438 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 266. 



It remains for us heartily to recommend your 

 highness to the Most High and Most Good God. 



Given from our castle of Windsor on the 24th 

 day of the month of August, in the year of our 

 Lord 1685, and of our reign the first. 



Your Highness' good Cousin and Friend, 



James Kex. 

 To the Grand Master of 

 the Order of Malta, 

 the Earl of Sunderland. 



Early in March, 1680, Nicholas Cotoner, to 

 ■whom so many of the previous royal letters had 

 been sent by Charles II., being seized with a fatal 

 disease, and informed by his confessor that he 

 could not live, called his councillors around him, 

 and begged, as his last earthly request, that his 

 friend Don Orlando Seralto, the Grand Prior of 

 Catalonia, might be chosen as his successor. 

 Though many of the electors were disposed to 

 gratify their prince in this his dying wish, yet the 

 Italians in a body objected, saying that for the 

 long period of 128 years no countryman of theirs 

 had governed the Order ; and though they had 

 no personal objection to Seralto, yet they in- 

 tended to name one of their own language to fill 

 the vacancy, should the Almighty afflict them by 

 his removal. 



On the 29th of April, the Grand Master 

 breathed his last, in the seventy-third year of his 

 age, and seventeenth of his reign. A beautiful 

 tomb bearing a Latin inscription now remains in 

 the Arragonian Chapel of St. John's Church, op- 

 posite to that of his brother's and predecessor's in 

 princely rule, which marics the site of his burial. 

 Early in May, 1680, and after various ballotings, 

 Gregory Carafa, a Neapolitan (not Eugenius, as 

 stated in the above letter of James II.), with a 

 bare plurality of votes, came to the vacant throne. 

 In 1687 the Maltese knights so much distinguished 

 themselves at the reduction of Castel Novo, which 

 gave to the Venetians the command of the 

 Adriatic, that the Roman pontiff. Innocent XL, 

 addressed a letter to the Grand Master, in which 

 he cordially congratulated him on the gallantry of 

 his subjects, and expressed a hope that those who 

 had perished on this occasion wei-e enjoying an 

 immortality in heaven, which it was the duty of 

 all who were spared, as champions of the Cross, to 

 strive to attain. 



In 1689 the allied commanders of the Venetian, 

 Roman, and Maltese squadrons sailed again for 

 the Morea, and being encouraged by their great 



racter in this person with the profession of the monks, 

 we are disposed to think him correct. Mills has written, 

 " that when the Order became military, the knights re- 

 nounced the patronage of the Almoner, and placed them- 

 selves under the more august tutelage of St. John the 

 Baptist." The Maltese historians have asserted that in 

 every age St. John the Baptist was the patron saint of 

 their Order. 



success on their previous cruises, were induced 

 rashly to attempt the reduction of Negropont. 

 After a siege and hard-fought battle, the Christians 

 met with a signal and cruel defeat. Carafa hear- 

 ing of tliis repulse, which had cost the Order 

 thirty knights and three hundred men, suffered so 

 much that a fever ensued, from the effects of 

 which he never recovered. Dying on the 21st of 

 July, 1690, when in the seventy-sixth year of his 

 age, and tenth of his reign, he was entombed in 

 the Italian chapel of St. John's Church, and a 

 modest epitaph of his own writing (which he left 

 for the purpose) was engraven on the marble 

 which covered his remains. (Vide Boisgelin's, 

 Alexander Sutherland's, and Lacroix's Histories 

 of the Order.) 



No. XIX. 



Anne by the grace of God, of Great Britain, 



France, and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the 



Faith. 



To the most illustrious and most high Prince, 

 the Lord Raymond Perellos, Roccaful, Grand 

 Master of the Order of Malta, our well-beloved 

 cousin and friend — Greeting : 



Most illustrious and most high Prince, our 

 well-beloved cousin and friend. 



It was with great pleasure that we received 

 your highness' letters of the 31st of March, in 

 which your highness demonstrates your good will 

 towards us and our subjects so clearly, that there 

 can be no room for doubt on that head. 



We return thanks as in duty bound to your 

 highness for the assistance afforded to our subjects 

 during the course of this last war, and we will not 

 omit any good office by which we may be able to 

 prove to your highness in how great esteem we 

 hold your friendship, and with what benevolence 

 we regard you and all your affairs. 



It remains for us heartily to recommend your 

 highness to the protection of the Most High and 

 Most Good God. 



Given from our palace of Kensington on the 8th 

 day of the month of July, in the year of our Lord 

 1713, and of our reign the twelfth. 



Your Highness' good Cousin and Friend, 



Anne R. 

 No. XX. 

 George by the grace of God, of Great Britain, 



France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the 



Faith. 



To the most illustrious and most high Prince, 

 the Lord Raymond Perellos, Roccaful, Grand 

 Master of the Order of Malta, our well-beloved 

 cousin and friend — Greeting : 



Most illustrious and most high Prince, our 

 well-beloved cousin and friend. 



Highly esteeming, as we are bound to do, your 

 highness' friendship, it cannot be a matter of 



