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The Hospital  ...  considered itself permanently at war with the infidel ...  The Turk in the Levant and the Muslim corsair from Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli ... along the Barbary coast ...  On their own through their regular statutory caravans or cruises throughout the Mediterranean, or with allies in formal war ...  Hospitallers tirelessly strive to seek him out, capture his ships, seize his merchandise, and carry his men into slavery ...  the whole relentless endeavour to keep the idea of the crusade alive ... [V Mallia-Milanes, 2003, 'Images of the Other: Venice's Perception of the Knights of Malta', Racial Discrimination and Ethnicity in European History , 63-77] NOTABLE NAVAL VICTORIES of the KNIGHTS OF MALTA These words formed the title of a newspaper feature piece run in the Sunday Times of Malta  on December 20, 2015. The article traced a number of battles at sea that were depicted in paintings from the Palazzo Falson Collection  in Malta. It ...

  HENRY II  King of England  Vs  HERACLIUS  Patriarch of Jerusalem In 1185 King He nry summoned a Great Council   at the Hospitallers' House in Clerkenwell.  Before the lords of the church and his realm he addressed his eminent suitors from the Holy Land, Heraclius the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Templars, and the Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitaller.  He had considered their request for him to lead a new crusade to Palestine and now made his decision known to them ― "for the good of his realm and the salvation of his soul" he must stay in England, but would provide money instead. HERACLIUS :  'We seek a man even without money, but not money without a man'. HENRY :   'Though all the men of my land were one body and spoke with one mouth, they would                    not dare speak to me as you have done'. HERACLIUS :  'Do by me as you did by that blessed ma...

After the fall of Acre in 1291, the Order of the Hospital moved its base to Limassol in Cyprus. Their situation was precarious. They had limited income, having lost not only the commandery on the coast but also their estates throughout the Levant. Dependant on donations from Western Europe, involved in quarrels with their 'host', an understandably nervous King Henry   II of Cyprus, the Knights Hospitaller also faced existential questions.  With the loss of the Holy Land there were widespread doubts about the ongoing purpose of monastic military Orders. This was a debate that the Templars would go on to lose (1312), with executions of their leaders for 'heresy' and confiscation of their possessions. As soon as he was elected Grand Master of the Knights of St John the Baptist (1305), Foulkes de Villaret made plans for the conquest of an 'independent' base on the island of Rhodes. The island is shaped like a spearhead, 80 kms long, and its most important attribute,...