"The successful five-month defense of the island of Malta in 1565 against an Ottoman armada by the Knights of St. John was a remarkable achievement, celebrated across Christendom by Catholic and Protestant alike - once they believed the news. In Latin, Italian, French, German, and finally, English, accounts of the siege proliferated - over seventy publications within five years. Thomas Mainwaringe's account of the siege in English is a translation from Latin and among the earliest accounts of the siege to appear in English (1579). In lively, clear, and sometimes moving prose, Mainwaringe's story celebrates the bravery and 'generalship of the Knights of St. John while deploring the disunity within Christendom that so nearly led to the island's defeat and could yet spell disaster elsewhere."--BOOK JACKET.