The Knights and the Craft
From Mr Desmond Seward
Sir: Neither Damian Thompson in his article ('Out of order', 30 October) nor I in my book The Monks of War queries the magnifi- cent work done by the St John Ambulance. What, obviously, we do both question is the claim (made in a recent public relations campaign of which Professor Riley-Smith's The Hospitallers is the centrepiece) that the Venerable Order of St John descends from the mediaeval Hospitallers.
The crack-brained project of an expedi- tion to Greece in the 1820s cannot possibly have been `thought up by the French provinces of the Order of Malta', as the pro- fessor claims (Letters, 13 November). These had ceased to exist at the Revolution. It was a scheme by an impostor, not a genuine knight of Malta, the self-styled 'Marquis de Sainte-Croix-Molay', whose real name is unknown. The professor, the Venerable Order's librarian, says that the first brethren of his Order were created during the Greek project. But this was banned in 1824 by the Great Powers and the Order of Malta, and they were not invested until 1831 — by an accomplice of the bogus marquis, another conman with a fake title.
The main reason why, in 1858, the Order of Malta did not recognise the English 'knights' (in those days just a dining club) was that so many of them were freemasons. `Sainte-Croix-Molay' was almost certainly a mason like the Order of St John's founder, the Revd Sir John Peat, the rascally vicar of New Brentwood — admitted into St John's Lodge in Sunderland in July 1829. As I point out in my book, close links have always existed between the Venerable Order and the Craft. Inexplicably, this is nowhere mentioned by the professor.
Why does Professor Riley-Smith's book omit all reference to the knights of Malta in this country? There have always been English, Scots or Irish knights despite the Reformation: devoted men who tried to revive their Grand Priory in 1639, 1688 and 1946, finally succeeding in 1993. But he does not think them worthy of notice. It seems a bit odd, especially when the author tells us he is so proud of being a knight of Malta as well as a knight of St John. Desmond Seward 53/54 Regency Square, Brighton
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