Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/445

Rh of £2,870 were granted to the late Lord-Prior and to other members of the institution.

It has already been stated that at the commencement of his rule D’Omedes had appointed to the command of the galleys a young Florentine knight named Leo Strozzi, who had attained the dignity of grand-prior of Capua. The father of this knight had been imprisoned by the emperor Charles, and had ended his life by suicide. Leo, burning with resentment at his death, abandoned the service of the Order and entered that of the king of France. He trusted that under that flag he would have an opportunity of avenging himself upon the emperor. For some time he served in the French navy with much distinction, and had risen to the chief command of the fleet. Being naturally of an imperious and fiery temper, he had in that position made for himself many powerful enemies in the French court, and was, in consequence, eventually compelled to resign his command and leave the kingdom. He then applied for readmission into the fraternity at Malta, but D’Omedes, who, as a Spaniard, was a warm partisan of the emperor, declined to permit him to land on the island.

The abandonment of his post had closed to him all French ports; his antagonism to the emperor prevented his finding shelter within any of the harbours of Sicily, and now that he was refused admission to Malta he was compelled to cruise in the Mediterranean without any means of refitting his galleys. Under these circumstances, he was in a measure driven into acts of piracy in sell-defence, and for some time he became the scourge of the Mediterranean, under the title, assumed by himself, of “The friend of God alone.” Charles, who was too wily a politician to permit his resentments to interfere with his interests, now that he saw this able captain quarrelling with his former protector, at once opened negotiations to induce him to enter his own service. It is doubtful whether Strozzi, whose anger at the imprisonment of his father appears never to have subsided, seriously contemplated the acceptance of this offer; but he permitted the negotiation to