Series 4 > Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Scotland

xxxvi
THE KNIGHTS OF ST JOHN
that the rights of his priory were being prejudiced by the grant
to Mercer in which he was not consulted.1
The entry of Hales into the conflict adds an interesting new
dimension; hitherto the master of Rhodes and the prior of England,
his intermediary, had acted in concert over Scottish affairs, and now
they came into conflict for the first time. It has been suggested that
all that was necessary was for the prior and king of England to
jog the memory’ of the master of Rhodes, reminding him that
Scotland was subject to the English langue.2 But Hales’ action, in
persuading Edward m to arrest sums of money bound from
England to the common treasury of Rhodes,3 was more serious
than the phrase ‘jogging the memory’ implies. Pending a decision
by the pope in the question between Hales and Juilly, brother
Henry de St Trond, preceptor of Avalterre, was appointed to
govern the revenues of Scotland in October 1375.4 In the end the
arrest of responsions from England was decisive, and the grand
master backed down, confirming the superiority of the priory of
England over Scottish lands of the order, and securing the release
of the moneys, which were intended to finance a new crusade of
500 knights and 500 esquires due to set out in the spring of 13 77.5
It has been suggested that Hales’ disobedience to the Master was
prompted by Te devouement aveugle qu’il avait voue a Edouard
ine, et qu’il paya de sa vie’ in the popular unrest of 1381.6 Certainly
it can only have served to weaken the authority of the grand
masters.
Hales’ intervention did nothing to solve the Master’s problem of
extracting revenue from Scotland. He seems actively to have aided
Mar and Erskine in preventing Mercer making his payments to
the common treasury,7 despite the fact that Mercer was paying
double what the old responsion had been. In 1379 a new admini¬
strator of the Hospitallers’ property in Scotland appears, Robert
1 CPL, iv, no 2 Tipton, ‘English and Scottish Hospitallers’, 241
8 CPL, iv, 140-2 4 Ibid., no, 140
5 Ibid., 141; a magisterial bull confirming Hales’s superiority over Scotland was issued
on 15 October 1375; Malta Cod. 346, IF. i2ir-v, 236 r-v
6J. Delaville Le Roulx, Les Hospitallers a Rhodes, 1310-1421 (Paris, 1913), 195. In
general, Delaville Le Roulx’s analysis here (pp.193-5) is more convincing than
Tipton, ‘English and Scottish Hospitallers’
7 Clement VIILetters, 32-33