CHAPTER I.

Hhtory, in every aje, is only 2^02mlar among a few thour/htful men. It ivas scarcely known or understood in the early (iges of the loorld, hut the place of History was every- where supplied hy Myths and Legends.
— Db Groot.
AccoRDiXG to a learned divine of the last century, who is justly esteemed as the Father of Masonic History, "the Free-Masons had always a book in Manuscript called the Book of Constitutions, containing not only the Charges and regulations, but also the History of Architecture from the Beginning of Time."
Of these Manuscript Constitutions many ancient copies are still in existence, and as a written tradition, the Legend of the Craft, or Story of the Guild, is coeval with the early part of the fifteenth century.
The Legend recites that Masonry (or Geometry) had its origin before " Noah's Flood," after which it came into great prominence at the building of the Tower of Babel. Nimrod, the mighty hunter and warrior King, was himself a Mason, and at the foundation of the city of Nineveh sent sixty craftsmen to assist in its construction.
The next military commander who took the Masons under his protection was David, to whom succeeded the "Wise King," who finished the Temple which his father had begun.
At the building of King Solomon's Temple there was a " curious man " called Naymus Graecus, whose days were
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indeed long in the land, as the adventurous Greek, having completed his studies at Jerusalem, afterwards abandoned the Orient and passed into France, where he taught the Science of Masonry to Charles Martel.
The name of this patriarch, which is supposed by some authorities to be a corruption of " Marcus Greens," whose writings in the ninth (or thirteenth) century disclose the secret of manufacturing gunpowder, appears under every variety of spelling in the written traditions or Manuscript Constitutions of the Freemasons, and is always allied with that of Charles Martel. But the instructor of the Hammer Bearer in Masonic lore must ever remain a very mj'thical personage, and it will be ditftcult to extend our belief beyond the supposition that some one skilled in the Greek or Jewish learning may have taught the art of fortification, in a rudimentary form, to the conqueror in the extraordinary series of obstinate conflicts which are collectively denominated the battle of Tours.
The first English Mason is said to have been St. Alban, after whose death came great wars, so that the good Rule of Masonry was destroyed until the time of King Athelstan, who brought the land into rest and peace, and built many great works.
The mightiest warrior who ever sat upon the throne of Saxon England, like the Saviour of Christendom, Charles Martel, and other military patrons of the Craft of earlier date, loved Masons well. But his son Edwin loved them better still, and procured for them from the King, his father, a charter or commission to hold every year an Assembly, and to correct w^ithin themselves Defaults and Trespasses that were done in the Craft. Edwin himself held an Assembly at York, and from that day to this the manners of Masons have been kept and observed.
So far the History of Masonry, as recorded in the old Manuscript Constitutions of many centuries ago, and with- out looking too far back into the mists of antiquity, certain reasons may be assigned why the names of those valiant soldiers, the stout-hearted Charles Martel, and our own " Glorious Athelstan," have been accorded such prominence in the traditions of the Freemasons.
About the year 1260, Etienne Boileau, Provost of Paris during the reign of St. Louis, coditied in his Livre des Aletiers, the customs of a hundred Craft Guilds in that Capital. Among the rides for the Uuilding trades there was the following : —
" The mortarers are free of Watch duty, and all stone- masons since the time of Charles Martel, as the wardens (pretcdonies) have heard say, from father to son."
We thus see that, as early as the thirteenth centurj', a tradition was current in France that Charles Martel had conferred special favours upon the stonemasons. It is, therefore, not a little singular that the English Manuscript Constitutions should also pointedly allude to the conquerer at Tours as a great patron and protector of Masonry. This community of tradition, which pervaded the minds of the mediaeval Masons in Gaul and Britain, is a remarkable fact, and it confirms the opinion of those writers by whom it is affirmed that, at the request of certain Anglo-Saxon Kings, stonemasons were sent to England by Charles Martel.
With regard to the British tradition, the circumstance of Athelstan having been the first King of all England, may perhaps be considered as the most natural fountain-head from which a legendary belief in the grant of a Royal Charter to the Masons can be supposed to have arisen. It is, moreover, a well-established fact that the name of Athelstan, by virtue of his laws and charters, became a favourite one as a legendary guild patron.
No period of x\nglo-Saxon history was more glorious or is less known than the reign of Athelstan, but that the great King had no son, at least in the Royal line, is satisfactorily attested by the general agreement on this point of the early chroniclers.
We should, however, do well to recollect, that the chief heroes of romance are not in general ideal beings, but moral heroes, formed of various real persons whose deeds have been combined, and attributed to one single individual.
Thus, by many of the Frankish romancers, the exploits of all the Charleses of the race, from the time of the Hammer Bearer, were ascribed to Charlemagne, who was naturally supposed to be the most famous of the name.
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They also sometimes mistook one Charles for another, Charles Martel, in this way, often being confused with Charles the Bald, and thereby made to figure as the grand- son, instead of the grandfather of the great Emperor of the West.
Whenever stories or romances passed out of the localities where they originated, but still continued to be handed down by song and recitation, there must have been trans- formation of the same kind.
The minstrel or gieeman of the Anglo-Saxons sometimes forgot a few lines, or a long passage ; sometimes he lost a line or word, and was obliged to make one to supply its place, or to borrow one which his memory might supply, and at other times he changed particular passages to suit the occasion or to please his own fancy.
The "Old Constitutions" are very strikingly in accord with regard to Edwin being the patron, and York the ti'aditional centre of early British Masonry.
That the Edwin of Masonic tradition was the fii'st Christian King of Northumberland cannot be positively affirmed, but the balance of probability inclines strongly in that direction.
St. Edwin, King and Mai'tyr, for the zeal and tragic fate of the great Bretwalder have inshrined his name in the Calendar, was an undoubted patron of Operative Masonry, and the cathedral of St. Peter's at York, was begun by his directions A.D. 627.
After many years, when Athelstan w;\s on his march against the Scots, he halted at York A.D. 936, and there besought of the ministers of St. Peter's Church, who were then called Colidei, to offer up their prayers on behalf of himself and his expedition, promising them that, if he returned victorious, he would confer suitable honour upon the chiu'ch and its ministers. Accordingly, after a success- ful campaign, he revisited this church, and observing that the Colidei, who maintained a number of poor people, had but little whereon to live, he granted to them and their successors for ever, a thrave of corn from every ploughland in the diocese of York, a donation which continued to be enjoyed until a late period.
It will be seen that two leading incidents in the Legend of the Craft are here brought into a common centre. York Minster, which Edwin founded and whose ministers Athelstan endowed.
If, indeed, in the skein of fable of which the Masonic Legend is composed, there should be a solitary thread of fact, it appears to me that we must look for it among those of our traditions which can be associated in any way with the city of York and the cathedral there.
It may be safely assumed that the foundation of the Minster Church by St. Edwin, and the victorious march of Athelstan, must have been long preserved in the memory of the people ; also that these historical events would be handed down from one generation to another by song and recitation, thus leaving in the present instance hardly any room for doubt that the name and fame of each of those great soldiers continues to be commemorated in the legend- ary history of our Society.
But there is a still older document of the Craft than the "Constitutions" which I have just passed under review. This is best known as the Masonic Poem, or Regius MS. and dates from the early part of the fifteenth century.
It also contains a legend, but of a more fragmentary character, than is metjwith in the Manuscript Constitutions.
" Noah's Flood " is incidentally referred to, and the "Tower of Babylon," though, in the place of Nimrod, who is ordinarily associated with this edifice, we meet with Nebuchadnezzar. No mention is made of David, Solomon, Naymus Grecus, Charles Martel, St. Alban, the city of York, or even of Prince Edwin, but the introduction of Masonry into England is stated to have taken place in the time of " Good King Athelstan," whose Statutes and Assembly are noticed at some length.
A distinctive feature of the Poem, however, is the passage headed Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, which is an invocation of the "Holy Martyres Fowre," the tutelary saints of the building trades, an outline of whose story may be given in a few words.
During the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, five masons, or stone-squarers {inirificos in arte quadrataria) refused to
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execute the statue of a pagau god {^Eaculapius), and in con- sequence were put to death. Other artists were found who performed the work for the Emperor. On the return of Diocletian to Rome, he commanded that all the soldiers in that city should march past and throw incense over the altar of .^sculapius. Four officers, however, who were Cornicularii, declined, as being contrary to their piinciples, having embraced the Christian faith, and they also suffered death. The martyrdom of the five is supposed to have taken place on the 8th of November, A.D., 298, and of the four on the same day in 300, though by some authorities these dates are brought down to A.D. 302 and 304 respectively.
The nine were eventually interred in the same spot, a single festival, November 8th, being set apart for the five whose names had been preserved, and for the four who were only known by their military rank. Upon the latter. Pope Melchiades— A.D. 310 — bestowed the title of Quafuor Co7'onati, or Four Crowned Ones, by which they are described in the ancient Missals and other formularies of public devotions, tliough in conjunction with the Five, who are referred to by name, and as Holy Martyrs.
In the seventh century. Tope Honorius I. erected a handsome church, in the form of a basilica, to the memory of the F'our, out of the ruins of a temple of Diana, on the Coelian Hill. Into this, the church of the Quatuor Coronati, were removed, A.D. 848, the remains of the Nine ]Martyrs. They were interred in an oratory beneath the altar. The relics of the Four Soldiers were placed in two sarcophagi on either side, and in two others the remains of the Five Masons. Hence has arisen a certain amount of confusion, and the Four officers instead of the Five Masons have become the patron saints of the building trades, while the occupa- tion of the Five has survived under the name of the Four.
The church, which still exists, now beai's the name of the Quattro Incor-onati ; according to some authorities Incoronati in modern Italian being identical with the Coronati of mediaeval Latin ; while by others the word is supposed to be a corrupt form of the militaiy term Cornicularii, which has been brought back into the Latin from the Italian as Coronati.
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It has also been suggested that as there were two classes of decorated soldiers in the Roman Army, the higher being known as Coronati and the lower as Cornicularii, so it may very probably have happened that the Four received a posthumous brevet at the hands of the faithful, a supposi- tion which gains further strength if we bear in mind that crowns of martyrdom are also implied by the word Coronati.
However this may be, it is at least certain that when associations of workmen were formed in the Middle Ages, according to the fashion of the times they chose patron saints, and that the building trades selected the Quatuor Coronati, or Four Crowned Martyrs, as presenting the nearest approach to men of their own calling.
Thns, in the ordinances of the Strasburg Fraternity of Stonemasons, 1459, will be found the following invocation: — " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and of our gracious Mother Mary, and also of her blessed servants, the Holy Four Crowned Martyrs of everlasting memory "
A similar and almost identical invocation is prefixed to the Torgau Ordinances of 1462, and in both instances it will be apparent that the military calling of the Four has been forgotten, while they have had ascribed to' them the trade of the Five, who are not mentioned at all.
Tiiat the legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs nuist have penetrated into Ik'itain at a ver\' early date is quite clear, as we find it recorded by Bede, in his Historia Ecclesiastica, that there was a church in existence at Canterbury dedicated to the QtiaUior Coronati, a.d. 619.
They are also mentioned, as already observed, and inferentially as the Patron Saints of the Masons, in the oldest document of the English Craft, the Kegius MS. or Masonic Poem, dating from the early part of the fifteenth centur}'.
After this they disappear frou) British Masonic history or tradition, though as we have seen, their memory continued to be cherished until a much later date by the Stonemasons of (iermany.
But as a period of more than a century-and-a-half separates the Manuscript Constitutions (as written
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documents) from the Poem, the omission of any allusion in the former, either to the Blessed Virgin or the P^'our Saints, is easily understood when we consider that such invocations in a Protestant country during the last quarter of the sixteenth century — and no dated form of the old Constitutions can claim a higher antiquity than a.d. 1583 — would have been inconsistent with the principles of the Reformation.
The fact, however, remains, that during the splendour of Mediaeval Operative Masonry, and until the period of its decay, the legendary Patron Saints of the building trades, were those soldiers and martyrs — the Quatuor Coronati.
In passing from legend to history, the Collegia which we know from inscriptions to have existed in Bri^in during its occupation by the Roman legions, are said to nave been the progenitors of the Saxon Guilds ; and from the latter, it is furtlier stated that the Mediaeval Operative Masons, and subsequently the modern Freemasons, can trace a direct descent.
But in the first place it is very doubtful whether the Saxon Guilds were descended from, or were even imitations of the Roman Collegia. Nor do organised bodies of Masons seem to have arisen until long after the appearance of guilds among the other trades.
The reason is obvious, the necessity of moving from place to place as work called them, would long ^Ji'eclude their having associations such as those by which the other trades were strengthened and controlled, and the essence of which was (as in the case of the Collegia) a local habitation. Hence, I am obliged to pronounce, however reluctantly, against the popular theory that the germs of our present Freemasonry were introduced into this country by the legions of Imperial Rome.
The architeetiu'al achievements of great soldiers in most nations of Eiu-ope and x\sia, though presenting a tempting theme, is one upon which I can do no more than bestow a passing glance. I'here is documentary evidence which proves beyond dispute, that in the eighth century Charlemagne (grandson of Charles Martel) invited Masons and other Craftsmen from every country of Europe in which
they were established, to erect his magnificent church at Aix la Chapelle.
Other examples miglit be freely cited, V)ut a selection has to be made, and I shall therefore next instance David I. of Scotland, in whose reign many bishoprics were founded and enlarged, and to the same time, also, belong the religious houses of Holyrood, Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh, Xewbattle, and Kinross. Of this King, we are told that the Scottish Masons " worshipped him as their beneficent Gi'and Master," a tradition which I shall do no more than relate ; but it is certain, at all events, that the munificence, or rather the prodigality of David in rearing ecclesiastical edifices, seriously impoverished the royal revenue. An old chronicler observes : — " King James the First, quhen he com to Davidis sepulture at Dunfermeling, said, ' he was ane soir sanct for the crown,' as he wald mene, that King David left the Kirk ouir riche, and the Crown ouir pure." As a military commander, David appears to have shown great ability and resource, though tlie glory of his earlier campaigns has l)een somewhat obscured by the signal defeat which he sustained at the famous " Battle of the Standard," near Northallerton, in 1138.
Passing to our own Richard " Cceiu* de Lion," if we may believe the historian of the Holy War, the conqueror of Saladin, built the walls of Acre, Porphyra, Ascalon, and Joppa.
A later English King, Edward 1., who also took the cross, built many towers and castles on his return, which in form and strength were imitations of what he had actually seen in the Levant and the Holy Land.
This brings in the Crusaders, whose influence, both on Eastern and Western art, was great and lasting. Seven hundred years ago Palestine must have been as thickly covered with churches as England is now.
In 1187 Jerusalem was captured by Saladin, and the Christians were soon after expelled from the greater part of the Holy Land, though Antioch was not taken until 1268, nor Acre until 1291. Thiis there were driven back into German}', France, and Britain, thousands of skilled men accustomed to work under the ouidance of the Crusaders.
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It may be next observed, that most of the characteristic signs now called Masons' Marks Avere originally developed at a very early period in the East, and have been used as distinguishing signs, of some kind, fi'om the middle ages down to the present time. 'I'hey appear to have been introduced into this country in the first quarter of the twelfth century, or many years after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders.
A peculiar kind of toolmarkiug was, however, used in the East from very ancient times, and this was not introduced into England until the end of the twelfth century, the opening period of our beautiful Early English Architecture, when it quickly superseded another style, whose origin had been in the West.
As so well summed up by my friend, Professor Hayter Lewis : — " There was a distinct style of Masonry as well as of Architecture both in England and Palestine at about the middle of the twelfth century\ Also, there was another peculiar type of Masonry and toolmarks of an earlier date which was scarcely known in this country until about the time when the Crusaders were driven out of Palestine, that is in 1 187. The ai'cliitecture of the Crusaders in Palestine was mainly designed and carried out under the superinten- dence of Western architects and masons, and there was a strong Eastern influence in the English Masonry of the thirteenth century after the return of the Crusaders."
Before that Lime, and during the early period of the Norman Style of arcliitecture, France and England went hand in hand in its progress, but after the expiilsion from Palestine, French and English art went quite different ways and from different centres.
After this we have a school of art distinctly English, and in the opinion of the eminent authority whose remarks I am transcribing, it must have been ruled by some such central body as the Freemasons.
Restricting, however, the field of inquiry^, and passing to Military Arcliitecture, it may be observed that what has been appropriately termed the style of the Crusaders, was introduced by Edward I. in 1272, and the stvle of Windsor, by Edward HI. in 1.3o0.
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Many of the Barons who had acquired Avealth \>y the ransom of prisoners taken at Poictiers and Cressy, were proud to appl} it to the decoration and enlargement of their castles, as the example the King had shown at Windsor, excited in them a rivalry of imitation.
Nor was the construction of a castle a matter of mere ordinary skdl. These edifices both in England and abroad were erected on scientific principles well known and regularly applied. We may suppose a mediaeval castle, fully garrisoned, to resemble a modern man-of-war, in the arrangement of the different parts, the complete occupation of space, and the perfect conmiand of every division of it.
The splendid reign of Edward III. was an era very favourable to architectural improvement ; works were com- menced by him at Windsor about 1350, and a few years afterwards, at tiie suggestion, it is said, of the Kings of France and Scotland, who were detained there as prisoners of war, he was induced to extend the castle, and in a manner that could scarcely have been foreseen by his advisers, if we may credit Stow, who relates that our English Soldier-King apjn-uved the sayings of his captives, "adding pleasantly, 'tiiat he would enlarge the castle, and the charges thereof should be borne with their two ransoms.' as after it came to jDass."'
The works were afterwards proceeded with under William of Wykeham, and artisans were summoned from several counties by writs of Edward 111. At this period, it has been affirmed, the Masons entered into a combination not to work without increased wages, and agreed iipon certain signs and tokens by which they might know one another, and render mutual assistance against being impressed.
They further agreed not to work at all, unless as Freemen, and on their own terms, in consequence of which they were called Free JJasons. There is probability aboiit nuich of this, but so far as 1 am aware, no authority, beyond the circumstance that writs of impressment in connection with the re-building of Windsor Castle, ai-e mentioned by Ashmole, in his Hhtory of the Order of the Garter.
But while Operative Masonry certainly flourished under
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the House of Plantagenet, the closing years of this dynasty witnessed the setting in of its decay.
In 1337, the Hundred Years' War with France began, and in 1349 occurred the first visitation of the lUack Death. About half the labourers in England were swept away.
The population before the mortality was four millions, a total which was not again reached until the reign of Elizabeth. Then followed the peasant revolt of 1381, and early in the next century, under the successors of the Plantagenets, commenced the long and savage contest for supremacy, between the respective adherents of the Red Hose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York.
During the continuance of the struggle the nation went back in many ways from the refinement of the fourteenth century. The population still further dwindled. The arts lost their vigour and beauty.
Finally, in the sixteenth century, the Reformation struck the death-blow of mediicval architecture, which, with the monasteries, had long been decaying, and both, perhaps would soon have expired in a natural way, had they not been prematurely extinguished.
It is reasonable to suppose that Masonry, as a speculative science, declined or fell into decay, ^^a^Y 2miisu, with Masonry as an operative art, or to put it in another way, let me state for the benefit of those readers who are not of our fraternity, that while the symbolism of the Craft is of great and undoubted antiquity, only a very fragmentary portion of what must have formerly existe'd has come down to us.
After the Reformation, no more churches were built, at least for a long period of time. The builders almost died out, and the unions of these men, having lost their raison d'etre, naturally dissolved.
A few, however, from causes we cannot trace, contrived to escape the gi'eat cataclysm of the Reformation, and these Unions or Lodges we find taking a new departure about the year 1717. But by this time the Masonic bodies appear under a new guise. While still retaining many forms and ceremonies, which they had derived from their direct ancestors, the working Masons, we find that the connection
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with Operative Masonry had ahiiost come to an end, and that Speculative (or SymboHcal) Masonry, with a remnant of the old forms, had been substituted in its place.
Evidence, if indeed not entirely wanting, is nevertheless wholl}' insutlicient to supply more than an occasional glimpse of the way in which the old system was gradually succeeded, and ultimately supplanted by the new. The earliest authentic record of a non-operative being a member of a Masonic Lodge is contained in a Minute of the Lodge of Edinburgh, under the date of June the 8th, 1600. John Boswell, tlie Laird of Auchinleck (ancestor of the well- known biographer of Dr. Johnson) was present at the meeting, and like his operative brethren, he attested the minute by his mark. But that Speculative or Symbolic, flourished side by side with Operative Masonry, at a much earUer period, may be safely inferred from the solemn declaration of a Presbyterian synod in 1 652, that ministers of that persuasion had been Freemasons " in the purest tymes of this Kirke," the reference probably being to the years immediately following the Reformation of 1560, and without doubt considerably antedating the introduction of Episcopac}^ in 1610.
In the South of England, it is only in connection with the Mason's Company of the City of London, that we meet with any actual proof of the existence of any form of Symbolical or Speculative Masonry in the early part of the seventeenth century.
About the year 1530, this Company ceased to use their old title of " Fellowship of Masons," and became known as the " Company of ffree-masons," a title which was retained until 1653. Most of the records are unfortunately missing, but from an old book of accounts, which has fortuitously been preserved, it is made clear that previously to 1620, and inferentially from a more remote past, certain brethren who were members of the Company in conjunction, it is supposed, with others Avho were not, met in Lodge at Masons' Hall, London, and were known to the Company as the " Accepted Masons."
Seven persons were received into the " Acception " or Lodge, in 1620-21, all of whom were already members of
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the Company, whicli is sufficient to prove that the two bodies were distinct associations, although, as the accoiints show, tlie latter had entire control over the former and its finances.
Of this, indeed, there is a more conspicuous example in the case of Nicliolas Stone, the King's Master Mason, who, though Master of the Company in 1633, and again in 1634, was not enrolled among the " Accepted Masons " of the Lodge, until 1639.
In Scotland, the holder of a similar, if not identical office, had become a member of the Speculative wing of the Society at a slightly earlier date Su- Anthony Alexander, second son of the first Earl of Stirling, Master of Work to the King, together with his elder brother, Viscount Canada, and Sir Alexander Strachan, was admitted into the Lodge of P^dinburgh as a fellow of Craft, on the 3rd of Jidy, 1634.
Lord Canada, then Sir William Alexander, had been constituted some years previously. Knight Admiral of Nova Scotia, !Uid sailed for that country in May, 1628, in com- mand of a squadron of four vessels carrying upwards of seventy colonists, who were safely landed at Port Royal. The admiral and his officers were regularly commissioned "to make prize of all French or Spanish Ships, and to displant the French."
The third son of the first Earl of Stirling, Henrie Alex- ander, who succeeded Sir Anthony as General Warden and Master of Work to the King, became a member of the Lodge of Edinbui'gh, in 1638. He was subsequently, for a time at least, like liis eldest brother, an officer in the Royal Navy, and served as such under Lord Aboyne, in 1639, when that nobleman, in the interest of Charles L, sailed into the roads of Aberdeen with three ships of war to resist the upholders of the Covenant.
Among the members of the other branch of the pro- fession of arms who were received into Masonry in the Lodge of Edinburgh, the first appears to have been David Ramsay, whose admission is recorded in a minute of August, 1637. "
This soldier of fortune, who was equerry to the elder son of James I., seems to have obtained, after the death of
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Prince Henry, a conuui.ssiuu as eai)tain of a company in the Low Countries, and in 1624 tlie colonelcy of one of the Scots Regiments which served under Count Mansfield, in Holland. Two years later he figures in an entirely new role, as we find him the bearer of a letter to the English King from the ambassador to the President of the Rosy Cross, of which an amusing account is given by Dr. Birch in his Court and Times of Cha)l(S I.
It was by the advice of the same "ambassador" that Frederick, the unfortunate Elector-Palatine, is said to have accepted the Crown of Boliemia, which, if true, may tend to explain why Ramsay was selected as an envoy by the Rosicrucians, since we have it on the authority of Bishop Burnet, that he was strongly recommended to Charles I. by the King of Bohemia, " as one who had served him faith- fully in Germany." After this, however, he fell into disgrace, and is referred to in the description by Sir AV alter Scott of the last trial that took place in the old Court of Chivalry.
"Whether, indeed, the British officers who served on the Continent during the Thirty Years' War, were indoctrinated to any considerable extent with the mystical tenets of the Rosicrucians, nuist remain a mystery, but there is evidence to show that a secret, or at least an oath- bound society, with customs approximating to those which are severally ascribed to the Herraetical Philosophers and the Freemasons, was established in an English Regiment serving abroad, and by it introduced into this country. In a letter from John Chamberlain, a gentleman and scholar, who was very well informed of what was going on in the world around him, to his intimate friend Sir Dudley Carletou, the writer, December 6th, 1623, observes : —
There is a crew or knot of people discovered, who, under colour of srood fellowship, have made an association, and taken certain oaths and orders devised among themselves : specially to be true and faithful to the Society, and conceal one another's secrets, but mixed with a number of other ridiculous toys, to disguise the matter ; as having a Prince whom thej' called Ottoman : wearing of blue or 3-ellow^ ribbons in their hats or elsewhere : having certain nicknames, as Tifi/re-tu. or such like, for their several fraternities : and many other odd conceits, the bottom whereof is not yet discovered, though divers of them
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have been examineri. and some committed, as one of the Windsor's, and a few others. Most of them are younof gentlemen who used to flock to taverns, thirty or forty in a company. This comljination began first in the Low Countries, in the Lord Yauxs Regiment, and hath since spread itself here to the number of eight score ah-eady known. What mischief may lurk under the mask. God knows. But sure they are confident, and presumed much of themselves to carry it so openly.
To return, liowever, to the Lodge of Edinl)urgh, Alexander Hamilton, General of the Artillery and Master of the Ordnance and Ammunition, was admitted as " Fellow and Master of the Craft" May 20th, 1640. This officer held a higli command in the expeditionary force sent from Scotland ill 1631 to serve under Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, during the Thirty Years' War.
General Hamilton was present with the Scottish Army at Newcastle in 1641, and together with other members of the Lodge of Edii'burgh, he took part in the fi,}-st initiatioib on English soil, of which any of the surrounding circumstances have come down to us.
The Scottish troops having crossed the Tweed and defeated the Royalists at Newburn, had occupied Newcastle, where they remained during the negotiations that Avere proceeding. A minute of the Lodge — ■" At Neucastell the 'JOth day off May, 1641,'"' records the admission of "Mr. the Right Honerabell Mr. Robert Moray, General Quarter- master to the Armie off Scotlan."
From this we may conclude that there were members of the Lodge of Edinburgh who accompanied the forces of the Covenanters in 1641, and that it was at the hands of these militant craftsmen that the then Quartermaster-General of the Army of Scotland was made a Mason. Two months later Newcastle was evacuated by the Scottish forces, and on returning to Edinburgh it is supposed that the brethren by whom Moray was admitted (at a distance from the Lodge) must have reported the i)roceeding, which being- approved was recorded in the minute-book and attested by the signatures of General Hamilton and the others who took part in it, as well as by that of the newly-received member.
Both Hamilton and Moray — the former having in the interim commanded the artillery on the winning side at the
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battle of Marstoii Moor — wore again present in tlie Lodge of Edinburgh in 1647, and signed the proceedings on the occasion of the admission of " WiUiam Maxwell, Doctor of Fisik," an officer in the King's service, whose name takes the first place of all on the bead-roll of eminent medical brethren who have shed a lustre on our Society.
Before holding the appointment of Quartermaster-General in the Army of the Covenanters, Sir Robert Moray (or Murray) served with distinction in France under Richelieu. He was with the Scottish Army when Charles I. sought shelter in the camp of his fellow-countrymen, in May, 1646, and planned a scheme for his escape, which, but for the King's want of resolution, mast have been crowned with success. After the Restoration he was Secretary of State for Scotland and one of the founders, and the first President of the Royal Sociot}'.
He was greatly esteemed by men of all shades of opinion, but I shall pass over the encomiums of his friends in order to find room for what was said of him by Anthony Wood with reference to his love for the occult sciences. According to this diligent, though somewhat splenetic writer, " He Avas a single man, an abhorrer of women, a most renowned chymist, a great patron of the Rosicrucians, and an excellent mathematician."
It may be here conveniently referred to, that according to a leather popular theory, the mystical knowledge or symbolism of the Masonic Craft is supposed to have been introduced into the Lodges by the Hermetical Philosojjhers or Rosicrucian adepts, whose studies appear to have embraced the same objects, and between whom the only difference seems to have been one of title, the former appellation being the earlier of the two, but the latter (owing to the alleged existence of a Society of Rosicrucians) becoming the more conmion term by which the votaries of the "Chymical Art," or "Sons of the Fire," were alluded to.
It is well known that women were the aversion of the older school of Hermeticists and Rosicrucians, and we may, therefore, conclude that the abhorrence which Sir Robert Moray is said to have entertained for the fair sex must have
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been an unfortunate result arising out of his studies as an alchemist ical philosopher. No such characteristic could possibly have been the effect of his training in the profession of arms, nor can we credit for an instant that he acquired it through participation in the fellowship of the Craft. On this point, indeed, the woi-ds of the old song, which have come down to us with a very respectable flavour of antiquity, will be regai'ded ])y all true believers in Masonic tradition as being absolutely conclusive —
■■ No mortal can more The ladies adore Than a Free and an Accepted Mason."'
It is greatly to be regretted that while the minutes and recoi'ds of several Scottish Lodges, dating from the seven- teenth (and in a solitary instance, the sixteenth) century, have been preserved, we meet with none whatever which relate to or illustrate the proceedings of English Lodges luitil a much later period.
Of the existence, indeed, of an actvial living Freemasonry in the South, possessing at the very least an equal antiquity with that prevailing in the North, there cannot be a doubt.
But the evidence upon which we depend is meagre in the extreme.
That there were Accepted or Speculative Masons in London in the opening years of the seventeenth century is amply proved by the records of the Company to which I have previously referred ; but there is only a bare mention of a few names, and the minutes of the L(,)dge or " Acception " have wholly disappeared. The next evidence in point of date is supplied by the " Diary of Elias Ashmole," from which I extract the following : —
1640. Oct. 16. 4.3i) p.m. — I was made a Free Mason at Warrington, in Lancashire, with Coll. Henry Mainwaring, of Karincham. in Cheshire.
At this time Ashmole was a Captain in Lord Ashley's Regiment, and also Comptroller of the Ordnance on the King's side ; while Mainwaring, of whom there is frequent mention in the bulletins of the Civil War, was a staunch Parliamentarian.
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The Diary also gives " the names of those tliat were then of the Lodge," which may perhaps amply justify the conclusion that the members of it had been in the habit of associating in Masonic Fellowship for some time ; but even if we suppose that the Lodge was really formed or created for the purpose of admitting Ashmole and Mainwaring into the fraternity, the attendance of other gentlemen on the occasion, for it is a very noteworthy fact that not a single Operative Mason appears to have been present on the afternoon of the 16th of October, 1646, shows with the utmost clearness that English Symbolical Masonry must have had a much earlier existence, and points in the direction of a Speculative ascendency (over the Operative element) having become well established, at least at Warrington, in that year.
It is singular, nevertheless, that although many years before the events at Newcastle and Warrington in 1641 and 1646, there must have been gentlemen Freemasons in the Southern Kingdom, the first three of whose admission to the Craft any particulai's are forthcoming, were members of the military profession.
Of Ashmole, Anthony Wood, who seldom errs on the side of panegyric, says : — " He was the greatest virtuoso and curioso that ever was known or read of in England before his time. Uxor Solis took up its habitation in his breast, and in his bosom the great God did abundantly store up the treasures of all sorts of wisdom and knowledge. Much of his time, when he was in the prime of his years, was spent in Chymistry, in which faculty being accounted famous did worthily receive the title of Jfei-curiojihiltts Anglims."
The inducements which led Ashmole, Mainwaring, and other men of their class to become Freemasons have been the subject of much curious speculation, and more than a century ago, Nicolai, a learned bookseller of Berlin, advanced a singular hypothesis. It was, that English Masonry had its origin in the "New Atlantis " of Lord Bacon, and was the actual product of an Hermetical and Rosicrucian fraternity, of which Elias Ashmole and others were leading members. " It was established at Warrington
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in 1646, and afterwards, in order to conceal their mysterious designs, the members were admitted into the Masons' Company of London, and took the name of Freemasons."
The theory survives, though in a modified form, and at the present day there are many who believe that because the Alchemists, Hermeticists, and Rosicrucians had no association (or organization) of their own in England or Scotland, they joined the Masonic Lodges in order to meet one another without giving rise to suspicion.
It is further supposed that to these men, or to others who inherited their opinions, we are indebted for the Third Degree and the introduction of Hermetic and other symbols into Masonry, and that they framed the three degrees of the Craft (as we now have them) for the purpose of com- municating their doctrines, veiled by their symbols, to those fitted to receive them, and gave to all others trite moral explanations of them which they could comprehend.
If these views are sustainable, it necessarily follows that a distinction must be drawn between the Morally-Symbolic Masonry of current date and the Philosophically-Symbolic Masonry of more ancient times — the former being, there- fore, our " Speculative " Masonry, a system of morality veiled in symbols, and the latter something very difierent, in which the symbols conceal, and to the adept express, the great philosophic and religious truths of antiquity, or, it may be, the philosophic doctrines of the Hermeticists and Rosicrucians, which, as their books show, are (or were) identical.
It is, indeed, quite true that certain observances and ideas were found to be in existence and prevalent among the Masonic body in the seventeenth century. The fact is also patent (without laying undue stress on the case of David Ramsay) that Sir Robert Moray, Elias Ashmole, and very probably other students of the occult sciences were members of the Society. But evidence is entirely wanting to show that the Hermeticists or Rosicrucians ever practised among themselves any mystic or symbolical ceremonies which they could have passed on to the Free- masons, and what therefore seems incapable of proof, nuist be pronounced, of course, equally incapable of refutation.
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Much weight has been attached to the undoubted fact that Ashniule — Hke Moi'ay before him — was both an Hermetical Philosopher and a Freemason. Still, conjecture must not be allowed to take the place of evidence, and from this it is only legitimate to infer that the Freemasons had not amalgamated with any of the supposed Rosicrucians or Hermetical fraternities — of the actual existence of which there is no proof — nor that they were their actual descendants, or themselves under another name. A contrary view would, in my own opinion, be ridiculous, though in order to appease the wrath of our modern Rosicrucians, I freely admit that the subject of the Hermetic learning has lain outside my course of study, and is, perhaps, beyond my sphere of comprehension.
Before, however, passing away from Moray, Ashmole, and the associate of the latter at Warrington, Colonel Mainwarino-, a few words remain to be expressed.
That these three men — Covenanter, Royalist, and Parliamentarian— were the earliest Freemasons of whose initiation on English soil any details are forthcoming, 1 have already shown ; but it is also worthy of being recollected that all the admissions occurred in the heat of the great Civil War, and that each Military Brother, so received, belonged to a separate and distinct section of the forces which took part in it.
Returning to Scottish ^Masonry, we find that of forty-nine fellow crafts (or master masons) who belonged to the Lodge of Aberdeen in 1670, less than a quarter were of the Masons' trade. The Master was of gentle birth, and among the members were clergymen, surgeons, merchants, and three noblemen, one of whom (Lord Errol) was then an old man, and presumably, therefore, must have joined the Society at a much earlier date.
Gilbert, tenth Earl of Errol, who succeeded to the title in 1638, was Colonel of Horse in the army raised for the rescue of Charles I. from the hands of the Parliamentary party, known by the name of the " Unhappie Engagement;'" and subsequently raised a regiment for the service of Charles II. James, fourth and last Earl of Dunferndine, who became a member of the same Lodge in 1679, served in his
younger days under the Prince of Orange in several memorable expeditions. He joined Viscount Dundee with ;i troop of Horse in 1689, and fought at their head at the battle of Killiecrankie in that year.
John, seventh Earl of Cassilis, afterwards a prominent ligure in the Revolution of 1688, was deacon or head, of the Lodge of Kilwinning in 1672. The same position was filled by Alexander, eighth Earl of Eglinton, in 1678, liimself a staunch supporter of the Covenanters, but whose father and grandfather, in accordance with the astute policy of hedging, so well known in Scotland, had fought on opposite sides at the battle of Marston Moor. The former served with the Koyalist Army, and the latter, who was surnamed " Grey-steel," for his intrepid courage, commanded the Lancers of Ayrshire, one of the Scots Cavalry Regiments in the " right wing of Horse " under Sir Thomas Fairfax.
John, eldest son of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil, chief of the Clan Cameron, was a member of the Lodge of Dunblane in 1696. This "theoretical" Craftsman and other leading brethren of the Lodge were prominent actors on the Stuart side in the rising of 1715.
Before leaving the seventeenth century some of the Scottish Masonic customs of that era demand a passing notice. We find that while the Lodge of Kilwinning was content to meet in the upper chamber of an ordinary dwelling-house, the Masons of Aberdeen held their Lodge in the open fields, except when it was " ill weather," on which occasions they met under shelter, but only in some house or building that was not used as a place of residence. Of what are now termed Masonic degrees, there was at this period, and for long after, only one known to the Scottish Lodges.
It comprised a form of reception in which, under an oath, apprentices received " the benefit of the Mason word, together with all that was implied in the expression."
But what the old Scottish Mason Word was, remains unknown. It has not yet been discovered either what it was or to what extent it was in general iise. Neither can it be determined whether at any given date prior to 1736 it was the same in Ene'land as in Scotland.
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In both countries, during the seventeent heentiny, there ■was Operative as well as Speculative Membership in the Lodges, yet a ditterence is found which should be noted. In Scotland the Lodges existed for trade purposes, and to fulfil apparently certain Operative functions, of which the necessity may have passed away, or at least has been un- recorded in the South.
The Scottish Lodges, therefore, when we meet with them at this early period, were of an essentially Operative character, while the English Lodges of corresponding date, to the extent tluit there is evidence ujjon which we can rel}', were as essentially Speculative both in their character and composition.
At the Union of the two countries in 1707 there was a marked difference between the ceremonial observances of the English and Scottish Lodges. In the Northern Kingdom the ancient symbolism of Masonry had descended to the level of the ordinary artisan, while in South Britain more of the old frame-work still existed.
A passing glance at the Freemasonry of the South, two years after the Union between the two Kingdoms, has been afforded us by a military othcer (and distinguished man of letters) of the period. Captain (afterwards Sir Richard) Steele, in an essay, from which I extract the following : —
June '.I. ITO'.l. — My reason for troubling yon at this present is to put a stop, if it may be. to an insinuating set of People who assume the name of Pretty Fellows, and even get new Names. They have their Signs and Tokens like Freemasons ; the}' rail at Womankind."
Upon this evidence it will be quite clear that a Society known as the Freemasons, having certain distinct modes of recognition, must have existed in London in 1709, and there is scarcely room for doubt, from a much earlier date. It should be recollected also that, besides being a close observer of what was transpiring in London, Steele must have been fully conversant with the military customs prevailing in his day. Hence, the practice of acc[iiiring "new Names" — referred to in the essay — may be usefully compared with a similar habit which, as already related (on the authority of a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir
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Dudley Carletou), was a marked feature of the " Combina tion " that sprang up iu Lord Yaux's Regiment while serving in the Low Countries. The final words of the quotation would seem to indicate that the class of persons whom Steele had in his mind, when writing his essay, must have shared the peculiar sensibility of the Rosicrucians with regard to the gentler sex, and, like the members of that shadowy fraternity, were, in theory at least, great " abhorrers of women."
The first naval officer of the "United Kingdom" who can be identified as a member of the Craft, is Admiral Robert Fairfax, who was "admitted and sworn into the honourable Society and Fraternity of Freemasons " at the city of York on the 7th of August, 1713.
This distinguished officer, who was the grandson of Sir William Fairfax, the cousin and companion in arms of the great General of the Parliamentary forces, entered the Navy in 1688, and became a post-captain in 1690. He was present in many battles and fought several gallant actions, particularly distinguishing himself during the operations of!' Granville, and at the taking of Gibraltar, receiving for his services in the former instance a gold medal, and in the latter a silvei' cup, which was presented to him by Queen Anne. He attained the rank of Yice (afterwards altered to that of Rear) Admiral, and was appointed a member of the Board of Admiralty in 1708. The next year he fixed his residence at York, and in the month following his reception into the Masonic Fraternity, he was elected as Parliamentary representative for that city.
The Admiral had become the head of the fiunily and possessor of Steeton and Newton Kyme (in Yorkshire), iu 1694, when in command of the Rulnj, chasing j^rivateers in the Irish Sea.
He died at Newton Kyme in 1725, being then in his sixtieth yeai*. A good portrait of him was painted in the last years of his life. The left hand rests on a globe, and in the right he holds a pair of compasses.
^lany prominent Freemasons rashl}- took up arms in the Jacobite risings of 171o 16. Some were executed, and others embarked for the Continent.
2-)
Among the Litter were George, tenth and last of the Earls Marischals of Scotland, captain of the Scottish troo[) of Horse Grenadier Guards, who had served with distinction in the campaigns of ^larlborough, and ended his career in the serA'ice of Frederick the Great ; James Keith, his brother — as a soldier, beyond question, by far the greatest of all " Scots abi'oad " ; John Cameron, of Locheil ; and George Seton, Earl of Winton, who escaped from the Tower after sentence of death had been pronounced upon him, aiad was in later life Master of the famous " Roman Lodge " (founded by Scottish brethren in Rome) at the time of its suppression in 1737. It will be seen on a later page that Masonry in Russia, if not actually introduced, was established on a firm footing by the younger Keith ; and if we may believe the Frencli historians, it was by another of these exiles, James Ratclifte, who, after his elder brother was beheaded, assumed the title of Earl of Derwentwater, that the first Lodae in France was founded at Paris in 1725.