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THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book ill.

Hospitallers. 1 Or who is willing to believe whathe tells us of De Pins (who had been vicar nowabove twelve years, during which the order went onacquiring naval customs and that vicar himself anable seaman) having put, under whatever plea ofexpediency, all the able-bodied but unarmed menof a colony to the sword, and permitted the restand the women and children, to be carried intoslavery? 2 Vertot cites no authority for the enor-mity he relates, and proud am I of my inability todiscover any. That John XXII. kept a sharp lookout, on at least his noblest spies, is evident from hissecret letter to the order’s prior at Pisa. 3 Sir Thomas1327 ^ arc ^ ier ) w h° was Prior of England in 1329and had been for several years before, abdi-cated; and Sir Leonardus de Tybertis took hisplace. Why? Was it a single exception at theking’s desire? But he might have been an English-man, though then the order’s ambassador at Venice. 4At all events, Tybertis lived little. 5

Nor even when Villannova embarked at last in

1 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Kum. lviii.

2 Yertot: v. 184.

3 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Kum. lx.—Giunt. Yatic. Secret.—Appendix, cxxxi.

4 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Kum. lxi.—Seb. Paoli : Osservazioni,ii. 537.

5 He was the twenty-second Prior of England. Appendix, xxx.