There were nearly 40,000 knights scattered over the various Priories, Commanderies, and Preceptories of the Order; they were divided into eight “langues”—Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England, Germany, and Castile.
The Grand Prior of Clerkenwell ranked as the first Baron of England; he had absolute authority over the English branch; after the suppression of the Templars the Hospitallers obtained a nominal grant of all their estates, but these were so heavily burdened with legal and other charges, that the new owners were not greatly enriched.
The church of the Priory was dedicated by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in 1185. The English branch of the knights grew and prospered; they acquired a great number of manors; they sent abroad companies and contingents wherever fighting was going on against the Moslem; no one could accuse the knights of refusing to act up to their vows as regards fighting. But they became most unpopular; they acquired the reputation, like the Templars, of being oppressive landlords and proud neighbours. In the rising of Wat Tyler, vengeance fell especially upon the Knights Hospitallers. The mob attacked, seized, wrecked, and fired the Priory; they would not allow any effort to stay the flames; they watched it burn for a week; and they destroyed the Prior’s house at Highbury.
When the insurrection was quelled, the knights returned to their ruined Priory and set themselves to rebuild it in greater magnificence; the rebuilding, conducted in the leisurely mediæval fashion, took nearly two hundred years; it was not until 1504 that the House was completed by Sir Thomas Docwra, then Prior, and this was only one short generation before the suppression of the Order in England and the confiscation of their property.
The Dissolution of the Order took place in 1540. The Act for its suppression was read for the first time in the House of Commons on the 22nd of April, for the second time on the 26th, and for the third time on the 29th. On the 7th May the Order was suppressed. The value of its revenues in England was estimated, according to Stow, at £3385: 19: 8; according to Dugdale, at £2385: 12: 8. The last Prior, Sir William Weston, received from the King the promise of a pension of £1000 a year—an enormous pension considering the value of money. But he died on the day of the suppression.
THE PRIORY OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, LONDON
Londina Illustrata, vol. i.
Unlike many Houses, the Priory, with its noble church, escaped the hands of the destroyer for some time. What happened to it is told by Stow:—
“This Priory church and House of St. John was preserved from spoil or downpulling, 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, etc.; but in the 3rd of King Edward VI., the church, for the most part, to wit, the body and side aisles, with the great bell tower (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 in the Strand. That part of the choir which remaineth, with some side chapels, was, by Cardinal Pole in the reign of Queen Mary, closed up at the west end, and otherwise repaired; and Sir Thomas Gresham, knight, was then made lord prior there, with restitution of some lands, but the same was again suppressed in the first year of Queen Elizabeth.” (Survey, vol. ii.)