KNIGHTS OF MALTA
The head of the order had the title of "Grand Prior," and
when the Christians were expelled from Palestine, the Knights
retreated to Cyprus, after which they took from the Turks the
island of Rhodes, which they held against the Sultan until 1522,
when Solyman II., after a long siege, forced them to capitulate.
A few years after that, the Emperor Charles V. gave them a
home in Malta, and they thenceforth were commonly called
Knights of Malta. They fortified the island, and imported soil
to make it productive, and putting to sea with their galleys
they made constant war upon all Turkish vessels. Solyman at
length determined to drive them out of Malta. He despatched
a fleet of 180 galleys, carrying 30,000 men. The Turks took
the fort of St. Elmo, but with a loss of 8,000 men; and when
the Emperor sent an army to assist the Knights, La Valette, the
Grand Prior, a famous leader, drove the Moslems off. After
this they remained in Malta until the order was dissolved at
the close of the eighteenth century by order of Napoleon, when
most of the Knights took service in the French army. Whilst
the society existed it had branch establishments in England,
where the chief or Prior took precedence of all the barons, and
had a seat in Parliament. Their establishments were called
"commanderies—while those of the Templars, who were ruled
by "Grand Preceptors," were called "preceptories." Of these
there were three in Lincolnshire: at Willoughton, four miles
south of Kirton in Lindsey; at Aslackby, two miles south of
Falkingham; and at Temple Bruer; all three situated close to
the Ermine Street or "High Dyke" as they call it, on Lincoln
Heath, and it is from the heath that one of them gets its name
Templum de la bruère, or the temple on the heath, shortened into
Temple Bruer.
The lands of these Knights Templars, which were handed over by Edward II. in 1324 to the Knights Hospitallers, were all sequestrated in England at the time of the dissolution of the monastic and religious houses in 1538, and, like so many other Lincolnshire estates, granted by Henry VIII. to his relative, Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk. Henry, with his wife, Katherine Howard, dined at Temple Bruer when on his way to Lincoln in 1541. The buildings then were of considerable size, and the circular church, whose pillar bases have been laid bare, a little to the west of the existing tower, was fifty feet in diameter. It is modelled on the plan of the Holy Sepulchre
