the line of York[1]. The Kings of Sardinia continued to strike money as Kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem, until they became Kings of Italy. There is no recognised King of Cyprus now, but there are two or three Kings of Jerusalem; and the Cypriot title is claimed, I believe, by some obscure branch of the house of Lusignan, under the will of King James II.
So much for the archæology of the question. The interest of England in the aifairs of the Levant did not come to an end with the surrender of Cyprus to Venice; for the Knights of Rhodes maintained the defence of Christendom for half a century longer, and England was a close friend of the order until Henry VIII confiscated its estates. The Turcopolier of the Knights Hospitallers was always an Englishman; he was the commander of the light infantry of the order. I have found no list of the Turcopoliers; but in the fifteenth century we have the names of Peter Holt, Thomas Launeleve, or Langclifie, Hugh Middleton, and John Kendall; all of them would seem North-countrymen. In the last century a medal of John Kendall was found in Knaresborough Forest, and it would appear that he was a member of the family which was particularly marked by its devotion to S. Wilfrid of Ripon. The last known brother of the Order of S. Thomas of Acre, Richard of Tickhill, must also have been a Yorkshire man. The Cypriot king also had a Turcopolier, who, in 1357, was an Englishman. But these are trifles.
I said in beginning my lecture that I should draw no moral
- ↑ The descent is a long one, and there is a question whether the arms are those of Cyprus at all. But certain claims to represent the elder house of Lusignan had come into the family of Luxemburg. Jacquetta was daughter of the Count Peter of S. Pol, whose mother. Marguerite of Enghien, carried the representation of the Counts of Brienne to the Luxemburgs. Mary, daughter of Hugh I of Cyprus and his queen, married Walter IV of Brienne, father of Hugh, and grandfather of Walter V, duke of Athens; Walter V had a daughter Isabel, who married Walter IV of Enghien, father of Lewis, Count of Brienne and Conversano, and grandfather of Margaret, who was the heiress of Enghien. She married John of Luxemburg, and was mother of Peter, Count of S. Pol. As a claim to the throne of Cyprus, this descent was worthless; but it was a royal descent, and, after the extinction of the Lusignans and the house of Antioch-Lusignan, might be thought to have a value of its own. Queen Elizabeth, however, was in no sense the heiress of S. Pol, much less of Lusignan.
