6 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OF [book hi.

on all his knights in Europe, who instantly repliedby flying to Rhodes, in greater number far thanwas calculated on. In obedience to which thetwenty-ninth Prior of England, Sir Robert Malorry,hurried off, with what stores he could collect, andw r e have the king’s passport, allowing of his freeembarkation, with his suite, and as far as a hundredmarks sterling of gold and silver coin . 1 Daher, aCircassian by birth, had been brought to Cairo achild, and became Mameluke; as was usual withthose soldiers carried off by barbarous robbers, orsold by their parents from their cradles in someChristian country, but chiefly Circassia or Georgia,and taken to Egypt to be circumcised. The constitu-tion of which body was, that a father could, in nocase, be succeeded by his son, and it may be said theynever had legal wives. So this circumstance hadfor effect, that though many Mamelukes becamesovereigns, there was never any royal family.Daher, at present, was king, and celebrated at hisday. But with all his evil intentions, the enormouspreparations of the knights, and their signal re-putation for valour and military science, awed himand engaged him to abstain from his plan ; 2 but there

1 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Kuni. c.—Appendix, cliii. and xxx.

■—Or Malery. Eosio calls him Malorto.

2 Bosio: par. ii., lib. v., anno 1435.