still remain. In the earlier days of the reign of Henry VIII.of unblessed memory-Prior Docwra was in high favour, 'sitting as Premier Baron of the Realm in his first Parliament, ' and being employed on various embassies and commissions.' (Fincham, p. 18.) He received the valiant Philip Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Grand-Master of the Order, when he came to England during his journey to the Courts of Europe to beseech help to regain the Island of Rhodes. King Henry came to visit him at the priory, when he promised the guns already mentioned.

But now began Henry VIII.'s disputes with the Pope; and the King endeavoured to win away the allegiance of the English Knights from the Grand-Master and head of their Order, tempting' them to become his Knights, with the defence ' of Calais as their particular mission.' In 1527, at Docwra's death, Henry further tried to force a favourite of his own upon the Knights, and also to exact from them a yearly tribute of £4000. But he met with no success from this high-spirited and powerful body, and was at last obliged to accept their nominee, Sir William Weston, as Lord Prior.

No wonder is it therefore, that when Henry VIII. had dissolved the religious houses of England, he should make short work of the English Knights Hospitallers who had dared to withstand his will, and whose vast possessions were so tempting a prize. Therefore in 1540 it was enacted that 'The Kinge's 'Majestie, his heirs and successors, shall have and enjoy all 'that Hospitall, Mansion-house, Churche, and all other houses, edificeons, buyldinges and gardienes of the same belonging, being nere unto the citie of London, in the Countie of Midd., 'called the house of St. John of Jerlm. in England.'

The members of the Order might not use any of its titles or wear the dress. Sir William Weston, however, was granted a pension of £1000 a year. But the Royal funds were not long diminished by this concession, for, as it is quaintly put:

'It fortuned on the 7th. day of May, 1540, being Ascension Day, and the same day of the dissolution of his house, he was dissolved by death, which strooke him to the heart at the first time when he heard of the dissolution of his Order. Soul smitten with sorrow, gold, though a great cordial, being not able to cure a broken heart.'*

Tis 27 vis loweren suri astng my m the regn of Queen Emberi vien te own coce more seized their properes and the Angis fed again to Malta. There the Lagi langue ormed to enst, and English Knights and Gand Pmors were admimad ml Napoleon wattered the Orient But Queen Mary's Letters Patent ve naa ka raciai. Tas sa mamer of deeg terest and importance to the Order in England as exists to-day. The onginal document may be seen the pubic Ebrary at Malta; and attested copies are kept in the brary at St. John's Gate. During Elizabeth's reign, Edmund Tyley, Mister of the Revels, lived at the priory. It was then used as headquarters of the drama, and as Tylney licensed no fewer than thirty of Shakespeare's plays from here, it is certain that the poet must often have visited the Gate House.

Many were the vicissitudes of the beautiful Gate House, before it once more came into its own as headquarters of the Order in England. To quote Mr. Fincham's admirable account (p. 44):

'In 1731 the Gate House was inhabited by a printer, Edward Cave, and here he printed and issued “The Gentleman's Magazine.'

Dr. Samuel Johnson was for a long time its chief writer, contributing amongst many other items the reports on the debates of the Houses of Parliament. Cave does not appear to have paid large salaries, for Johnson was so shabbily dressed that he took his meals behind a screen in the corner of Cave's dining-room when guests were present. At this period Johnson brought to the Gate a young friend with a taste for acting, and it was in the large room over the arch* that David Garrick gave his first performance in Fielding's farce of "The Mad Doctor," founded upon Molière's "Malade Imaginaire," to Cave's workmen and friends. In 1781 "The Gentleman's Magazine" was removed to Fleet Street, and the Gate became the Parish Watch House; and later it became an inn with the name of "The Old Jerusalem Tavern."

In 1845 the Gate House narrowly escaped destruction. It had grown so ruinous that the authorities ordered its destruction or its repair. Happily a resident architect, Mr. W. P. Griffith, took up the matter, raised a public subscription and restored the building to a condition of safety. In 1874 the freehold of the Gate House being for sale, the late Sir Edmund Lechmere, who as a boy at Charterhouse had subscribed 5s. pocket money to the restoration fund, bought it and transferred it to the Order: but it was not until 1887 that the leases expired and the Order obtained full possession.

The great Gate House, formerly the principal approach to the priory through the wall which enclosed the precincts, consists of two large towers four storeys high, joined by a fine archway spanning St. John's Lane and bearing a large room above it. The whole is built of red brick encased in Kentish ragstone, except in the flat walls of the archway, where the beautiful small bricks-five to the foot instead of four-give a special charm to the building.

On the ground floor a door under the archway opens into what was formerly the Guard Room-now the admirable library of the Order. This contains, besides the fine collection of books, prints and manuscripts relating to the history of the Order, coins, vestments, crosses and orders, plate, weapons, and other treasures of great value. The seventeenth-century staircase, entered by a low door on the north of the Gate, leads up to the Chancery on the second floor of the east tower, where are many very interesting water-colour drawings of Malta in the eighteenth century, and others depicting sea fights of

*Now the Council Chamber.

VOL. 226. NO. 462.

U

the Order with the Turks and corsairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

On the same level as the Chancery we reach the large room over the archway-now the Council Chamber-which was in all probability the Guest Hall, and therefore the scene of Henry VIII.'s meeting with Grand-Master de l'Isle Adam. From its south window one gets a delightful vision of the dome of St. Paul's beyond the ugly houses of St. John's Lane, and realises how much higher the priory stood than the City. In the west tower the chief room is that of the Secretary-General on the third floor; while the other rooms in both towers are used by the various departments of the Order.

But in 1903 the work of the Order had outgrown the accommodation found in the Gate House, and a large building was erected on the south side. The ground floor of this new building is used as a store for ambulance material, and the first floor as offices and lecture room or drill hall, while the Chapter Hall on the second floor covers the whole of the new building, and its principal entrance is through the charming old Chancery.

After the dispersal of the Order in Malta by Napoleon in 1798, the European War seems to have prevented any action on the part of the scattered Knights for some twenty years. But the massacre of the Christians of Scio during the war between Turkey and Greece, which led eventually to the liberation of Greece, moved European feeling so profoundly that the French Knights resident in Paris determined to 'see if it was not possible to re-constitute the Order as a militant body to fight in aid of the Christians.' They proposed to have a mercantile branch to help in wars against the Turks, thus imitating the original founders of the Order-the Merchant Knights of Amalfi. They invoked the help of the English; and the Venerable Ordinary Council then in Paris 're-estab'lished the English branch of the Order, prescribing that the 'members of the Order might be members of the Anglican 'Church.'*

Steps were at once taken by the remaining English Knights under Queen Mary's charter, which, as has been shown, had never been revoked, to revive the Order in England as a

Dr. E. Freshfield, Receiver-General of the Order, 1909.

voluntary body, and proceedings took place in the English Law Courts with that intent.

All legal difficulties were finally set at rest, as far as the English Order is concerned, by Queen Victoria, who in 1878 granted a fresh charter to the Order, giving the voluntary body formed by the Knights a status and constitution founded upon the charter of Queen Mary. The continuity of handing down the accolade of the Order was preserved through its Honorary Bailiff, the late Sir Edward G. L. Perrott, Bart., who died in 1886 he having received the accolade from Sir J. C. Meredyth, Bart., G.C.J.J., who had received it from the last Grand-Master of the Order, Ferdinand von Hompesch, who fled to Russia from Malta when Napoleon seized that island.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71-which brought the Geneva Red Cross movement prominently before the civilised world-inspired the Order with fresh energy, and numbers of its members joined the newly-formed British National Aid Society for Red Cross work. But experience showed that no society could be really efficient in war if it were not thoroughly organised in time of peace. And this conviction led to the institution of a work wholly due to the Order of St. John, a work whose value to all classes of the community, in peace as well as in war, has proved inestimable. This was the inauguration in 1877 of the St. John Ambulance Association.

The object of this Association was to train men and womennay, even boys and girls-in First Aid to the wounded. We can look back to the jeers and laughter with which such an idea was greeted. We have also seen, with profound satisfaction, how prejudice and contemptuous jokes have given place to gratitude on the part of millions of sufferers who have been succoured by the contemptible' First Aider.' For, from the outset, it should be remembered that the Association insisted on the principle that the duty of the First Aid pupil was not to cure an injury, but to use his intelligence in acting rapidly, and improvising any means at hand to prevent the injury becoming worse, until the doctor arrived.

Woolwich had the honour of forming the first centre of the St. John Ambulance Association in 1877. This good example was quickly followed by other centres in London and the