168

THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [bookiv.

year; for lie came to Malta regularly to take leave onhis departure to die in Germany, and resolving that hisheirs should have no mortuary expense on his ac-count—not even the usual per centage which thenext of kin of every deceased knight has to pay onany chattels he leaves—under the title of spoglio ; hecame to an agreement with the treasury to pay agiven sum himself at once, in lieu of every de-mand of the kind after his death; and when thePriory of Hungary going hack naturally to those towhom it belonged, the knights, all the remainder ofhis vast estates and his property real or moveable,went to his lawful heirs without any defalcation what-ever. So having made his last obeisance to thegrand master and embracing his colleagues for the

, last time, he embarked; and in fact the verv1688 Jnext year his Priory returned without a word

to the order. 1 But whatever petty intrigues were on

the restoration of the English Language went out long

1690 -P 1 '^ 01 ' c ^ ea ^ 1 Caraffa. 2 And on the

26th of July, the sixty-third grand mastersucceeded; for we have the Papal brief of the 9thof the next August congratulating him. Yetthough the Pope was their ecclesiastical chief saysBoisgelin, “it was only for form that the knights

1 Pozzo : par. ii., anno 1688.

2 Seb. Paoli : Serie, ii. 484.—Boisgelin: i. 39.