defended it drive the Turks back from the breach, and tear down the Mussulman flag they had planted there. When the siege had lasted four months, many persons within the town proposed that the Knights should capitulate; but old L'Isle Adam, who seemed determined to be buried under the falling walls, would not listen to them; and though neglected and abandoned by all Christendom, and left to his own limited resources, he actually made good his defence for two months longer; and even then, when his gunpowder and provisions were alike exhausted, obtained an honourable capitulation, with permission to retire with his surviving Knights whithersoever he might choose. Between the killed and wounded, and those who died of fevers and contagious disorders, the Turks are said to have lost upwards of one hundred thousand men during the six months' siege of Rhodes.

There was a sort of barbaric grandeur, mixed with magnanimity, and now and then a gleam of gentle feeling, in Sultan Solyman. When he entered the city of Rhodes as a conqueror, he paid a respectful visit to the vanquished Grand Master, and, touched by his misfortunes, his resignation, and his age, he said to his officers on quitting L'Isle Adam, "It is not without pain that I force this Christian, at his time of life, to leave his dwelling."

During the thirteenth century, and probably for some short period after their conquest of Rhodes, the Knights of St. John may have dwelt within their Priory of Clerkenwell, in the discharge of their vows of benevolence, employing their great possessions, according to the Bull of Pope Anastasius IV., " for the maintenance of the poor." They might have been seen, as the most favourable of their historians represent them to have been engaged, attending the sick, feeding the hungry, spending their own leisure in prayer and meditation, avoiding all idle pastimes-preserving the gravity becoming men dedicated to the service of the Cross. But it is unquestionable that before the end of the fourteenth century they had incurred the hatred of the common people, and there is little doubt that they had deserved it by their tyranny and licentiousness. In the great rebellion of the Commons of Essex and Kent, in the reign of Richard II., their especial fury was directed against the houses and possessions of the Knights of St. John. The personal demeanour of the Prior of the Order might have somewhat provoked this rancour; for when the rebels had assembled on Blackheath, and demanded a conference with the King, Sir Robert Hales, who was not only the Prior of St. John's but Lord Treasurer of the kingdom, counselled only wrath and punishment. Their demands being reported "when this tale was told to the King, there were some that thought it best that he should go to them, and know what their meaning was; but Simon de Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that was Lord Chancellor, and also Sir Robert Hales, Lord of St. John's, and as then Lord Treasurer, spake earnestly against that advice, and would not by any means that the King should go to such a sort of bare-legged ribalds; but rather they wished that he should take some order to abate the pride of such vile rascals." But the rebels of Essex had previously displayed their animosity towards the belligerent Prior. "At that same time the great Prior of St. John of Jerusalem, by London, having a goodly and delectable manor in Essex, wherein was ordained victuals

*Holinshed.

and other necessaries for the use of a Chapter General, and great abundance of fair stuff,—of wines, arras, clothes, and other provision for the Knights brethren, -the Commons entered this manor, ate up the victuals and provision of wine, three tun, and spoiled the manor and the ground with great damage.' This passage gives us some notion how far, in 1381, the Knights had departed from the original rules of the Order, to eat nothing but bread and water, and wear none but the coarsest garments. The vengeance of the rebels was no doubt especially directed towards the Knights of St. John from the open display of their riches. Amongst their first acts after they entered London, when they had set loose the prisoners of the Marshalsea, and spoiled the goods and destroyed the records of Lambeth, was the destruction of another manor belonging to the great Prior. "The next day, being Thursday, and the feast of Corpus Christi, or the thirteenth of June, the Commons of Essex in the morning went to the manor of Highbury, two miles from London, north: this manor, belonging to the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem, they wholly consumed with fire."† After the suppression of the Order of the Templars their possessions in London were granted to the Knights of St. John; and in the reign of Edward III. the students of law became the occupiers of the Temple. But it would appear from the fury of the rebels in the reign of Richard II. that the property was still considered to belong to the obnoxious Order of St. John. "The Commons of Kent brake up the Fleet, and let the prisoners go where they would. They destroyed and burnt many houses, and defaced the beauty of Fleet Street. From thence they went to the Temple to destroy it, and plucked down the houses, took off the tiles of the other buildings left, went to the church, took out all the books and remembrances that were in hutches of the Prentices of the Law, carried them into the high street, and there burnt them. This house they spoiled for wrath they bare to the Prior of St. John's, unto whom it belonged." But their vengeance was not yet satiated: "A number of them that burnt the Temple went from thence towards the Savoy, destroying all the houses that belonged to the Hospital of St. John. **** The other Commons that were in the city went to the Hospital of St. John, and by the way burnt the house of Robert Legat, lately beheaded. They burnt all the houses belonging to St. John's; and then burnt the fair Priory of the Hospital of St. John, causing the same to burn the space of seven days after. At what time, the King being in a turret of the Tower, and seeing the manor of Savoy, the Priory of St. John's Hospital, and other houses on fire, he demanded of his Council what was best to do in that extremity, but none of them could counsel in that case."‡

Froissart says that after the destruction of the Savoy the rebels" went strait to the fair hospital of the Rhodes, called St. John's, and there they brent house, hospital, minster, and all." We may form some notion of the great extent of the buildings of the Hospital from the circumstances that they were seven days in being consumed, and that the affrighted young King saw the flames from his distant turret in the Tower. Sir Robert Hales, the Prior, perished under the axe of the rebels.

Thus, then, one wide sweeping destruction, four centuries and a half ago, removed every monument of the early magnificence of the Priory of St. John.

*Stow's Annals.

+ Ibid.

Ibid.

During the next century the work of re-edification went slowly forward. Successive Priors again raised a conventual church, whose bell-tower was one of the glories of London; and the old site was again covered with buildings suited to the accommodation of a rich and powerful fraternity. But the perpetual attempts of the Turks to dispossess the Order of their stronghold at Rhodes demanded contributions from the brethren in all countries; and those of England were not slow in rendering efficient aid, both in treasure and knightly service. Stow, in his 'Survey of London,' has preserved a letter of safe-conduct from Henry IV. to Walter Grendon, Prior of St. John's, who was about to join the brethren in Rhodes, to fight against the infidels. The original is in Latin; and is addressed in a style of considerable authority, demanding protection for this well-beloved Prior, noble in arms, profound in piety, from all kings, princes, dukes, and every other description of potentate. He is to have safe and free passage, with thirty other persons and thirty horses; and the gold and silver, the robes and vestments, which he carries with him, are especially protected. As the tenure of Rhodes became more and more precarious, the applications for assistance became more urgent; and the revenues of particular commanderies of the Order in England were anticipated, to furnish out gallant adventurers for the succour of the Christian knights. Malcolm prints an indenture between Thomas Dockwra, Prior of the Order, and Sir Thomas Newport, dated the 6th May, 1513, by which five commanderies are granted to certain persons for two years, in consideration of one thousand pounds sterling, which the said Sir Thomas Newport hath anticipated of the said commanderies, "for to supply his expenses in his journey to Rhodes, and in Rhodes, in service of the religion and succour of the city of Rhodes; which city is at the point to be besieged by the great Turk named Selymis." Prior Dockwra had need to anticipate the revenues of the Order; for he was a liberal dispenser of the funds of the brotherhood. He finished the Church at Clerkenwell, and he built the Gate. Hollar has engraved in Dugdale's 'Monasticon' a representation of what remained of this magnificent Priory somewhat more than a century after Dockwra had completed its renovation.

But there arose a destroyer more ruthless even than Wat Tyler's mob, and whose power was far more abiding. When the heroic defenders of Rhodes quitted the island for ever, on the 1st of January, 1523, they were driven from

When the western basement of the Gate was converted into a watchhouse in 1813, some alterations were deemed necessary, in the course of which an old oak door was discovered, having on the spandrils the arms of the monastery and those of Sir J. Dockwra, the Lord Prior in 1504, when the Gate and Priory were rebuilt. Casts from these spandrils were taken at the time, and are still preserved with religious care by the landlord of the tavern, where they may be seen ornamenting the chimneypiece of the "Grand Hall."

[Arms of St. John's Priory and of Sir J. Dockwra, on St. John's Gate.]

place to place in search of a home of refuge, and finally took possession of Malta, by a grant from Charles V., in 1530. They were once more busy upon the sea, and projecting expeditions against their ancient enemies. But they soon received a blow which diminished their importance even more than the conquest of Rhodes. Henry VIII. suppressed the Order in England; and it is said that this event broke the heart of poor old L'Isle Adam. The remaining history of the great Priory is quaintly told by Stow: "This House, at the suppression in the 32nd Henry VIII., was valued to dispend in lands 3385!. 19s. 8d. yearly. Sir William Weston, being then Lord Prior, died on the same 7th of May on which the House was suppressed. So that, great yearly pensions being granted to the Knights by the King, and namely to the Lord Prior during his life 10007. (but he never received penny), the King took into his hands all the lands that belonged to that House and that Order, wheresoever in England and Ireland, for the augmentation of his Crown. This Priory, Church, and House of St. John was preserved from spoil and down-pulling so long as King Henry VIII. reigned; and was employed as a store-house for the King's toils and tents for hunting, and for the wars, &c. But in the third of King Edward VI. the Church for the most part, to wit the body and side aisles, with the great belltower (a most curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and enamelled, to the great beautifying of the city, and passing all other that I have seen), was undermined and blown up with gunpowder: the stone thereof was employed in building of the Lord Protector's house at the Strand." An attempt was made to restore the fraternity and repair the buildings in the reign of Mary; but in the first year of Elizabeth all that remained of the Order was consigned to neglect and ruin. The parochial Church of Clerkenwell was formed out of the remains of the choir, patched up with modern barbarism.

In the reign of James I. the Gate was granted to Sir Roger Wilbraham, who

made it his residence. For a century afterwards this part of the town was inhabited by people of condition. Bishop Burnet lived in St. John's Square-a place which, built upon the site of the old Priory, has still a solemn and monastic air. Cave, we dare say, obtained the Gate-house at a cheap rate, when fashion was travelling westward, and commerce had not thrown its regards upon such an obscure nook. Here, occupying both sides of the Gate for his office and his dwelling, Johnson found him when he came to London poor and unknown; and here he ate the printer's dinner behind a screen because his coat was too shabby for him to sit at table. Here, too, Garrick first exhibited his comic powers in the farce of The Mock Doctor, Cave's journeymen reading the other parts. Here, as we have before said, was printed for many years the Gentleman's Magazine.' But that belongs to the History of London Periodical Literature-too large a subject to be now touched upon.