History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 47 (1/2)
Above all, the strength of the besieged lay in the character of their chief. La Valette was one of those rare men whom Providence seems to raise up for special occasions, so wonderfully are their peculiar qualities suited to the emergency. To that attachment to his order which he had in common with his brethren, he united a strong religious sentiment, sincere and self-sacrificing, which shone through every act of his life. This gave him an absolute ascendancy over his followers, which he had the capacity to turn to full account. He possessed many of the requisites for success in action; great experience, a quick eye, a cool judgment. To these was united a fixedness of purpose not to be shaken by menace or entreaty; and which was only to be redeemed from the imputation of obstinacy by the extraordinary character of the circ.u.mstances in which he was placed. The reader will recall a memorable example, when La Valette insisted on defending St. Elmo to the last, in defiance not only of the remonstrance, but the resistance, of its garrison. Another equally pertinent is his refusal, though in opposition to his council, to abandon the town and retire to St. Angelo. One can hardly doubt that on his decision, in both these cases, rested the fate of Malta.
La Valette was of a serious turn, and, as it would seem, with a tendency to sadness in his temperament. In the portraits that remain of him, his n.o.ble features are touched with a shade of melancholy, which, taken in connection with his history, greatly heightens the interest of their expression. His was not the buoyant temper, the flow of animal spirits, which carries a man over every obstacle in his way. Yet he could comfort the sick, and cheer the desponding; not by making light of danger, but by encouraging them like brave men fearlessly to face it. He did not delude his followers by the promises--after he had himself found them to be delusive--of foreign succor. He taught them, instead, to rely on the succor of the Almighty, who would never desert those who were fighting in his cause. He infused into them the spirit of martyrs,--that brave spirit which, arming the soul with contempt of death, makes the weak man stronger than the strongest.
There is one mysterious circ.u.mstance in the history of this siege which has never been satisfactorily explained,--the conduct of the viceroy of Sicily. Most writers account for it by supposing that he only acted in obedience to the secret instructions of his master, unwilling to hazard the safety of his fleet by interfering in behalf of the knights, unless such interference became absolutely necessary. But even on such a supposition the viceroy does not stand excused; for it was little less than a miracle that the knights were not exterminated before he came to their relief; and we can hardly suppose that an astute, far-sighted prince, like Philip, who had been so eager to make conquests from the Moslems in Africa, would have consented that the stronghold of the Mediterranean should pa.s.s into the hands of the Turks. It seems more probable that Don Garcia, aware of the greater strength of the Turkish armament, and oppressed by the responsibility of his situation as viceroy of Sicily, should have shrunk from the danger to which that island would be exposed by the destruction of his fleet. On any view of the case, it is difficult to explain a course so irreconcilable with the plan of operations concerted with the grand-master, and the promises of support given to him by Don Garcia at the beginning of the siege.
La Valette, we are told, subsequently complained of the viceroy's conduct to Pius the Fifth; and that pontiff represented the affair to the king of Spain. Don Garcia had, soon after, the royal permission to retire from the government of Sicily. He withdrew to the kingdom of Naples, where he pa.s.sed the remainder of his days, without public employment of any kind, and died in obscurity.[1389]--Such a fate may not be thought, after all, conclusive evidence that he had not acted in obedience to the private instructions of his sovereign.
[Sidenote: SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF LA VALETTE.]
The reader, who has followed La Valette through the siege of Malta, may perhaps feel some curiosity to learn the fate of this remarkable man.--The discomfiture of the Turks caused a great sensation throughout Europe. In Rome the tidings were announced by the discharge of cannon, illuminations, and bonfires. The places of public business were closed.
The shops were shut. The only places opened were the churches; and thither persons of every rank--the pope, the cardinals, and the people--thronged in procession, and joined in public thanksgiving for the auspicious event. The rejoicing was great all along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, where the inhabitants had so severely suffered from the ravages of the Turks. The name of La Valette was on every tongue, as that of the true champion of the cross. Crowned heads vied with one another in the honors and compliments which they paid him. The king of Spain sent him a present of a sword and poniard, the handles of which were of gold superbly mounted with diamonds. The envoy, who delivered these in presence of the a.s.sembled knights, accompanied the gift with a pompous eulogy on La Valette himself, whom he p.r.o.nounced the greatest captain of the age, beseeching him to continue to employ his sword in defence of Christendom. Pius the Fifth sent him--what, considering the grand-master's position, may be thought a singular compliment--a cardinal's hat. La Valette, however, declined it, on the ground that his duties as a cardinal would interfere with those which devolved on him as head of the order. Some referred his refusal to modesty; others, with probably quite as much reason, to his unwillingness to compromise his present dignity by accepting a subordinate station.[1390]
But La Valette had no time to dally with idle compliments and honors.
His little domain lay in ruins around him; and his chief thought now was how to restore its fortunes. The first year after the siege, the knights had good reason to fear a new invasion of the Moslems; and Philip quartered a garrison of near fifteen thousand troops in the island for its protection.[1391] But Solyman fortunately turned his arms against a nearer enemy, and died in the course of the same year, while carrying on the war against Hungary.[1392] Selim, his successor, found another direction for his ambition. Thus relieved of his enemies, the grand-master was enabled to devote all his energies to the great work of rebuilding his fallen capital, and placing the island in a more perfect state of defence than it had ever been. He determined on transferring the residence of the order to the high land of Mount Sceberras, which divides the two harbors, and which would give him the command of both.
His quick eye readily discerned those advantages of the position, which time has since fully proved. Here he resolved to build his capital, to surround it with fortifications, and, at the same time, to enlarge and strengthen those of St. Elmo.
But his treasury was low. He prepared a plan of his improvements, which he sent to the different European princes, requesting their cooperation, and urging the importance to them all of maintaining Malta as the best bulwark against the infidel. His plan met with general approbation. Most of the sovereigns responded to his appeal by liberal contributions,--and among them the French king; notwithstanding his friendly relations with the sultan. To these funds the members of the order freely added whatever each could raise by his own credit. This amount was still further swelled by the proceeds of prizes brought into port by the Maltese cruisers,--an inexhaustible source of revenue.
Funds being thus provided, the work went forward apace. On the twenty-eighth of March, 1566, the grand-master, clad in his robes of ceremony, and in the presence of a vast concourse of knights and inhabitants, laid the first stone of the new capital. It was carved with his own arms; and a Latin inscription recorded the name of ”Valetta,”
which the city was to bear in honor of its founder.[1393] More than eight thousand men were employed on the work; and a bull of Pius the Fifth enjoined that their labors should not be suspended on fete-days.[1394] It seemed to be regarded as a Christian duty to provide for the restoration of Malta.[1395] La Valette superintended the operations in person. He was ever to be seen on the spot, among the workmen. There he took his meals, discussed affairs of state with his council, and even gave audience to envoys from abroad.[1396]
In the midst of these quiet occupations, there were some occurrences which distracted the attention, and greatly disturbed the tranquillity, of La Valette. One of these was the disorderly conduct of some of the younger knights. Another was a dispute in which he was involved with the pope, who, in the usual encroaching spirit of the Vatican, had appropriated to himself the nomination to certain benefices belonging to the order.
[Sidenote: SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF LA VALETTE.]
These unpleasant affairs weighed heavily on the grand-master's mind; and he often sought to relieve his spirits by the diversion of hawking, of which he was extremely fond. While engaged in this sport, on a hot day in July, he received a stroke of the sun. He was immediately taken to Il Borgo. A fever set in; and it soon became apparent that his frame, enfeebled by his unparalleled fatigues and hards.h.i.+ps, was rapidly sinking under it. Before dying, he called around his bed some of the brethren to whom the management of affairs was chiefly committed, and gave them his counsel in respect to the best method of carrying out his plans. He especially enjoined on them to maintain a spirit of unity among themselves, if they would restore the order to its ancient prosperity and grandeur. By his testament, he liberated his slaves, some fifty in number; and he obtained the consent of his brethren to bequeath a sum sufficient to endow a chapel he had built in Valetta, to commemorate his victory over the infidels. It was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; and in this chapel he desired that his body might be laid. Having completed these arrangements, he expired on the twenty-first of August, 1568.
La Valette's dying commands were punctually executed by his brethren.
The coffin inclosing his remains was placed on board of the admiral's galley, which, with four others that escorted it, was shrouded in black.
They bore the household of the deceased, and the members of the order.
The banners taken by him in battle with the Moslems were suspended from the sterns of the vessels, and trailed through the water. The procession, on landing, took its way through the streets of the embryo capital, where the sounds of labor were now hushed, to the chapel of Our Lady of Victory. The funeral obsequies were there performed with all solemnity; and the remains of the hero were consigned to the tomb, amidst the tears of the mult.i.tude, who had gathered from all parts of the island, to pay this sad tribute of respect to his memory.[1397]
The traveller who visits Malta at the present day finds no object more interesting than the stately cathedral of Valetta, still rich in historical memorials and in monuments of art, of which even French rapacity could not despoil it. As he descends into its crypts, and wanders through its subterranean recesses, he sees the niche where still repose the remains of La Valette, surrounded by the brave chivalry who fought, side by side with him, the battles of the Faith. And surely no more fitting place could be found for his repose, than the heart of the n.o.ble capital which may be said to have been created by his genius.[1398]
The Knights of St. John continued, in the main, faithful to the maxims of La Valette and to the principles of their inst.i.tution. For more than two centuries after his death, their sword was ever raised against the infidel. Their galleys still returned to port freighted with the spoils of the barbarian. They steadily continued to advance in power and opulence; and while empires rose and crumbled around them, this little brotherhood of warlike monks, after a lapse of more than seven centuries from its foundation, still maintained a separate and independent existence.
In the long perspective of their annals, there was no event which they continued to hold in so much honor as the defence of Malta by La Valette. The eighth of September--the day of the nativity of the Virgin--continued to the last to be celebrated as their proudest anniversary. On that day the whole body of the knights, and the people of the capital, walked in solemn procession, with the grand-master at their head, to the church of St. John. A knight, wearing the helmet and mailed armor of the ancient time, bore on high the victorious standard of the order. A page by his side carried the superb sword and poniard presented by Philip the Second. As the procession pa.s.sed into the church, and the standard was laid at the foot of the altar, it was announced by flourishes of trumpets and by peals of artillery from the fortresses. The services were performed by the prior of St. John's; and, while the Gospel was read, the grand-master held the naked sword aloft, in token that the knights were ever ready to do battle for the Cross.[1399] When the ceremony was concluded, a fine portrait of La Valette was exhibited to the people; and the brethren gazed, with feelings of reverence, on his majestic lineaments, as on those of the saviour of their order.[1400]
But all this is changed. The Christians, instead of being banded against the Turk, now rally in his defence. There are no longer crusades against the infidel. The age of chivalry has pa.s.sed. The objects for which the Knights Hospitallers were inst.i.tuted have long since ceased to exist; and it was fitting that the inst.i.tution, no longer needed, should die with them. The knights who survived the ruin of their order became wanderers in foreign lands. Their island has pa.s.sed into the hands of the stranger; and the flag of England now waves from the ramparts on which once floated the banner of St. John.
CHAPTER VI.
DON CARLOS.
His Education and Character.--Dangerous Illness.--Extravagant Behavior.--Opinions respecting him.--His Connection with the Flemings.--Project of Flight.--Insane Conduct.--Arrest.
1567, 1568.