On 24 February the case of the Order of Malta was considered. The Sovereign Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, based in the holy city in the twelfth century, had been obliged to move its headquarters to the island of Rhodes after the fall of the crusader state. It had been forced out of there by the Turks, and fell back once more, to the island of Malta, donated to the Order in 1530 by the King of Spain,
