Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/70

32. his death, the fraternal disputes about the crown and empire compelled the younger Prince Zizim (1482) to take refuge at Rhodes, placing himself under the protection of the Grand Master, the latter demanded and received 35,000 ducats from the victorious Bajazeth for the annual support of his younger brother, besides 10,000 ducats as indemnity for the expenses of the last war.

In 1485, the Order received a further accession of wealth and power, by the Pope's grant of the possessions of the abrogated Order of the "Sacred Tomb" and "St. Lazarus." In 1501, the Grand Master d'Aubusson was appointed Generalissimo of the troops of the combined Princes against the Mahometan pirates; and a few years afterwards, the Grand Master, Emmerick of Amboise, fought and won the great naval battle against the Egyptians, near the Port Lajazzo in Caramania.

Internal dissensions, however, added to the arbitrary dispositions of the Popes, greatly tended to weaken the power of the Order in latter times. Soliman II. attacked Rhodes in 1522, with a fleet of four hundred sails, and an army of one hundred and forty thousand men. That place was defended only by six hundred Knights, and four thousand five hundred soldiers of the Order. The Sultan would probably have raised the siege of a place which was so obstinately defended by the brave Knights, who repeatedly inflicted heavy losses upon his troops, had it not been betrayed by the Chancellor of the Order, Andreas of Amaral, who, out of revenge for not having been elected Grand Master, pointed out to the enemy a weak point in the fortifications, by which the Turks entered, as the head of the traitor was falling by the hand of the executioner. The brave Knights, even at that critical moment, obtained terms of capitulation and free retreat. They left their residence, now a complete ruin,