Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/643

Rh it was held throughout Europe, the convent still remained the scene of acrimonious dispute and internal discord. The inquisitor, the bishop, and the Jesuits, all sought their own advancement, to the sacrifice of the authority of their common lord, the Grand-Master. In order to withdraw from their allegiance as many of the inhabitants as possible the bishop was in the habit of “granting the tonsure” to any one who demanded that distinction. By this mark, and without in any other way assuming the functions of the clergy, men claimed exemption from all but ecclesiastical authority, this being vested in the bishop. They secured freedom from all the imposts and duties to which the laity were liable, and their position became so favourable in comparison with that of their fellow- subjects that numbers flocked to the bishop to be received into the community. Had this state of things been suffered to continue, the Grand-Master would in time have found himself denuded of all actual power in the island of which he was the nominal sovereign. He therefore remonstrated most urgently with the Pope upon so outrageous an assumption. Urban VIII., who was at that time the pontiff, could not deny the justice of the complaint; he therefore issued instructions to the bishop forbidding him in future to grant the privileges of the tousure to any but such as were boná fide ecciesiastics.

The embroilment with the Jesuits had likewise gradually culminated in an open breach in consequence of the arrogance and grasping ambition of the latter. The quarrel which led to their expulsion from the island originated in the frolic of some young knights, who, during the carnival of 1639, disguised themselves in the habit of Jesuits, and in that garb were guilty of many scandalous disorders in the town. The reverend fathers, highly irate at this open profanation of their distinguishing costume, complained bitterly to the Grand-Master and council, who caused the offending knights to be arrested. Public feeling had gradually become so excited against the disciples of Loyola, that this act of severity, just and necessary though it might be, was very ill received. A tumult arose, in the course of which the prison in which the young knights were confined was broken open, the offenders released, and the Jesuit college pillaged and gutted. The insurgents were so exasperated, and were so