The Czar as Grand Master

The outrage of the knights was justifiable; but the Emperor’s impatience to see himself at the head of the Order he so cherished next pushed his followers to an indefensible absurdity. On November 7th the Russian Priory, assisted by sundry adherents from elsewhere, took it upon itself to elect Paul I Grand Master. His favour was ever more lavish; at the beginning of the new year he created a second Grand Priory for the Orthodox nobility of Russia, as well as special squadrons of the Baltic and Black Sea fleets entrusted to the Knights of St John. Yet even if the whole Order had acclaimed him nothing could have legitimated the choice of such a head: a man who was not a professed knight and was, by religion and marriage, irremediably disqualified from being one.

Paul proceeded to enforce recognition of his title with a brisk insolence of diplomatic method surpassed only by the French. The Spanish minister, for failing to attend his ‘coronation’, was given a few days’ notice to depart; the Bavarian almost suffered the same fate, until the assent of the Elector was made clear. Charles Theodore, however, died in February 1799 and his revengeful successor lost no time in suppressing the Priory of Ebersberg. A threat to devastate Bavaria with an army of 50,000 Russians instantly called him to heel. When in March the Pope signified his disapproval of the election, the Nuncio was ordered out of St Petersburg. Louis XVIII authorised the French knights to recognise the Czar; the Kings of Naples and Portugal followed, and when the German Emperor reluctantly accepted the usurpation Paul had almost the whole Order under his control. Only the four Spanish priories repudiated him. In June 1799 Hompesch yielded to the pressure of the German Emperor and abdicated his office.

The consequence of the Czar’s claim was to make him in his own eyes the rightful sovereign of Malta, and here the means had already appeared to make good his title. Within seven weeks of the French annexation the Maltese had risen against the new government, goaded by the exactions and sacrilege of the conquerors (as Vaubois expressed it, ‘the priests have fanaticised the people’). For two years the Maltese endured enormous privations while they kept the French

Giulio Litta, after Wigny, by I. S. Klaubc

Garrison besieged in Valletta, with feeble support from Britain and Naples. During all this time it would have been open to the Russian Emperor to clinch the siege with forces of his own and take possession of the island; yet, although a squadron was ordered through the Dardanelles in December 1798 and remained in the Mediterranean until 1800, it did everything but head for Malta. Official British policy at that time supported Russia’s claim to the island, but its idiosyncratic agent in the Mediterranean was Nelson, who considered that the fate of Malta should be decided by Britain and Naples, and it was partly his influence at the Neapolitan court which frustrated the intentions of his own government and diverted the Russian forces from their goal.

The increasingly unbalanced Emperor was exercising his power by showering the Cross of Malta on all who took his fancy; his mistress Madame Lapoukhine was one of the recipients. When she fell from favour the Emperor used to call nightly upon her successor, Madame Chevalier, attired in the habit of the Grand Master. In the political field Paul began in 1800 a flirtation with France, where Bonaparte had

Czar Paul of Russia as Grand Master of the Order.

Seized power as First Consul; the consequence was to cool British zeal for a Russian presence in Malta. When Nelson’s fleet at last secured possession of Valletta in September 1800 the Czar, Still ostensibly Britain’s ally, demanded the cession of the island, and receiving no reply responded by forming the League of Armed Neutrality and planning to recover Malta through alliance with the French. Isolated day and night in his moated palace of Mikhailow, the Emperor was living his last months in an atmosphere such as Tacitus describes surrounding another doomed tyrant: ‘Fie returned to the empty and desolate Palace, where even the lowest of his household had fallen away or avoided his approach - Terror lurked in the deserted and silent halls; he tested the locked doors and trembled in the empty rooms. On the night of 23 March 1801 Paul was strangled by a group of his courtiers, among whom were four of his Knights of Malta. The most bizarre episode in the history of the Order ended in a fitting key.