CHAP. I.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

317

grand crosses right and left, Nuzza appeared asBailiff of the Eagle, and Sir Henry Gerard, asLieutenant of the Turcopoliership. The knights ofthe English Language, thinking better not to bepresent, petitioned to be represented by proxies;but the chapter general objected to any innova-tion. Philip offered each of those exiled knights asmall pension, which they almost all refused, andthe order undertook to feed them gratis, under thehope that England one day or other would makeamends for her injustice . 1 Then farewell to eventhis faint similitude of a body once so deservedlyhonoured above all their contemporaries, the re-nowned English Language, that at no time ought tobe left to expire, and whose memory defies death.For the glorious past is the treasury of treasuries,and what is there laid up, is safe. Exult at man’smenaces, despise his scorn and cruel jokes; youraspirations are in the angel’s coffer, nor shall everbe displaced through all eternity.

Neither Henry VIII. nor Edward, however theyhad sequestered it, appear ever to have confiscatedthe order’s property in their dominions; but QueenElizabeth and her parliament perhaps did (foralthough no documents remain stating it exactly,yet from this in Ireland may be fairly concluded,1 Bosio: par. ii., lib. six. 398.