Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/95

Rh ledged them as his feudal lords. To this castle the Templars laid claim, and, supporting their pretensions by force, seized the disputed property. Robert de Margat at once claimed the protection of the Hospitallers, whose vassal he considered himself to be. These latter, incensed at the unprovoked outrage committed by their rivals, mustered their forces, sallied forth from their establishment at Margat, and retook the castle by storm. Prom this moment open and systematic warfare broke out between the Orders, and, several very sanguinary collisions ensued. Utterly oblivious of the vows they had taken at their profession, and of the obligations then imposed on them, they turned their swords, which had been consecrated to the cause of their faith, with fratricidal rage against each other, and throughout the length and breadth of the land men’ were dismayed at the sad spectacle thus afforded, and. the new danger threatening the poor relics of the kingdom.

Alarmed at the injury likely to accrue from this ill-timed antagonism on the part of those who had hitherto been the most powerful, as indeed sometimes they had been the only defenders of the kingdom, the patriarch and other ecelesiastics appealed to the Pope to interfere in the dispute. That prelate, having heard the statements of the deputies who had been despatched to Rome by both Orders, decided that neither party was free from blame. The Hospitallers had acted unjustiflably and in opposition to their own rules in endeavouring to redress by force of arms the wrong which had been done them; and on the other hand he decided that the claim of the Templars to the castle in question was unfounded. Under these circumstances he decreed that the Hospitallers should, in the first place, retire from the disputed property, leaving it in the possession of the Templars, and that then the latter, in their turn, should restore it to Robert de Margat at the expiration of one month. Matters were thus at length amicably settled, and a temporary truce, since peace it could scarcely be called, was established between the rival factions.

John of Brienne, having failed in his efforts to carry with him to the East an army sufficiently powerful to establish