Falkiner — The Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. 305 



exercise it. The facility with which the last Prior surrendered his 

 great ecclesiastical dignities in exchange for a viscounty and a grant 

 of the manor of Clontarf is evidence in itself of the decadence 

 which had taken place in the tone and spirit of the Hospitallers. 

 Nowhere among the many preceptories does there appear to have been 

 any serious resistance to the Eoyal will, when the decree for their 

 suppression was pronounced. For the rank and file of the brethren pro- 

 vision appears to have been made, and its leading members were treated 

 with consideration. The head of the Preceptory of Any, for example, 

 was appointed to the bishopric of Emly, and others among the knights 

 received considerable ecclesiastical preferment, while some were 

 placated like their chief by substantial grants of Hospitaller property. 



It is a curious circumstance that at the accession of Mary the 

 Hospital of Kilmainham was made the sole exception to the policy of 

 her advisers, which forbore to attempt the restoration of the suppressed 

 monasteries. By the Act of the Papal Legate Cardinal Pole, one 

 Oswald Massingberd was designated Prior in 1557, and the Order was 

 restored to its possessions. The peculiar favour thus shown was 

 doubtless due to the importance of the position still occupied through- 

 out Catholic Europe by the Knights of St. John. But its effects were 

 of course only shortlived. On the accession of Elizabeth, Massingberd 

 fled over sea, and the Hospital was finally annexed by Statute to the 

 Crown.^ 



^ For some notes on the subsequent vicissitudes of the Priory, see the present 

 writer's "Illustrations of Irish History and Topography," pp. 45-48; and see 

 also the paper on " The Phoenix Park," in R.I. A. Proceedings, Third Series, 

 vol. vi., p. 465. 



