Europe owes to the Sovereign Pontiffs a heavy debt of gratitude for the indefatigable zeal with which they never ceased to sound the note of alarm, and to urge the Christian powers, not only to oppose the farther progress of the Turkish arms, but to drive back the barbarian hordes into the regions from which they had emerged; a debt all the heavier that each respite and each success was obtained almost against the will of those for whom it was won, and with an apparent unconsciousness, on their part, of the imminence of the danger or the nature of the calamity with which they were threatened. If the Turk retreated from Malta in shame and confusion,—if at Lepanto he lost the prestige of his naval superiority,—if Vienna defied his beleaguering hosts and sent him flying from her walls, never again to return,—it was the Vicar of Christ who thus foiled him and smote him, and who, from the height of his throne on the Vatican hill, pronounced that irreversible word, “Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.” Every check, every failure, every defeat the infidels encountered, originated with Rome. D’Aubusson, L’Isle Adam, La Valette, Don John of Austria, Sobieski,—all were but the lieutenants of the Pope; and that Europe was not delivered over to a blasphemous apostasy, and desolated and trodden down by the foulest tyranny which the world has ever known, may justly be attributed, in the good providence of God, to the untiring vigilance and the energetic and persevering hostility of the old man who reigns at Rome, and who never dies.[1] The writer had relied chiefly on the works of the Abbé Vertot and Mr. Taafe for the sketch of the Order of Knights Hospitallers. It may be proper, however, to state, that since the manuscript came into the editor’s hands it has been carefully compared with the text of various approved authors who have either previously or subsequently written on the subject, and to the results of whose labours reference is made in the notes. The account of the Battle of Lepanto is mainly founded on the history recently published by Don Cajetan Rosell, and the _Life of St. Pius V._, by Maffei; and the story of the Siege and Relief of Vienna is taken for the most part from Salvandy’s _Life of John Sobieski_, and that by the Abbé Coyer. E. H. T. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Commencement of the Order—The object of its institution—Its achievements in the Holy Land—Its settlement in Acre after the fall of Jerusalem—Description of Acre—The Great Hospital and its traditions—Successes of the Saracens—Siege of Acre under Melec Seraf, sultan of Egypt—The last assault—Massacre—The survivors of the Order take refuge in Cyprus 1 CHAPTER II.