Incited by the example of the knights templars, about the year 1118, the hospitallers also took up the profession of arms, in addition to their origi nal charitable profession; occupying themselves at one time in attending upon the sick, and at others in acts of hostility against the Turks and Saracens. At this time they took the name of knights hospitallers.

Both orders flourished and increased daily; but that of the templars, though the youngest of the two, having from its original establishment been wholly employed in the profession of arms, was by many esteemed to be the most honourable; and therefore many noblemen, princes, and persons of the highest distinction, who thought the service of tending the sick too servile an employment, entered themselves amongst the knights templars, in preference to the other order.

Both orders, for years, generally took the field together, and, as well by themselves as in conjunction with the troops of the Crusades, won ma ny battles, and performed prodigies of valour. The emulation, however, which subsisted between them often occasioned warm disputes, which rose to such a height as produced frequent skirmishes between detached parties of the two orders. This occa sioned the pope and the respective grand masters to interfere; who in a great measure suppressed 10 in

these quarrels ; but the knights of the different orders ever afterward continued to view each other, with jealous eyes.

Some time after these difficulties were thus partially suppressed, the Turks assembled a great force and drove the whole of the Christians out of Palestine. The last fortress they had possession of was that of St. John d'Acre. This was long and bravely defended by the knights templars against their besiegers. The Turks, however, at last forced three hundred knights, being all that remained of the garrison, to take refuge in a strong tower, to which also the women fled for safety. The Turks hereupon set about undermining it, which they in a short time so effectually accomplished, that the knights saw, in case they held out any longer, they must all inevitably perish. They therefore capitulated, stipulating, among other things, that the honour of their women should not be violated. Upon this, the tower being opened, the Turks marched in; but, in total breach of the terms of capitulation, they immediately began to offer violence to the women. The enraged knights instantly drew their swords, hewed in pieces all the Turks who had entered, shut the gates against those who remained without, and resigned themselves to inevitable death, which they soon met

with, by the tower being undermined and thrown down upon their heads.

After this defeat, the two orders found an asyfum in the island of Cyprus; from whence, after some time, the knights templars, finding their number so diminished as to leave no hopes of ef fecting any thing towards the recovery of the holy land, without new crusades (which the christian princes did not seem inclined to set on foot) returned to their different commanders in the vari ous parts of christendom.

From this time the two orders separated; the knights hospitallers remained a while at Cyprus, from whence they afterwards went to Rhodes, and thence to Malta; which name they then assumed. The knights templars dispersed themselves throughout all Europe, but still enjoyed princely revenues, and were extremely wealthy.

Vertot says, that pope Boniface the VIIIth hav ing engaged in a warm dispute with Philip, king of France, the two orders, as had too frequently happened before, took opposite sides. The knights of Malta declared in favour of king Philip, whilst the knights templars espoused the cause of the pope. This conduct, Philip, partly from a revengeful disposition, and partly from the hope of getting possession of the vast wealth of the knights, never could forgive; but formed, thenceforward, the de

sign of suppressing the order, whenever a proper opportunity should offer. This, however, did not occur till after the decease of pope Boniface.

Immediately on the death of that pontiff, the cardinals assembled to elect his successor; but party disputes ran so high in the conclave, that there seemed no probability of again filling the papal chair very speedily. At length, through the intrigues and machinations of the friends of Philip, the cardinals were all brought to consent to the election of any priest that he should recommend to them.

This was the darling object the monarch had in view this being accomplished, he immediately sent for the archbishop of Bourdeaux, whose ambition he knew had no bounds, and who would hesitate at nothing to gratify it; and communicated to him the power he had received of nomi nating a person to the papal chair, and promising he should be the person, on his engaging to perform six conditions. The archbishop greedily snatched at the bait, and immediately took an oath on the sacrament to the faithful performance of the conditions. Philip then laid open to him five of the conditions, but reserved the sixth until after the archbishop's coronation as pope; which soon took place in consequence of the recommendation

of the king to the conclave; and the new pope took upon himself the name of Clement V.

Vertot goes on to say, that a templar, and a citizen of Beziers, having been apprehended for some crime, and committed together to a dune geon, for want of a priest confessed each other; that the citizen, having heard the templar's con fession, in order to save his own life accused the order to king Philip; charging them, on the aur thority of what his fellow prisoner had told him, with idolatry, sodomy, robbery, and murder; adding, that the knights templars being secretly Mar hometans, each knight, at his admission into the order, was obliged to renounce Jesus Christ, and to spit on the cross in token of his abhorrence of it. Philip, on hearing these accusations, pardoned the citizen, and disclosed to the pope his sixth condition, which was the suppression of the order of knights templars.

Not only every knight templar must know to a certainty the absolute falsehood of these charges, but every unprejudiced reader of Vertot's history must also perceive that the whole of their accu sation was the product of Philip's own brain, in order to accomplish his long wished for object of suppressing the order, and getting possession of their vast riches in his dominions. It is therefore evident, that the story of the templar's confession