Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/81

Rh field, they often became more intent on thwarting and impeding each other than on opposing the Saracens. These were all so many contributing causes to the final catastrophe. That in these quarrels and jealousies the Order of St. John was always in the right it would be absurd to assert; still, there is much to be said in their favour. In their disputes with the clergy they were clearly most unjustly attacked. They merely defended the privileges granted to them by the See of Rome, the common superior of themselves and of the clergy; whilst as regards their dissensions with the Templars, the conduct of that Order during this eventful period seems to show that they were probably in the wrong. The weight of contemporary evidence certainly leans strongly in favour of the Hospitallers. In a letter which Conrad of Montferrat addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury whilst engaged in the defence of the city of Tyre, he says:—“All succour is denied me, and what is still worse, the Grand-Master of the Templars has carried off the money which the king of England had sent for me. As to the Ilospitallers I have nothing but praise to record of them, and I call God and yourself to witness my gratitude towards them, for from the moment when they first took up arms in defence of this place they have never ceased to render the greatest possible service, and so far from imitating the Templars by retaining that portion of the subsidy from the king of England which they were bound to furnish, they have in addition positively spent upwards of eight thousand crowns of their own money in the defence of Tyre.” Another anecdote of the period also bears on the subject. Whilst King Richard I. of England was in Normandy on his way to the East, the vicar of Neuilly addressed an exhortation to him, in which he said that the king should, before starting on his Crusade, lay aside those besetting sins which he called his three daughters, vis., pride, avarice, and luxury; to which Richard replied, “If I am to part with these three daughters of mine, I do not think I can provide for them in a more suitable manner than by bestowing the first on the Templars, the second on the monastic Orders, and the third on the bishops of my realm.” it is difficult not to feel that the two Orders had by this time achieved very different reputations, and that the feelings of the powers of Christendom towards