepared to admit any such compromise between its duty and its interests. It had been reared in the bosom of the Church of Rome, it had been nurtured by the protection of each successive pontiff, and now that a storm had burst over the head of the father of the Church, which bid fair to deprive him of the spiritual allegiance of an important section of his flock, the knights were not prepared to abandon his cause for the sake of retaining their worldly advantages. The terms offered by Henry were peremptorily declined, and the langue of England—which had been so long considered one of the brightest adjuncts of the Order, and of which the historian Bosio, himself an Italian, and therefore an unbiassed witness, has recorded “cosi ricco nobile e principal membro come sempre era stata la venerabile lingua d’Inghilterra"—was lost to the fraternity. A general sequestration of its property took place, accompanied by much persecution. Some perished on the scaffold, others lingered in prison, and the remainder, homeless, destitute, and penniless, found their way to Malta, where they were received with all brotherly kindness and consideration. By an Act of Parliament, dated in April, 1540, all the possessions, castles, manors, churches, houses, &c., of the Order of St. John, were vested in the Crown; out of this revenue, pensions to the amount