Mathurin Romegas

Mathurin Romegas
de facto Grand Master of the Order of Saint John
In office 11 July 1581 – October 1581
Monarch	King Philip I
Preceded by	Jean de la Cassière
Succeeded by	Jean de la Cassière
Personal details
Born	1525 or 1528
Died	4 November 1581 Rome
Nationality	French
Military service
Allegiance	Order of Saint John
Years of service	1546–1581
Battles/wars	Great Siege of Malta Battle of Lepanto

Mathurin d’Aux de Lescout, called Mathurin Romegas (1525 or 1528 – November 1581 in Rome), was a scion of the aristocratic Gascony family of d'Aux and a member of the Knights of Saint John. He was one of the Order's greatest naval commanders and ended his life disgraced as a Rival Grand Master.

He was born to a French noble family with connections to the House of Armagnac. In 1542 he joined the Knights Hospitaller and became a full knight some four years later after completing his military and religious studies. He quickly made a name for himself as a good fighter with incredible stamina.

He became a knight of the Order in December 1546 and served most of his life commanding its galleys. He soon became the terror of Muslims on the waters and shores of the Mediterranean, continually raiding along the Barbary Coast, the Levant and the Aegean Sea and capturing numerous ships and slaves. At the request of the Pope he even waged a short, but vicious campaign against the Protestant Huguenot forces in parts of southern France.

He first gained fame by virtue of a seemingly miraculous escape from a shipwreck in 1555. His galley was capsized during a violent storm in a harbor of Malta. When the storm had passed, knocking was heard from inside the overturned vessel. A hole was punched into its bottom and from it emerged Romegas, with his pet monkey, having somehow managed to stand for hours up to his chest in water in an air bubble under the keel of the ship. Grand Master de Valette witnessed the event and remained a close friend of Romegas' for the remainder of his life.

Serving with the Order’s General of the Galleys, Gozon de Melac, Romegas battled repeatedly with the galleys of Turgut Reis, captured Penon de Velez in 1564, on the North African coast opposite Malaga, a major stronghold of the Barbary Pirates, and enraged the Ottoman emperor Suleiman. Shortly after the capture of the Penon de Velez, several Maltese galleys, under Romegas and de Giou, attacked and after a very bloody battle captured a large and heavily armed Ottoman galleon, under the command of Bairan Ogli Reis and with 200 Janissaries on board, near Kefalonia. Owner of the ship was Kustir Agha, the chief eunuch of the Sultan’s Seraglio, and the merchandise it carried, valued at about 80,000 ducats, was his and that of a number of the sultan’s ladies, including his favorite daughter. Among the prisoners they took were the governor of Cairo, the governor of Alexandria, and the former nurse of Suleiman's daughter. This event led Suleiman the Magnificent to mobilize the great force that landed on Malta on 18 May 1565 to begin the Great Siege of Malta.

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