ABEY. II.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

249

dicated, one perhaps too unworldly for this ^294

world, even during his short reign found

time to praise the Hospitallers . 1 His learned and

wily successor, letting himself go to the audacious

temptation of what was partly offered to him by the

not upright kings of Europe themselves, and the un-

happy circumstances of the time, tried to erect a

despotism both spiritual and temporal; but whatever

he was to others, he imitated his predecessors in being

kind to the order—“Claret devotione conspicuaOrdo

St. Johannis Idierosolimitani”—are the words in his

brief to the King of Portugal ; 2 and in another, to

our Edward, not dissimilar, as also in Rymer . 3 And

now Villiers died; yet not in 1296, as Yertot _

. . . 1295

has, for a document shows Sir John Yilliers

. 1297

was reigning in September, 1297. 4

That donations from private persons were stillcoming to the Hospitallers, and that, though theTeutonics had relinquished their name of GermanHospitallers, they bore no ill-will to those theyhad left, is clear from the Hoehsperg in the Appen-dix ; where a father retired from the world, as deadto it from the moment he had joined the Teutonics,

1

Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii.,

Kum.

in.—Appendix, lxxix.

2

Id.

Id.

iv.

3

Id.

Id.

vii.

4

Id.

Id.

x.