Even among the dark Templars,
he who had twice overcome the most famous lance of their Order was a
respected though not a welcome guest: but among the opposition company
of the Knights of St. John, he was admired and courted beyond measure;
and always affectioning that Order, which offered him, indeed, its first
rank and commanderies, he did much good service; fighting in their ranks
for the glory of heaven and St. Waltheof, and slaying many thousands of
the heathen in Prussia, Poland, and those savage Northern countries. The
only fault that the great and gallant, though severe and ascetic Folko
of Heydenbraten, the chief of the Order of St. John, found with the
melancholy warrior, whose lance did such good service to the cause, was,
that he did not persecute the Jews as so religious a knight should. He
let off sundry captives of that persuasion whom he had taken with his
sword and his spear, saved others from torture, and actually ransomed
the two last grinders of a venerable rabbi (that Roger de Cartright,
an English knight of the Order, was about to extort from the elderly
Israelite,) with a hundred crowns and a gimmal ring, which were all the
property he possessed. Whenever he so ransomed or benefited one of this
religion, he would moreover give them a little token or a message (were
the good knight out of money), saying, "Take this token, and remember
this deed was done by Wilfrid the Disinherited, for the services whilome
rendered to him by Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac of York!" So among
themselves, and in their meetings and synagogues, and in their restless
travels from land to land, when they of Jewry cursed and reviled all
Christians, as such abominable heathens will, they nevertheless excepted
the name of the Desdichado, or the doubly-disinherited as he now was,
the Desdichado-Doblado.
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