Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/602

568 many a gay pageant and sumptuous entertainment, and the great hail of the priory was several times used for royal councils. On these occasions the grand-prior of England occupied a position between the spiritual peers and the barons, being considered either the last of the former or the first of the latter. One of the earliest of these councils was held in the year 1185. The king of Jerusalem had sent the Grand-Masters of the Hospital and Temple, with the patriarch Heracius, to Europe, to solicit a new crusade (vide Chapter II.). The Grand-Master of the Temple died on the way, but the Hospitaller Roger des Moulins. and the patriarch Heraclius came to England. The king (Henry II.) went as far as Reading to meet them, and conducted them to the priory at Clerkenweil, where he summoned the barons of the realm to hold a council. Speed thus describes in his chronicles what took place:—“At this meeting he (the king) declared that Heraclius (then present) had stirred compassion and tears at the rehearsal of the tragical afflictions of the eastern world, and had brought the keys of the places of Christ’s nativity, passion, aud resurrection, of David’s Tower, and the Holy Sepulchre, and the humble offer of the kingdom of Jerusalem with the standard of the kingdom, as duly belonging to him, as grandson of Fulk of Anjou.” The barons in council determined that tle king should not risk his person in the crusade, but should content himself with a donation in aid. Heracius thereon lost his temper, and with the arrogance common to ecclesiastics in those days, broke out into abuse of the king, winding up by exclaiming, “Here is my head; treat me, if you like, as you did my brother Thomas (meaning a Becket). It is a matter of indifference to me whether I die by your orders or in Syria by the hands of the infidels, for you are worse than a Saracen.” The Master of the Hospital was greatly hurt at the insolence of the patriarch, but the king passed it by without notice.

In the year 1212 king John stayed at the priory during the whole month of March, enjoying the hospitality of the prior, and on a Sunday in Lent he there knighted Alexander, son of the king of Scotland. The following record of this transaction has been preserved in the roil of the fourteenth