La Valette naturally denied it. As if the Knights of St John would engage in such underhand tactics as assassination and sabotage! But he smiled and admitted that such a devastating misfortune for the Grand Sultan had certainly been music to his ears. He thought that Suleiman would probably not attack Malta again soon.
He was right.
With the start of the campaigning season in the spring of 1566, the Lord of the Universe attacked Christendom not by sea but by land, and not Malta, but the hard-pressed marches of Hungary. This time he would take Vienna, the Danube valley, and seize the heart of Europe.
Suleiman himself rode at the head of his army, dropsical, sallow, eyelids sagging, eyes haunted. They muttered that their lord was a broken man. He had seen many of those closest to him die — and worse, he had ordered the deaths of several of his beloved sons, to secure a succession without bloodshed, as was the Ottoman way. His son Mustafa was strangled before his eyes. Another, Beyazid, with four of his own sons, also died choking on bowstrings wielded by deaf mutes. Suleiman’s successor was to be the one called Selim, son of the Sultan’s favourite wife, Roxelana. Behind his back, he was already called Selim the Sot. He was obese, stupid, vindictive and generally drunk.
That last Hungarian campaign was not a success, the weather was terrible, and the Ottoman army became bogged down in the Siege of Szeged. The fortress was eventually taken, but Suleiman never knew it. He died in his tent the night before, on 5th September 1566.
Jean de la Valette outlived his old enemy, dying on 21st August 1568, at the age of 73. He was buried in the chapel of Our Lady of Victory, in the new capital of Valletta arising on Sciberras, where the Turkish cannon had roared all summer long, three years before.
Today you can still read his Latin epitaph, composed by Sir Oliver Starkey. In its stern, proud and laconic style, it is the Grand Master to the letter.
HIC ASIAE LIBYAEQUE PAVOR TUTELAQUE QUONDAM
EUROPAE EDOMITIS SACRA PER ARMA GETIS
PRIMUS IN HAC ALMA QUAM CONDIDIT URBE SEPULTUS
VALLETTA AETERNO DIGNUS HONORE JACET
Here lies La Valette, worthy of eternal honour.
The scourge of Africa and Asia,
the shield of Europe,
whence he expelled the barbarians by his holy arms,
he is the first to be buried
in this beloved city which he founded.
La Valette himself insisted on the new capital being so described in his epitaph.
‘This beloved city,’ he murmured as he lay dying. ‘This beloved island.’