Lino Bugeja’s article (The Sunday Times of Malta, July 26) asserting that the local nobility abandoned the island in 1565 in fear of the impending siege, is symptomatic of that peculiar malaise to use any stick to hit a man when he’s down.

The only agreement I can identify with Bugeja’s writing is his (perhaps unintended) inferred admission that Maltese society was established and already complex prior to when the Order of St John first set foot in Malta. Otherwise, the references he cites range from the suspect (Borgia) to the fantasy (Galea) with predictable disdain for the supposed villains of society whose sole crime was that they happened to be contextually better born and bred.

As for the local aristocracy’s valid contribution to the defence against the Ottoman invasion of 1565, suffice to note the valour of the Maltese noblemen Paolo and Carlo, father and son Avola was acknowledged by a special grant of arms by the king of Sicily (and Spain); similar accolades were given to other noblemen such as Cola Xuereb and Giacomo Bonnici. Are such honours the result of the ignoble exodus claimed by Bugeja?

Bugeja’s bold generalisation that the entire nobility abandoned Malta in its time of need requires some serious revisiting. It is true the absentee landlords had little to do with the islands’ defence but this was not because of the threat of invasion but rather that the economic and legal landscape was already changing as a result of the new tenancy in favour of the (now extinct) Order.

The fact is there were many threats before, during and even well after 1565, but the same families remained here in Malta and their direct or representative descendants are many.

Having established all this, Bugeja can rest assured that there is still somewhere, some pride in our forebears’ rising to the occasion but he has no place to try kill it.