In the mean while, the Knights Hospitallers confined themselves to the objects for which they were originally instituted; and, that they might always be prepared to fight against the enemies of Christendom, they obtained a cession of the island of Rhodes, from which they expelled the Turks. Here they continued for many years, a stumblingblock in the way of Moslem conquest; but at length, the chancellor of the Order, named d'Amaral,[884] disappointed of the dignity of Grand Master, in revenge, it is said, invited the Turks to the siege, and gave them the plan of the island with its fortifications. Soliman II. instantly led an army against it; but the gallant knights resisted with a determined courage, that drove the imperious sultaun almost to madness. He commanded his celebrated general, Mustapha, to be slain with arrows,[885] attributing to him the misfortune of the siege; and at length had begun to withdraw his forces, when a more favourable point of attack was discovered, and the knights were ultimately obliged to capitulate. The city of Rhodes was by this time reduced to a mere heap of stones, and at one period of the siege, the Grand Master himself remained thirty-four days in the trenches, without ever sitting down to food, or taking repose, but such as he could gain upon an uncovered mattress at the foot of the wall. So noble a defence well merited an honourable fate; and even after their surrender, the knights were the objects of admiration and praise to all Europe, though Europe had suffered them to fall without aid. The sultaun, before he allowed the Order to transfer itself to Candia, which had been stipulated by the treaty, requested to see the Grand Master: and to console him for his loss, he said, "The conquest and the fall of empires are but the sports of fortune." He then strove to win the gallant knight who had so well defended his post to the Ottoman service, holding out to him the most magnificent offers, and showing what little cause he had to remain attached to the Christians,[886] who had abandoned him; but Villiers replied, that he thanked him for his generous proposals, yet that he should be unworthy of such a prince's good opinion if he could accept them. Before the Order of St. John could fix upon any determinate plan of proceeding, it was more than once threatened with a complete separation, by various divisions in its councils.