the Order, and who had been kept at a distance with difficulty even
while the Knights had been at Rhodes. The creation of a bishopric at
Malta, the introduction of the Inquisition, and then of the
Jesuits, had led to constant quarrels between the Knights and the
ecclesiastics, and from these had arisen the evil practice of appeals
to the Curia. In the seventeenth century the Popes regarded the
valuable patronage of the langue of Italy as in their gift, and the
Grand Masters were powerless to protect their defrauded Knights. The
depths of the Order's humiliation were shown by the demand of Pope
Urban XIII., in 1642, that the Order's galleys should help him fight
the League of Italian Princes which had been formed to resist his
invasion of Parma. Lascaris, the Grand Master, was unable to refuse,
and for the first time the famous red galleys were seen arrayed
against Christian neighbours.

The operations of the Knights in the seventeenth century were mainly
carried out in alliance with the Venetians, who were the one Power
who continued to resist the Turk at sea. They were still lords of
the great island of Crete, which lay athwart the trade routes of the
Levant, and only by its conquest would the Ottoman control of the
Eastern Mediterranean be complete. In 1645 Ibrahim I. declared war on
Venice and besieged Candia; but the attack was so remiss that success
seemed impossible. The Knights of Malta threw themselves into the
struggle on the side of the Venetians, feeling bound in honour to
do so, as the refuge of Maltese galleys in Venetian harbours was the
Turkish pretext for war. In 1656 Mocenigo, the Venetian Admiral, with
the aid of the Knights, won a brilliant victory off the Dardanelles,
capturing Lemnos and Tenedos. This imminent peril brought Mohammed
Kiuprili to power as Grand Vizier, and the war was thenceforward
conducted with great energy by the Turks. Year after year volunteers