Not even the Templars, at their highest point of splendour, outdid these knights in magnificence and luxury, in pride and in independence. Unpopular as they were, they did not incur the same odium as the Templars. In their pride and their privileges, it is true, they were the equals of the rival Order; they were as hard landlords; but they had this great superiority over the Templars in the fact that they did honestly continue the work for which they were founded: they fought the Moslem without intermission at Acre, at Rhodes, at Cyprus, at Malta, and in the Mediterranean Sea. They preserved the respect of the world for unconquerable courage.
In 1191 the Knights Hospitallers took Acre, which they held till 1292. On losing this, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, they retired to Cyprus, where they lay quiet, maturing their plans for fourteen years. It was, no doubt, the knowledge that they were forming plans for another attack on the Saracens which saved them on the downfall of the Templars. In 1308 they conquered Rhodes, which they defended for more than two hundred years. In 1522 they were turned out of this island; the few knights who survived sailed away with about 4000 soldiers and others from Rhodes, and took refuge in Candia, in Sicily, and in Naples, hoping for assistance to retake Rhodes. This assistance was not forthcoming, but they accepted from Charles the Fifth the islands of Malta and Gozo, to which they repaired, with all their archives and relics, in 1530. For two hundred and fifty years after this, the knights continued to fight Turk, Algerine, and Moor in the Mediterranean. In 1798, however, they allowed Napoleon to land without striking a blow.
Their rules were so stringent that it would seem, at first, wonderful how so much pride and luxury should have crept in. But the history of every Monastic House shows how rules can be evaded, or so obeyed as to destroy the spirit while adhering to the letter.
“Poverty, chastity, and obedience: to expect but bread and water and a coarse garment. The clerks to serve in white surplices at the altar. The priests, in their surplices, to convey the Host to the sick, with a deacon or clerk preceding them, bearing a lantern and the sponge filled with holy water. The brethren to go abroad by appointment of the master, but never singly, and to avoid giving offence. No females to be employed for or about their persons; when soliciting alms, to visit churches or people of reputation, and ask their food for charity; if they received none, to buy enough for subsistence; to account for all their receipts to the master, and he to give them to the poor, retaining only one-third part of provisions, the overplus to the poor. The brethren to go soliciting only by permission; to carry candles with them; to wear no skins of wild beasts, or clothes degrading the Order. To eat but twice a day on Wednesday and Saturday; and no flesh from Septuagesima till Easter, except when aged or indisposed. To sleep covered. If incontinent in private, to repent in privacy, and do penance; if the brother was discovered, he was to be deprived of his robe in the church of the town after mass, to be severely whipped, and expelled from the Order; but, if truly penitent, he might be again received; but not without penance and a year’s expulsion, etc.”
CRYPT OF ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, CLERKENWELL
If we follow the fortunes of the House after the accession of Elizabeth, we find that the south gate was granted by King James in 1604 to Sir Roger Wilbraham for life. In 1607 the site of the House, containing five acres, was granted to Ralph Freeman and his heirs. The choir, which had been restored or rebuilt by Cardinal Pole, became the property of Sir William Cecil; the Earl of Elgin got it by his marriage with Diana, daughter of the Earl of Exeter; his son, being created Earl of Aylesbury, called it Aylesbury Chapel. In the reign of James the Second a Roman Catholic convent of Benedictine monks was set up in the Precinct of St. John’s. An account of the attempt is given in T. Cromwell’s History of Clerkenwell:—
“It appears, that in the reign spoken of, a certain Father Corker was ‘resident in England to the Elector of Colen’ (Cologne); and that, having first set up a chapel in the Savoy, from which, owing to a dispute with the Jesuits, he was persuaded by the King to remove, ‘he went to St. John’s, corruptly called St. Jone’s, and there built a mighty pretty convent, which the Revolution of 1688 pulled down to the ground, to his very great loss, for as he was Dean of the rosary, he melted down the great gold chalice and patten to help towards this building, supplying the want of them with one of silver just of that make. He counted this convent for the conversion of souls amongst those things which the holy Fathers of the Church allow the church treasure to be spent on.’ This convent seems to have cost the Benedictines considerable sums of money; frequent entries appear in their account-books of that period of amounts paid towards its erection, etc. It is always styled in these books ‘The Factory,’ or, ‘The Factory in Clerkenwell.’”
In the year 1721 the estate was purchased by Simon Michell, and in 1723 he repaired and enlarged the chapel, which he sold to the commissioners for building fifty new churches, for £2950. The church was declared to be a parish church, and the parish assigned to it was the former precinct of the Priory.