CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

113

had to be represented by a French knight, in theabsence of any English one . 1

A law, by this meeting, that every knight takenby the infidels, and enslaved, should preserve hisstation amongst the knights during his slavery, andthis be as favourable to his promotion as if spent onactual service, at the order’s head-quarters, wassurely in clear contradiction to both the words andthe spirit of the old rule; that a knight madeprisoner, and a knight dead, were one and the samething, of which are to be found various instancesin their brightest period. Yet high minded and rarebravery were the Hospitallers still to show, nor didit not encounter this of opposition, that for the nineknights at St. Elmo, since all too severely sufferingfrom their bad wounds, for their consent to be eitherasked or given, it would be only just to make anexceptionable clause; but that a universal law wereno compliment to them, and to it may be demurredon the best grounds . 2

Only some months, and the succeeding Pope, inthe name of Christendom, sent to exhort Yaletta toset about creating his new city; and it having beenobserved that many decrees of the Council of Trent

1 Bosio: par. iii., lib. xxxiv. 728.

2 Id.: id., id. xxxv. 730.

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