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THE
KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER ON MALTA
© Guy Stair Sainty
From Rhodes to Malta
In 1523, Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle Adam, who had been elected instead of the more renowned English Grand Prior Thomas Docwra and now abandoned by the Christian powers, was forced to capitulate to the much larger Turkish forces in the final battle of the Order's ongoing struggle with the Moslems for control of Rhodes. Although there had been some tentative peace negotiations between the Sultan and the Grand Master, the former's proposals had been couched in such insulting terms that the Grand Master was unable to accept the Turkish demands and the Sultan determined on invasion. The contemporary Moslem chronicler, Hajii Khalifeh, described the siege by the Moslem leader, Suleiman II (the "Magnificent"), as follows: on "..a day when the omens were good, about seven hundred ships set sail from Constantinople for the Mediterranean. The fleet anchored off Rhodes, and then the larger ships were left to guard the channel while the pasha, with three hundred galleys, sailed into the bay where the fortress of Rhodes stood. They placed their cannons in position and began the siege on the fifth of Ramadan. A week later Bali Beg arrived from Egypt preceded by twenty-four galleys carrying more ammunition and provisions. Fierce battles raged until orders were given to capture the Arab tower from which enemy soldiers ceaselessly harassed the besieging army, but although the pasha's men crossed the moat and planted their standard on the rampart wall, they were eventually pushed back. On the advice of the most experienced among the pasha's men and despite continuous fighting, an earth mound was built which, after five months work, reached up to the rampart walls. Inside the fortress the besieged army, unable to protect itself from cannon and musket fire, surrendered on [20 December 1522]".
It was the Greek civilian inhabitants, persuaded by Suleiman's agents that if they surrendered they would be spared, who demanded that the knights should capitulate. Faced with little choice, Villiers de l'Isle Adam agreed terms with the Sultan (requiring the Catholic faith to be maintained, the churches not to be profaned and the knights to be able to leave with their weapons, treasure and sacred vessels) and the surviving knights abandoned the island on 1 January 1523. The Grand Master's galley, "with a single banner lowered to half mast, on which was painted the picture of the Glorious Virgin Mary in tears, holding her dead Son in her arms, and the inscription Afflictis tu spes unica rebus, that is: In all which afflicts us thou art our only hope", set sail for Candia bearing, along with the leading knights, the venerable icons of Our Lady of Philermo, Our Lady of Mercy and Our Lady of Damascus as well as the relics of the True Cross, the right hand of Saint John the Baptist, the archives of the Order and the key of the city of Rhodes.
For seven years the knights were without a permanent home. Fortunately they were supported by Pope Clement VII, a Medici and former Hospitaller knight, whose security was threatened by the French army and who hoped to benefit from the Order's military support. After several years of negotiations the Emperor Charles V, as King of Sicily, agreed to cede the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino and the city of Tripoli (this last abandoned in 1551) and their dependent territories to the Order. These were granted as a fief of the Kingdom of Sicily, for which an annual tribute of a falcon was paid until 1798, by letters patent dated 24 March 1530, ratified by Pope Clement VII on 25 April 1530. After some further negotiations over minor details of the transfer, the Order took possession of its new home on 26 October of the same year.
In their early years on Malta the knights were constantly threatened with annihilation by the Turks. The unceasing harassment of Christian shipping and attacks on the Order's galleys culminated in the brilliant defense of the island in 1565, when one hundred thousand Turkish soldiers and sailors on one hundred and ninety vessels, led by Suleiman's close confidant Piali Capitan-Pasha, attempted the final defeat of the Order. The siege began on 18 May and the four hundred knights, under the command of the their 49th Grand Master, Jean Parisot de la Valette, with some six thousand soldiers, managed to hold off the invaders, who suffered terrible losses. Finally, on 8 September (the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady), the siege was abandoned following the arrival of a force of twelve thousand Spanish and Italian troops, who had been sent in answer to an impassioned appeal by Pope Pius V addressed to the Catholic sovereigns of Europe.
The Great Siege of Malta
The lifting of the siege was described by Fra' Francesco Balbi: "I do not believe that music ever consoled the human senses as did the peal of our bells on 8 September 1565, which was the Nativity of our Lady. For the Grand Master of the Hospital ordered them all to be rung at the very time when the call to arms was usually sounded, and for three months we had heard them sounding only the call to arms. That morning they called us to Mass, and a pontifical high Mass was sung very early, thanking the Lord our God and his Blessed Mother for the mercies that they had bestowed upon us". The defense of Malta in 1565 was one of the greatest feats of arms in European military history and ultimately enabled the unhindered passage of Christian shipping in the Mediterranean. Suleiman died one year later of apoplexy and the decline of power of the Sultanate followed, accelerated by the defeat of the Moslem armada at the battle of Lepanto in 1571, when the Order's galleys distinguished themselves once again. Unfortunately, it is one of history's ironies that the degeneration of their traditional enemy also marked dwindling importance of the knights, as their military mission became strategically less significant.
Courtyard of the Grand Magistral
Palace of Sant' Angelo now restored to the use of the Order
From
Reformation to Revolution
The Protestant reformation of the mid-sixteenth century had a disastrous effect on the fortunes of the Order at the very time when it was trying to re-establish its military and naval forces after the loss of Rhodes. Numerous knights had been killed or maimed during the siege, the number of new recruits had fallen dramatically while the Order was without a home and many members abjured their Catholic Faith to follow the doctrines of Martin Luther and others, causing the break up of the Order in northern Europe. Seven German commanderies established an independent protestant Bailiwick of Brandenburg in East Prussia, most of the Dutch knights embraced the new reform doctrines alienating the Order's properties and, in England, the Grand Priory was dissolved by the Crown and its properties confiscated.
The knights retained enormous wealth in Catholic Europe but were threatened by internal discord and attempts by the Emperor and the Pope to exert greater authority over them. The Emperor asserted a claim to nominate the Grand Prior of Bohemia and, following the death of Grand Master Fra' Jean de la Cassiere in 1582, Gregory XIII claimed that he had the right to nominate the Grand Master - a claim which the Order successfully disputed. While the claim to nominate the Grand Master was not pressed again until the early nineteenth century (and then with the willing assent of the knights), conflict with the Papacy flared up again in the 1620's as Urban VIII attempted to gain possession of the Order's most valuable Italian commanderies to confer them on members of his family. The relationship with the Holy See deteriorated further when Urban published a motu proprio decree in 1628 increasing the dependence of the Order on Papal authority during an interregnum between the death of the Grand Master and the election of his successor. Three years later, while agreeing to limit his control to only two commanderies in each Langue (but insisting that the commanderies held by his family should be retained by them), Pope Urban appointed a "President", as Inquisitor to the Council, who would effectively represent the Papacy. Finally, on 21 October 1634, Urban issued a Bull conferring on the Papacy the right to nominate the Grand Master in certain circumstances; although this represented the most severe limitation on the Order's sovereignty, the right was not exercised until after the loss of Malta.
The Sant'Angelo fort from the sea
Urban's death in 1644 did not improve the relationship with the Holy See as his successor, Innocent X, proved no less determined to further tighten Papal control. In 1646 the Pope caused astonishment when he proposed that the grand cross be given to the recently converted son of the Moslem king of Tunis. To this the Order was adamant in its refusal. Two years later Innocent conferred the wealthy commandery of Parma on his nephew and the Order's Ambassadors were instructed to point out to the sovereigns to whom they were accredited that the knights could not continue their war against the infidel if they were deprived of their most valuable benefices - unfortunately this intervention failed to obtain the recovery of the commandery. The death of Grand Master Lascaris in 1657 was followed by a further attempt on the part of the Holy See to control the election of the Grand Master, with the Papal "Inquisitor" insisting that no knight who had allegedly attempted to advance himself by bribery could vote or stand. This action was aimed at preventing the election of Fra' Martin de Redin, the most likely candidate, but the knights ignored the brief produced by the Inquisitor on the basis that it could not apply to Redin, who was elected despite the protests of the Papal representative. Happily, one of the Pope's nephews, di Bicci, was then general of galleys and, after obtaining papal confirmation of the election from his uncle, was given the commandery of Polizzi in Sicily as a reward and the Order's relations with the Papacy began to improve (although Innocent's immediate successors, Alexander VII and Clement IX, continued the practice of investing their families with rich commanderies). Despite Papal encroachment on its privileges, by the end of the seventeenth century the Order's sovereignty and autonomy were still widely acknowledged and the ever present threat of Turkish expansionism ensured its continued support by the Powers.
The end of the Thirty Years War, while resulting in the definitive loss of the Lutheran commanderies in northern Europe, had enabled the Order to recover control of the Catholic German commanderies and once again receive annual responsions. The Order continued to participate in every Christian campaign against the infidel during the seventeenth century, but with the end of the last crusade at the battle of Passarowitz in 1718 the military role of the Order became confined to policing the Mediterranean against pirate raiders and the knights, while still enjoying the usufruct of wealthy commanderies, were rarely called upon to fight the infidel when fulfilling their military duties in the Order's navy and armed forces.
The Cathedral of Saint John,
Valletta
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the other Mediterranean states also built up substantial naval forces to defend their own coastlines and, during the latter part of the eighteenth century, the Russian fleet became a major presence, threatening the Ottoman navy. This ultimately led to the development of a relationship with the Czar which was to prove of dubious value following the fall of Malta. The increasing centralization of monarchical authority had led to the take over of existing national religious military Orders (as happened to the Spanish Military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcantara and Montesa, whose Grand Master and perpetual administrator is the King of Spain), or to the suppression of the larger supra-national Orders which were perceived as a potential threat to the new nation states and whose original purpose had been superseded by changes in the balance of power. Other European Sovereigns, to both enhance their personal prestige and extend their control over their own nobilities, founded new Religious-Military Orders of Chivalry, or Confraternal Orders, whose rules of entry were generally less stringent than the Order of Malta. While most of these newer foundations survived only a few years, some still exist today including the Tuscan Order of Saint Stephen (founded in 1562), and the Savoy Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (founded in 1572), while the French Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus (founded in 1608) survived until the early nineteenth century.
In 1697 Francesco Farnese, Duke of Parma, acquired the Grand Magistery of the Constantinian Order (confirmed as a religious Order in 1718), which, unlike the other national religious-military Orders, always had a substantial minority of "foreign" members. In 1729 the Elector of Bavaria instituted the last religious-military Order to be founded, the Order of Saint George for the Defense of the Immaculate Conception. These nationally based institutions provided a prestigious alternative to membership in the Order of Saint John for the local nobilities, which often preferred to be identified with national Orders subject to their own Monarch. At the same time the proofs for the Order of Saint John were more restrictive than those for the national Orders, excluding from eligibility many nobles who would be qualified to join an Order such as Saint Stephen.
The supra-nationalism of the Hospitaller Order, whose mission was supported by all Christians of whatever denomination, meant that the Grand Masters had to play a sometimes difficult diplomatic role. As the Order was dominated by the French and the kings of France were frequently at war with nations which also had substantial numbers of knights of St John, members of the Order serving in their national forces occasionally found themselves engaged on opposite sides. Thus membership of a national confraternal Order (such as Santiago or Saint Stephen), not only enabled the knight to avoid such conflicts but the responsibilities of membership (residence in the convent, service in the galleys or regiments of the Order, etc), being carried out locally were far less onerous than service on Malta itself. In France, the increasing intermarriage between the noblesse de l'epee (otherwise known as the nobility by extraction or of origin) and the noblesse de robe, led to a blurring of the distinction between these groups, a development much criticised by Vertot. By the eighteenth century the involvement of nobles in business activities seldom resulted in derogeance, making the eventual reward of a commandery after years of service in the Order of Malta less attractive. In Italy, where much of the Lombard and Tuscan nobility had extensive commercial interests, these distinctions were seldom employed to bar entry into the Order's ranks.
Along with the decline of their military function and the appearance of national Orders, the religious zeal of the knights (particularly members of the Langue of France) was steadily diminished by the increasing secularization of society. Some professed knights paid only lip service to their religious obligations and it was not uncommon for knights to live openly with mistresses in flagrant breach of their vows. The government of the Order became increasingly occupied with its political role rather than the Order's spiritual mission and more willing to compromise its Catholicity to increase revenues. Grand Master Pinto de Fonseca's successful negotiations with the King of Prussia to re-admit the protestant Bailiwick into the Order, in conflict with Catholic canon law, were only halted by direct Papal intervention. Contemporary critics remarked on the luxury in which some of the professed knights lived, hardly appropriate for men who had taken the full monastic vows.
The Grand Master & a Commander
with Page
The hostility of the government of revolutionary France led to the confiscation of the bulk of the Order's wealth and, eventually, to the loss of its island home and territorial sovereignty. The Order initially survived the abolition of the Orders of the Holy Spirit, Saint Michel and Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus, as the National Assembly in 1790 and 1791 accepted the thesis that the Order's maintenance would provide a continued defense against the Barbary pirates (although a M. de Bacon proposed that its estates should be given to the Order of Saint Louis). It was likewise excluded from the first measures against the clergy, but a campaign was soon organized for its suppression with a pamphlet entitled "A quoi bon l'Ordre de Malthe" (to which the author's rhetorical reply was in the negative). This initial reprieve was short-lived and, following a speech by Deputy J.C. Vincens in 1792 in which a detailed analysis of its finances was given, the Order's benefices were confiscated on 19 September of that year (along with the possessions of the monastic Orders). The Order's defenders pointed out that it was a sovereign state, with a long history of protecting French shipping trading in the Levant and that the danger this trade would be put in if the Order was deprived of its wealth was not worth any supposed benefit to France that might be gained by its suppression. Unfortunately a false manifesto, dated 10 October 1793, purporting to be made in the name of the Grand Master, appeared to place the Order at odds with the republic and support for the lifting of the penalties disappeared. This manifesto was brought in to support every subsequent attack on the Order, notably in 1797 when a new legal provision included all members of the Order under the laws against emigration, as traitors to the Revolution, depriving them of any rights to properties that had not already been confiscated earlier. More seriously it provided an excuse for the Directory to embark upon its plan to capture Malta, using the alleged hostility of the Order to the republic as justification for its attack on the island.
The
Loss of Malta
Rohan himself was a brilliant and cultivated man who, shortly before his death in 1797, introduced a revised Code (the Code de Rohan), which provided the basic structure for the present code and statutes. Unfortunately he was unable to prevent the revolutionary government in France from seizing the Order's properties there and did not prepare adequately for the inevitable offensive against Malta itself. His death on 13 July 1797 coincided with the decision by the French Republic to embark on the invasion of Egypt and, on route, capture the Island of Malta. The new Grand Master, a German nobleman, Ferdinand von Hompesch (formerly titular Bailiff of Brandenburg), was apparently unaware of these plans (although there had been much talk in Paris of a proposal by Bonaparte to attack the islands as early as September 1797), until the publication of the Directory's declaration against the Order, by which time it was too late to make an effective appeal to those powers still sympathetic to the knights. Hompesch has been rightly criticized for underestimating the ambitions of the French in the Mediterranean but to hold him solely responsible for failing to prepare adequately for the impending attack by the powerful French forces, when he had had no military experience, was unfair. There were far more experienced soldiers in the senior councils of the Order who could have insisted on a more effective defense and Rohan's attempts to deal diplomatically with the Directory had been inadequate. The republican navy did not actually set sail until 19 May 1798, six weeks after the Directory's declaration and the last minute summons by Hompesch to absent knights to come to their assistance and an attempt to claim the protection of the Czar, who had volunteered for this role, were unsuccessful. On 9 June the French navy appeared in Maltese waters and the knights, who were aided by a total of only four thousand soldiers, were confronted by some fifteen thousand French soldiers and numerous heavily armed war ships, from which Bonaparte's forces landed unopposed the following morning.
The knights were faced with an impossible situation; they had bravely and successfully defended their islands and their religion against the forces of Islam in the past but now had the unpleasant duty of defending their temporal sovereignty by fighting their co-religionists and, in many cases, fellow Frenchmen. Both the Grand Marshal of the Order, Bailiff Charles-Abel de Loras (commanding the castle of Valletta) and the commander of the troops in the countryside, Eugene de Rohan, Grand Prior of Aquitaine, were forced to make the unpleasant decision to either turn their weapons on their own countrymen or abandon the defense of the islands, and some of the French knights chose imprisonment rather than follow the commands of their superiors to fight. Had Hompesch been able to organize an effective defense of the island, Bonaparte would probably have abandoned the siege to pursue his primary objective, the invasion of Egypt. Instead of concentrating their forces, the knights attempted to maintain their exterior defenses, causing confusion among the troops and disorder in the civilian population. By the end of the day the majority of the island had fallen to the French and the local citizens demanded that the Grand Master arrange an armistice. Negotiations began on the morning of 11 June and, later that evening, a peace was signed and the island handed over to Bonaparte. The following day a treaty was drawn up between the Order and the French occupying forces in which, in return for handing over the island, the Grand Master was promised the assistance of the French in obtaining for his lifetime an "equivalent" principality to that which he had lost. The French knights were guaranteed effective immunity from the laws on emigration by a declaration that they could either return to France or could remain in Malta, which was declared French territory, and were granted state pensions of seven hundred francs each for their lifetimes (one thousand for those over sixty). Hompesch himself did not sign this treaty (Bailiff de Bosredon-Ransijat, Bailiff Mario Testaferrata and Bailiff Frisari signing on behalf of the Order) and later was to use this fact as justification for renewing his and the Order's claims to possession of the islands.
The
Russian Connection
While this sad episode marked the end of the Order's temporal sovereignty, it did not affect its juridical independence and autonomous status. Hompesch departed for Italy and thence to Trieste, where on 12 October he issued a protest against the "revolution" organized by the French, addressed to all the Catholic powers and the Czar. Forced to abdicate the Grand Magistery on 6 July 1799 by an intervention of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II made at the request of the Czar, Hompesch had already been deposed de facto by the illegal election of Czar Paul I of Russia as Grand Master on 7 November 1798 (which had been recognized by Francis, who needed the Russians as allies). The association with Russia had had its origins in the formation of the Grand Priory of Poland (formed by the amalgamation of a group of Polish commanderies ) in 1774, which, by the absorption of Poland into the Russian Empire, made the concordat of 15 June 1797, between the Czar and the Order, a necessity. This had transformed the Polish Grand Priory into the Grand Priory of Russia and, following the ratification of the Convention by the new Grand Master on 7 August 1797, enabled the Czar to assume the title of Protector of the Order, a title that was entirely inappropriate for a non-Catholic Monarch and properly pertaining to the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of the Two Sicilies. On 10 September 1798, Paul had declared that he had taken the Order under his "supreme direction" and, with the assistance of Bailiff (Count) Fra' Giulio Litta-Visconti-Arese, the Order's Minister at Saint Petersburg, he was "elected" as "Grand Master" by the members of the Grand Priory of Russia and certain knights, mainly French exiles, resident in the Russian Empire at the time.
The knights who had supported this election had hoped to obtain the support of the Czar in re-establishing their rule on Malta. Such a plan was certainly compatible with a long-standing Russian desire to establish a Mediterranean base from which to challenge Ottoman power. Unfortunately the war on continental Europe and the fear that the French revolution might spread meant that Russia was increasingly preoccupied elsewhere. Paul himself, who was mentally unbalanced, was probably more interested in the prestige of the title of Grand Master and, by establishing a branch of the Order for his own nobility, had hoped to provide a powerful, conservative force to impede the march of revolution, for which the embittered, exiled French knights would provide a powerful core. The illegality of the Czar's election, which never received Papal approval, despite repeated attempts by the Czar to obtain it, was compounded one month later (10 December 1798) by his formation of a second Grand Priory of Russia, for the non-Catholic nobility of his Empire. This was differentiated from the earlier foundation which was designated the "Catholic Russian (Grand) Priory". The Grand Priories of Germany, Bavaria, Bohemia, Naples, Sicily, Venice, Portugal, Lombardy and Pisa, hoping that the protection of the Czar would ensure the continuation of their Order, soon recognized the election of Paul and only the Spanish Grand Priories and the Grand Priory of Rome (by Papal command) refused to acknowledge him.
Paul was assassinated on the night of 23/24 March 1801 by officers concerned about his continuing mental decline. Four days later, his son and successor, Czar Alexander I, proclaimed himself "Protector" of the Order and commanded the Lieutenant of the Grand Master, Bailiff Nicholas Soltykoff, who had been nominated in succession to the disgraced Litta on 10 April 1799, to continue in his post. Alexander did not maintain this position for long and, on 1 August 1801, he acknowledged the authority of the Pope over the Order and the process of selecting a new Grand Master began. On 9 September 1801 the Imperial Russian Government transmitted an official note to all the Foreign Ministers accredited to Saint Petersburg, announcing that the Order " .. not having a legitimate Head ... the members must (follow) the forms and usages to proceed legally to the election of a Grand Master ... His Imperial Majesty is to give this to all the Courts that could be interested in re-establishing this Sovereign Order in its ancient Constitution". The Czar and his government evidently recognized that during the past three years the Order had not been governed according to its ancient Constitution.
The recognition of the right of the Order to restoration of sovereignty over Malta in the Treaty of Amiens accelerated the gradual disassociation of the Czar with the Order and, by a decree of 25 April 1803, the Council in Saint Petersburg resigned its powers to the new Grand Master, Tommasi. The Chapter in Russia later recognized Tommasi's successor, Lieutenant of the Grand Master Guevara-Suardo, as Head of the Order on 5 April 1806 and, by an Imperial Act of 10 March 1810, the Grand Priories of Russia were effectively rendered inoperative by a termination of Imperial financial support. Eighteen months later, on 2 December 1811, the commanderies in Russia were dissolved by the Czar and the holders permitted to convert them to private property (following payment of a fee to the Imperial Treasury). That all admissions to the Russian Grand Priories had definitively ceased is affirmed in an Imperial Resolution of 1 February 1817 in which a Russian citizen was forbidden to accept the Cross. Existing members retained their decorations and rank in the Order, and continued to be listed in the Imperial Almanachs as members of the Order of Saint John, but no further nominations were made. An attempt was made subsequently to revive the Grand Priory of Poland but it came to nothing. Catholic subjects of the Czar admitted to the Order were permitted to wear the decoration with official permission and all the Czars since Paul I (except Alexander II), and several Grand Dukes, were Bailiffs Grand Cross of the SMHOM, and various other senior members of the Russian Court received the Cross of Honor and Devotion, which was occasionally conferred on non-Catholics as a particular honor (this practice has now ceased and the Order per Merito Melitense is conferred on non-Catholcis). The late claimant to the Imperial Throne, the Grand Duke Wladimir Kyrillovich was nominated a Bailiff Grand Cross on 18 November 1961; the latter's daughter has received the Grand Cross of Merit with Gold Star.
A
New Role
The French lost the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino to the British Navy in September 1800, and the latter immediately established their own administration which they maintained until the islands were granted independence in 1964. Since there had never been any realistic hope of persuading the Russians to intervene against the British, the illegal election of the Czar served to divide the Order and prejudice its claims to independence. The death of Paul led Hompesch to revive his claims to the Grand Magistery, in which he was first encouraged by Murat as the French hoped that by supporting the rights of the Order to the islands they could force out the British, whose position there gave them domination of the Mediterranean. The strong opposition to Hompesch's claim on the part of the Holy See, while not at first discouraging the former Grand Master, persuaded the French (who wished to initiate a rapprochement with the Papacy) to drop their support. By then he had lost the allegiance of most of the knights and the Papal nomination of Bailiff Ruspoli as Grand Master on 16 September 1802 made Hompesch realize that his cause was hopeless. Living on an inadequate and infrequently paid pension from the French, Hompesch moved from Trieste to Portschach in Carniola, thence to Porto di Fermo and finally to Montpellier where he died in penury on 12 May 1805. Only three knights attended his funeral at the church of the blue penitents (today the parish of Sainte-Eulalie).
The war between France and Great Britain had been terminated by the Treaty of Amiens of 25 March 1802, ratified on 18 April, and the signatories (France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia and Prussia) had agreed, by Article 10, that the Island of Malta should be restored to the knights in full sovereignty, while the British solemnly undertook to withdraw from the island and hand it over to the Order within three months of the ratification of the Treaty. It is probable that the British never had any intention of fulfilling this undertaking as they were very suspicious of French intentions and did not trust them to adhere to the agreement not to intervene in the Order's affairs. After carefully orchestrating popular demonstrations demanding the continuation of British rule, the Maltese Assembly formulated a new Constitution, which recognized King George III as Sovereign Lord, on 15 June 1802. Unfortunately the French had failed to abide by the terms of the Treaty in annexing substantial Italian territories to the French Republic and war broke out once more between the Great Powers. Any hope that the knights might recover the islands was finally lost by article VII of the Treaty of Paris of 30 March 1814, by which the islands were permanently attributed to Great Britain ("en toute propriete et souverainete a S.M. Britannique"). Although the Order made representations at the Congress of Vienna for their return, they were ignored by the allies and Britain was confirmed in possession.
Thanks to the generosity of the government of Sweden, the Order had another opportunity to be restored to temporal sovereignty, when it was offered perpetual sovereignty of the Island of Gottland in the Baltic, by a letter of Swedish Minister Baron Armfelt dated 19 September 1806. However, to have accepted the Swedish offer would have meant surrendering their claim to Malta, which had been acknowledged by all the powers in the Treaty of Amiens and, after taking the advice of the Holy See, the offer was rejected. The Holy See's decision may have been influenced by the fact that the Order would be indebted to a Lutheran Sovereign and the Pope may have considered that the status of the Order as an exclusively Roman Catholic institution could have been endangered once again. Had the Order recovered Malta, or installed itself on Gottland, the inevitable consequence would have been future political problems, when the citizens of those islands demanded self-determination and representation in government.
TO THE ORDER OF MALTA STUDY CENTER