Fra' Matthew Festing, OBE, TD, DL, (born 30 November 1949) is the 79th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He is the second Englishman elected Grand Master since 1258, following his predecessor Andrew Bertie.

Family

Fra' Matthew is the son of Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing (Chief of the Imperial General Staff and also a knight of the Order of Malta) and of his wife, Mary Cecilia Riddell (elder daughter of Cuthbert David Giffard Riddell, of Swinburne Castle, Northumberland). His mother's family are an old recusant family. He is also descended from the Blessed Sir Adrian Fortescue, a Knight of Malta, who was martyred in 1539. Fra' Matthew has three brothers, John Festing (former High Sheriff of Northumberland), Major Michael Festing and Andrew Festing (current President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters). Fra' Matthew remains unmarried.

Education and career

Fra' Matthew received his early education at the English Roman Catholic public school, Ampleforth College. He graduated in Modern History from St John's College, Cambridge.

Fra' Matthew served in the Grenadier Guards and holds the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. He was Acting Colonel of the Northumbria Army Cadet Force. In June 1998 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth, for whom he has served as a Deputy Lieutenant in the county of Northumberland.

Fra' Matthew is a patron of the Sandhurst Foundation and a trustee of the Northumbria Historic Churches Trust. Until 2008 he was the Northumberland representative for the auction house Sotheby's.

Order of Malta

Fra' Matthew was admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1977. In 1988 he became a Knight of Justice. In 1991 he took Perpetual Vows. In 1993 he was elected Grand Prior of England, the first since 1815.

On March 11, 2008, Fra' Matthew was elected Grand Master during a conclave-style meeting at the Order's villa on Aventine Hill in Rome. He is the third British Grand Master of the Order, immediately succeeding the second, Fra' Andrew Bertie. (The first was Hugh Revel in 1258).

Titles and style

The full title of Fra' Matthew is His Most Eminent Highness Fra' Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, Most Humble Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ.

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