CHAPTER XXX

FREEMASONRY AND THE HOUSE OF STUART


THE theory that connects the royal house of the, Stuarts with
Freemasonry, as an Institution to be cultivated, not on account of
its own intrinsic merit, but that it might serve as a political
engine to be wielded for the restoration of an exiled family to a
throne which the follies and even the crimes of its members had
forfeited, is so repugnant to all that has been supposed to be
congruous with the true spirit and character of Freemasonry, that
one would hardly believe that such a theory was ever seriously
entertained, were it not for many too conclusive proofs of the
fact.

The history of the family of Stuart, from the accession of James I.
to the throne of England to the death of the last of his
descendants, the young Pretender, is a narrative of follies and
sometimes of crimes.  The reign of James was distinguished only by
arts which could gain for him no higher title with posterity than
that of a royal pedant.  His son and successor Charles I. was
beheaded by an indignant  people whose constitutional rights and
ideals he had sought to betray.  His son Charles II., after a long
exile was finally restored to the throne, only to pass a life of
indolence and licentiousness.  On his death he was succeeded by his
brother James II., a prince distinguished only for his bigotry. 
Zealously attached to the Roman Catholic religion, he sought to
restore its power and influence among his subjects, who were for
the most part Protestants.  To save the Established Church and the
religion of the nation, his estranged subjects called to the throne
the Protestant Prince of Orange, and James, abdicating the crown,
fled to France, where he was hospitably received with his followers
by Louis XIV., who could, however, say nothing better of him than
that he had given three crowns for a mass.  From 1688, the date of
his abdication and flight, until the year 1745 the exiled family
were  engaged  in  repeated but unavailing attempts to recover the
throne.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that in these attempts the
partisans of the house of Stuart were not unwilling to accept the
influence of the Masonic Institution, as one of the most powerful
instruments whereby to effect their purpose.

It is true that in this, the Institution would have been diverted
from its true design, but the object of the Jacobites, as they were
called, or the adherents of King James was not to elevate the
character of Freemasonry but only to advance the cause of the
Pretender

It must however be understood that this theory which connects the
Stuarts with Masonry does not suppose that the third or Master's
degree was invented by them or their adherents, but only that there
were certain modifications in the application of its Legend.  Thus,
the Temple was interpreted as alluding to the monarchy, the death
of its Builder to the execution of Charles I., or to the
destruction of the succession by the compulsory abdication of James
II., and the dogma of the resurrection to the restoration of the
Stuart family to the throne of England.

Thus, one of the earliest instances of this political
interpretation of the Master's legend was that made after the
expulsion of James II. from the throne and his retirement to
France.  The mother of James was Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles
1. The Jacobites called her " the Widow," and the exiled James
became "the Widow's son," receiving thus the title applied in the
Masonic Legend to Hiram Abif, whose death they said symbolized the
loss of the throne and the expulsion of the Stuarts from England?

They carried this idea to such an extent as to invent a name,
substitute word for the Master's degree, in the place of the old
one, which was known to the English Masons at the time of the
Revival in 1717.

This new word was not, as the significant words of Masonry usually
are, of Hebrew origin, but was derived from the Gaelic. And this
seems to have been done in compliment to the Highlanders, most of
whom were loyal adherents of the Stuart cause.

The word Macbenac is derived from the Gaelic Mac, a son, and
benach, blessed, and literally means the " blessed son ; " and this
word was applied by the Jacobites to James, who was    thus not
only a "widow's son" but "blessed" one, too.  Masonry was here made
subservient to loyalty.

They also, to mark their political antipathy to the enemies of the
Stuart family, gave to the most prominent leaders of the republican
cause, the names in which old Masonry had been appropriated to the
assassins of the third degree. In the Stuart Masonry we find these
assassins designated by names, generally unintelligible, but, when
they can be explained, evidently referring to some well-known
opponent of the Stuart dynasty.  Thus, Romvel is manifestly an
imperfect anagram of Cromwell, and Jubelum Guibbs doubtless was
intended as an infamous embalmment of the name of the Rev.  Adam
Gib, an antiburgher clergyman, who, when the Pretender was in
Edinburgh in 1745, hurled anathemas, for five successive Sundays
against him.

But it was in the fabrication of the high degrees that the
partisans of the Stuarts made the most use of Freemasonry as a
political instrument.

The invention of these high degrees is to be attributed in the
first place to the Chevalier Ramsay.  He was connected in the most
intimate relation with the exiled family, having been selected by
the titular James III., or, as he was commonly known in England,
the Old Pretender, as the tutor of his two sons, Charles Edward and
Henry, the former of whom afterward became the Young Pretender, and
the latter Cardinal York.

Ardently attached, to this relationship, by his nationality as a
Scotsman, and by his religion as a Roman Catholic, to the Stuarts
and their cause, he met with ready acquiescence the advances of
those who had already begun to give a political aspect to the
Masonic System, and also were seeking to enlist it in the
Pretender's cause.  Ramsay therefore aided in the modification of
the old degrees or the fabrication of new ones, so that these views
might be incorporated in a peculiar system; and hence in many of
the high degrees invented either by Ramsay or by others of the same
school, we will find these traces of a political application to the
family of Stuart, which were better understood at that time than
they are now.

Thus, one of the high degrees -received the name of " Grand
Scottish Mason of James VI." Of this degree Tessier says that it is
the principal degree of the ancient Master's system, and was
revived and esteemed by James VI., King of Scotland and of Great
Britain, and that it is still preserved in Scotland more than in
any other kingdom. (1)

All of this is of course a mere fiction, but it shows that there
has been a sort of official acknowledgment of the interference with
Masonry by the Stuarts, who did not hesitate to give the name of
the first founder of their house on the English throne to one of
the degrees.

Another proof is found in the word Jekson, which is a significant
word in one of the high Scottish or Ramsay degrees.  It is thus
spelled in the Calhiers or manuscript French rituals.  There can be
no doubt that it is a corruption of Jacquesson, a mongrel word
compounded of the French Jacques and the English son, and denotes
the son of James, that is, of James II.  This son was the Old
Pretender, or the Chevalier St. George, who after the death of his
father assumed the empty title of James Ill., and whose son, the
Young Pretender, was one of the pupils of the Chevalier Ramsay.

These, with many other similar instances, are very palpable proofs
that the adherents of the Stuarts sought to infuse a political
element into the spirit of Masonry, so as to make it a facile
instrument for the elevation of the exiled family and the
restoration of their head to the throne of England.

Of the truth of this fact, it is supposed that much support is to
be found in the narrative of the various efforts for restoration
made by the Stuarts.

When James II. made his flight from England he repaired to France,
where he was hospitably received by Louis XIV.  He took up his
residence while in Paris at the Jesuitical College of Clermont. 
There, it is said, he first sought, with the assistance of the
Jesuits, to establish a system of Masonry which should be employed
by his partisans in their schemes for his restoration to the
throne, After an unsuccessful invasion of Ireland he returned to
France and repaired to St. Germain-en-Laye, a city about ten miles
northwest of Paris, where he lived until the time of his death in
1701. It is one of the Stuart myths that at the Chateau of St.
Germain some of the high degrees were fabricated by the adherents
of James II., assisted by the Jesuits.

The story is told by Robison, a professed enemy of Freemasonry, 
but who gives with correctness the general form of the Stuart
Legend as it was taught in the last century.

(1) "Manuel Generale de Maconnerie," p. 148

Robison says: " The revolution had taken place, and King James,
with many of his most zealous adherents, had taken refuge in
France.

But they took Freemasonry with them to the Continent, where it was
immediately received by the French, and cultivated with great zeal
in a manner suited to the taste and habits of that highly polished
people.  The Lodges in France naturally became the rendezvous of
the adherents of the exiled king, and the means of carrying on a
correspondence with their friends in England."  (1)

Robison says that at this time the Jesuits took an active part in
Freemasonry, and united with the English Lodges, with the view of
creating an influence in favor of the re-establishment of the Roman
Catholic religion in England.  But the supposed connection of the
Jesuits with Freemasonry pertains to an independent proposition. to
be hereafter considered.

Robison further says that " it was in the Lodge held at St. Germain
that the degree of Chevalier Macon Ecossais was added to the three
symbolical degrees of English Masonry.  The Constitution, as
imported, appeared too coarse for the refined taste of the French,
and they must make Masonry more like the occupation of a gentleman. 
Therefore the English degrees of Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and
Master were called symbolical, and the whole contrivance was
considered either as typical of something more elegant or as a
preparation for it.  The degrees afterward superadded to this leave
us in doubt which of these views the French entertained of our
Masonry.  But, at all events, this rank of Scotch Knight was called
the first degree of the Macon Parfait.  There is a device belonging
to this Lodge which deserves notice.  A lion wounded by an arrow,
and escaped from the stake to which he had been bound, with the
broken rope still about his neck, is represented lying at the mouth
of a cave, and occupied with mathematical instruments, which are
lying near him.  A broken crown lies at the foot of the stake. 
There can be little doubt but that this emblem alludes to the
dethronement, the captivity, the escape, and the asylum of James
II, and his hopes of re-establishment by the help of the 

(1) "Proofs of a Conspiracy," p. 27

loyal Brethren. This emblem is worn as the gorget of the Scotch
Knight. It is not very certain, however, when this degree was
added, whether immediately after King James's abdication or about
the time of the attempt to set his son on the British throne. (1)

This extract from Robison presents a very fair specimen of the way
in which Masonic history was universally written in the last
century and is still written by a few in the present.

Although it cannot be denied that at a subsequent period the
primitive degrees were modified and changed ill their application
of the death of Hiram Abif to that of Charles I., or the
dethronement of James II, and that higher degrees were created with
still more definite allusion to the destinies of the family of
Stuart, yet it is very evident that no such measures could have
been taken during the lifetime of James II.

The two periods referred to by Robison, the time of the abdication
of James II, which was in  1688, and the attempt of James III, as
he was called, to regain the throne, which was in 1715, as being,
one or the other, the date of the fabrication of the degree of
Scottish Knight or Master, are both irreconcilable with the facts
of history.  The symbolical degrees of Fellow Craft and Master had
not been invented before 1717, or rather a few years later, and it
is absurd to speak of higher degrees cumulated upon lower ones
which did not at that time exist.

James II. died in 1701.  At that day we have no record of any sort
of Speculative Masonry except that of the one degree which was
common to Masons of all ranks.  The titular King James Ill., his
son, succeeded to the claims and pretensions of his father, of
course, in that year, but made no attempt to enforce them until
1715, at which time he invaded England with a fleet and army
supplied by Louis XIV.  But in 17I5, Masonry was in the same
condition that it had been in 1701.  There was no Master's degree
to supply a Legend capable of alteration for a political purpose,
and the high degrees were altogether unknown.  The Grand Lodge of
England, the mother of all Continental as well as English Masonry,
was not established, or as Anderson improperly calls it, "
revived," until 1717.  The Institution was not introduced into
France until 1725, and there could, therefore, have been no
political Masonry practiced in a 

(1) "Proofs of a Conspiracy," p. 28

country where the pure Masonry of which it must have been a
corruption did not exist.  Scottish or Stuart Masonry was a
superstructure built upon the foundation of the symbolic Masonry of
the three degrees.  If in 1715 there was, as we know, no such
foundation, it follows, of course, that there could have been no
superstructure.

The theory, therefore, that Stuart Masonry, or the fabrication of
degrees and the change of the primitive rituals to establish a
system to be engaged in the support and the advancement of the
falling cause of the Stuarts, was commenced during the lifetime of
James II., and that the royal chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye was
the manufactory in which, between the years 1689 and  1701, these
degrees and rituals were fabricated, is a mere fable not only
improbable but absolutely impossible in all its details.

Rebold, however, gives another form to the Legend and traces the
rise of Stuart Masonry to a much earlier period.  In his History of
the Three Grand Lodges he says that during the troubles which
distracted Great Britain about the middle of the 17th century and
after the decapitation of Charles I in 1649, the Masons of England,
and especially those of Scotland, labored secretly for the re-
establishment of the monarchy which had been overthrown by
Cromwell.  For the accomplishment of this purpose they invented two
higher degrees and gave to Freemasonry an entirely political
character.  The dissensions to which the country was a prey had
already produced a separation of the Operative and the Accepted
Masons-that is to say, of the builders by profession and those
honorary members who were not Masons.  These latter were men of
power and high position, and it was through their influence that
Charles II., having been  received as a Mason during his exile, was
enabled to recover the throne in 1660.  This prince gratefully gave
to Masonry the title of the " Royal Art," because it was
Freemasonry that had principally contributed to the restoration of
royalty. (1)

Ragon, in his Masonic Orthodoxy,  (2) is still more explicit and
presents some new details.  He says that Ashmole and other Brethren
of the Rose Croix, seeing that the Speculative Masons were
surpassing in numbers the Operative, had renounced the simple
initiation of the latter and established new degrees founded on the 

(1) "Histoire de Trois Grandes Loges," p. 32
(2) Ragon, "Orthodoxie Maconnique," p. 29

Mysteries of  Egypt and Greece.  The Fellow Craft degree was
fabricated in 1648, and that of Master a short time afterward.  But
the decapitation of King Charles I, and the part taken by Ashmole
in favor of the Stuarts produced great modifications in this third
and last degree, which had become of a Biblical character.  The
same epoch gave birth to the degrees of Secret Master, Perfect
Master, and Irish Master, of which Charles I was the hero, under
the name of Hiram.  These degrees, he says, were, however, not then
openly practiced, although they afterward became the ornament of
Ecossaism.

But the non-operative or " Accepted " members of the organization
secretly gave to the Institution, especially in Scotland, a
political tendency.  The chiefs or protectors of the Craft in
Scotland worked, in the dark, for the re-establishment of the
throne.  They made use of the seclusion of the Masonic Lodges as
places where they might hold their meetings and concert their plans
in safety.  As the execution of Charles I. was to be avenged, his
partisans fabricated a Templar degree, in which the violent death
of James de Molay called for vengeance.  Ashmole, who partook of
that political sentiment, then modified the degree of Master and
the Egyptian doctrine of which it was composed, and made it conform
to the two preceding degrees framing a Biblical allegory,
incomplete and in- consistent, so that the initials of the sacred
words of these three degrees should compose those of the name and
title of the Grand Master of the Templars.

Northouck, (1) who should have known better, gives countenance to
these supercheries of history by asserting that Charles II. was
made a Mason during his exile, although he carefully omits to tell
us when, where, how, or by whom the initiation was effected; but
seeks, with a flippancy that ought to provoke a smile, to prove
that Charles II. took a great interest in Masonry and architecture,
by citing the preamble to the charter of the Royal Society, an
association whose object was solely the cultivation of the
philosophical and mathematical sciences, especially astronomy and
chemistry, and whose members took no interest in the art of
building.

Dr. Oliver, whose unfortunate failing was to accept without careful
examination all the statements of preceding writers, however 

(1) "Constitutions," p. 141

absurd they might be, repeats substantially these apochryphal tales
about early Stuart Masonry.

He says that, about the close of the 17th century, the followers of
James II. who accompanied the unfortunate monarch in his exile
carried Freemasonry to France and laid the foundation of that
system of innovation which subsequently threw the Order into
confusion, by the establishment of a new degree, which they called
the Chevalier Naron Ecossais, and worked the details in the Lodge
at St. Germain.  Hence, he adds, other degrees were invented in the
Continental Lodges which became the rendezvous of the partisans of
James, and by these means they held communication with their
friends in England. (1)

But as the high degrees were not fabricated until more than a third
of the 18th century had passed, and as James died in 1701, we are
struck with the confusion that prevails in this statement as to
dates and persons.

It is very painful and embarrassing to the scholar who is really in
search of truth to meet with such caricatures of history, in which
the boldest and broadest assumptions are offered in the place of
facts, the most absurd fables are presented as narratives of actual
occurrences, chronology is put at defiance, anachronisms are coolly
perpetrated, the events of the 18th century are transferred to the
17th, the third degree is said to have been modified in its ritual
during the Commonwealth, when we know that no third degree was in
existence until after 1717; and we are told that high degrees were
invented at the same time, although history records the fact that
the first of them was not fabricated until about the year 1728. 
Such writers, if they really believed what they had written, must
have adopted the axiom of the credulous Tertullian, who said, Credo
quia impossible est- " I believe because it is impossible." Better
would it be to remember the saying of Polybius, that if we
eliminate truth from history nothing will remain but an idea too.

We must, then, reject as altogether untenable the theory that there
was any connection between the Stuart family and Freemasonry during
the time of James II., for the simple reason that at that period
there was no system of Speculative Masonry existing 

(1) "Historical Landmarks, " II., p. 28

which could have been perverted by the partisans of that family
into a political instrument for its advancement.  If there was any
connection at all, it must be looked for as developed at a
subsequent period.

The views of Findel on this subject, as given in his History of
Freemasonry, are worthy of attention, because they are divested of
that mystical element so conspicuous and so embarrassing in all the
statements which have been heretofore cited. His language is as
follows: 

"Ever since the banishment of the Stuarts from England in 1688,
secret alliances had been kept up between Rome and Scotland ; for
to the former place the Pretender James Stuart had retired in 1719
and his son Charles Edward born there in 1720; and these
communications became the more intimate the higher the hopes of the
Pretender rose.  The Jesuits played a very important part in these
conferences.  Regarding the reinstatement of the Stuarts and the
extension of the power of the Roman Church as identical, they
sought at that time to make the Society of Free- masons subservient
to their ends.  But to make use of the Fraternity, to restore the
exiled family to the throne, could not have been contemplated, as
Freemasonry could hardly be said to exist in Scotland then. 
Perhaps in I 724, when Ramsay was a year in Rome, or in 1728, when
the Pretender in Parma kept up an intercourse with the restless
Duke of Wharton, a Past Grand Master, this idea was first
entertained, and then when it was apparent how difficult it would
be to corrupt the loyalty and fealty of Freemasonry in the Grand
Lodge of Scotland, founded in 1736, this scheme was set on foot of
assembling the faithful adherents of the banished royal family in
the High Degrees! The soil that was best adapted for this
innovation was France, where the low ebb to which Masonry had sunk
had paved the way for all kinds of new-fangled notions, and where
the Lodges were composed of Scotch conspirators and accomplices of
the Jesuits.  When the path had thus been smoothed by the agency of
these secret propagandists, Ramsay, at that time Grand Orator (an
office unknown in England), by his speech completed the
preliminaries necessary for the introduction of the High Degrees ;
their further development was left to the instrumentality of
others, whose influence produced a result somewhat different from
that originally intended." (1)

(1) "Geschichte der Freimaurerei" - Translation of Lyon, p. 209

After the death of James II. his son, commonly called the Chevalier
St. George, does not appear to have actively prosecuted his claims
to the throne beyond the attempted invasion of England in 1715.  He
afterward retired to Rome, where the remainder of his life was
passed in the quiet observation of religious duties.  Nor is there
any satisfactory evidence that the was in any way connected with
Freemasonry.

In the meantime, his sons, who had been born at Rome, were
intrusted to the instructions of the Chevalier Michael Andrew
Ramsay, who was appointed their tutor.  Ramsay was a man of
learning and genius-a Scotsman, a Jacobite, and a Roman Catholic-
but he was also an ardent Freemason.

As a Jacobite he was prepared to bend all his powers to accomplish
the restoration of the Stuarts to what he believed to be their
lawful rights.  

As a Freemason he saw in that Institution a means, if properly
directed, of affecting that purpose.  Intimately acquainted with
the old Legends of Masonry, he resolved so to modify them as to
transfer their Biblical to political allusions.  With this design
he commenced the fabrication of a series of High Degrees, under
whose symbolism he concealed a wholly political object.

These High Degrees had also a Scottish character, which is to be
attributed partly to the nationality of Ramsay and partly to a
desire to effect a political influence among the Masons of
Scotland, in which country the first attempts for the restoration
of the Stuarts were to be made.  Hence we have to this day in
Masonry such terms as "Ecossaim," " Scottish Knights of St.
Andrew," " Scottish Master," "Scottish Architect," and the "
Scottish Rite," the use of which words is calculated to produce
upon readers not thoroughly versed in Masonic history the
impression that the High Degrees of Freemasonry originated in
Scotland-an impression which it was the object of Ramsay to make.

There is another word for which the language of Masonry has been
indebted to Ramsay.  This is Heredom, indifferently spelled in the
old rituals, Herodem, Heroden and Heredon.  Now the etymology of
this word is very obscure and various attempts have been made to
trace it to some sensible signification.

One writer (1) thinks that the word is derived from the Greek 

(1) London Freemasons' Magazine

hieros, - "holy," - and domos, "house," and that it means the holy
house, that is the Temple, is ingenious and it has been adopted by
some recent authorities.

Ragon, (1) however, offers a different etymology.  He thinks that
it is a corrupted form of the mediaeval Latin haredum, which
signifies a heritage, and that it refers to the Chateau of St.
Germain, the residence for a long time of the exiled Stuarts and
the only heritage which was left to them.  If we accept this
etymology I should rather be inclined to think that the heritage
referred to the throne of Great Britain, which they claimed as
their lawful possession, and of which, in the opinion of their
partisans, they had been unrighteously despoiled.

This derivation is equally as ingenious and just as plausible as
the former one, and if adopted will add another link to the chain
of evidence which tends to prove that the high degrees were
originally fabricated by Ramsay to advance the cause of the Stuart
dynasty.

Whatever may be the derivation of the word the rituals leave us in
no doubt as to what was its pretended meaning.  In one of these
rituals, that of the Grand Architect, we meet with the following
questions and answers:

Q.Where was your first Lodge held?
A. Between three mountains, inaccessible to the profane, where cock
never crew, lion roared, nor woman chattered; in a profound valley.
Q.What are these three mountains named?
A.Mount Moriah, in the bosom of the land of Gabaon, Mount Sinai,
and the Mountain of Heredon.
Q.What is this Mountain of Heredon ?
A. A mountain situated between the West and the North of Scotland,
at the end of the sun's course, where the first Lodge of Masonry
was held; in that terrestrial part which has given name to Scottish
Masonry.
Q. What do you mean by a profound valley?
A.  I mean the tranquillity of our Lodges.

From this catechism we learn  that  in  inventing  the  word 
Heredon to designate a fabulous mountain, situated in some unknown
part of Scotland, Ramsay meant to select that kingdom as the 

(1) "Orthodoxie Maconnique," p. 91

birthplace of those Masonic degrees by whose instrumentality he
expected to raise a powerful support in the accomplishment of the
designs of the Jacobite party.  The selection of this country was
a tribute to his own national prejudices and to those of his
countrymen.

Again: by the "profound valley," which denoted " the tranquillity
of the Lodges," Ramsay meant to inculcate the doctrine that in the
seclusion of these Masonic reunions, where none were to be
permitted to enter except "the well-tried, true, and trusty," the
plans of the conspirators to overthrow the Hanoverian usurpation
and to effect the restoration of the Stuarts could be best
conducted.  Fortunately for the purity of the non-political
character of the Masonic Institution, this doctrine was not
generally accepted by the Masons of Scotland.

But there is something else concerning this word Heredon, in its
connection with Stuart Freemasonry, that is worth attention.

There is an Order of Freemasonry, at this day existing, almost
exclusively in Scotland.  It is caged the Royal Order of Scotland,
and consists of two degrees, entitled " Heredon of Kilwinning," and
" Rosy Cross." The first is said, in the traditions of the Order,
to have originated in the reign of David I., in the 12th century,
and the second to have been instituted by Robert Bruce, who revived
the former and incorporated the two into one Order, of which the
King of Scotland was forever to be the head.  This tradition is,
however, attacked by Bro.  Lyon, in his History of the Lodge of
Edinburgh.  He denies that the Lodge at Kilwinning ever at any
period practiced or acknowledged any other than the Craft degrees,
or that there exists any tradition, local or national, worthy of
the name, or any authentic document yet discovered that can in the
remotest degree be held to identify Robert Bruce with the holding
of Masonic courts or the institution of a secret society at
Kilwinning

" The paternity of the Royal Order," he says, " is now pretty
generally attributed to a Jacobite Knight named Andrew Ramsay, a
devoted follower of the Pretender, and famous as the fabricator of
certain rites, inaugurated in France about 1735-40, and through the
propagator of which it must hoped the fallen fortunes of the
Stuarts would be retrieved."' (1)

On  September  24,  1745,  soon  after  the  commencement  of  his

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 307

invasion of Britain, Charles Edward, the son of the Old Pretender,
or Chevalier St. George, styled by his adherents James III., is
said to have been admitted into the Order of Knights Templars, and
to have been elected its Grand Master, a position which he held
until his death.  Such is the tradition, but here again we are met
by the authentic statements of Bro. Lyon that Templarism was not
introduced into Scotland until the year 1798. (1)  It was then
impossible that Charles Edward could have been made a Templar at
Edinburgh in 1745.

It is, however, probable that he was invested with official
supremacy over the high degrees which had been fabricated by Ramsay
in the interest of his family, and it is not unlikely, as has been
affirmed, that, resting his claim on the ritual provision that the
Kings of Scotland were the hereditary Grand Masters of the Royal
Order, he had assumed that title.  Of this we have something like
an authentic proof, something which it is refreshing to get hold of
as art oasis of history in this arid desert of doubts and
conjectures and assumptions.

In the year 1747, more than twelve months after his return from his
disastrous invasion of Scotland and England Charles Edward issued
a charter for the formation at the town of Arras in France of what
is called in the instrument "a Sovereign Primordial Chapter of Rose
Croix under the distinctive title of Scottish Jacobite."

In 1853, the Count de Hamel, Prefect of the Department in which
Arrasis situated, discovered an authentic copy of the charter in
the Departmental archives..

In this document, the Young Pretender gives his Masonic titles in
the following words:

"We, Charles Edward, King of England, France, Scotland, and
Ireland, and as such Substitute Grand Master of the Chapter of H.,
known by the title of Knight of the Eagle and Pelican, and since
our sorrows and misfortunes by that of Rose Croix," etc.

The initial letter " H." undoubtedly designates the Scottish
Chapter of Heredon.  Of this body, by its ritual regulation, his
father as King of Scotland, would have been the hereditary Grand
Master, and he, therefore, only assumes the subordinate one of
Substitute.

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 287

This charter, of the authenticity of which, as well as the
transaction which it records, there appears to be no doubt, settles
the question that it was of the Royal Order of Scotland and not of
the Knights Templars that Charles Edward was made Grand Master, or
himself assumed the Grand Mastership, during his visit in 1745 to
Edinburgh.  As that Order and the other High Degrees were
fabricated by the Chevalier Ramsay to promote the interests of his
cause, his acceptance or assumption of the rank and functions of a
presiding officer was a recognition of the plan to use Masonry as
a political instrument, and is, in fact, the first and fundamental
point in the history of the hypothesis of Stuart Masonry.  We here
for the first time get tangible evidence that there was an attempt
to connect the institution of Freemasonry with the fortunes and
political enterprises of the Stuarts.

The title given to this primordial charter at Arras is further
evidence that its design was really political; for the words Ecosse
Jacobite, or Scottish Jacobite, were at that period universally
accepted as a party name to designate a partisan of the Stuart
pretensions to the throne of England.

The charter also shows that the organization of this chapter was
intended only as the beginning of a plan to enlist other Masons in
the same political design, for the members of the chapter were
authorized " not only to make knights, but even to create a chapter
in whatever town they mightthink proper," which they actually did
in a few instances, among them one at Paris in 1780, which in 1801
,was united to the Grand Orient of France.

A year after the establishment of the Chapter at Arras, the Rite of
the Veille Bru, or the Faithful Scottish Masons, was created at
Toulouse in grateful remembrance of the reception given by the
Masons of that place to Sir Samuel Lockhart, the aide-de-camp of
the Pretender.  Ragon says thatthe favorites who accompanied the
prince to France were accustomed to sell to certain speculators
charters for mother Lodges, patents for Chapters,etc.  These titles
were their property and they did not fail to use them as a means of
livelihood.

It has been long held as a recognized fact in Masonic history, that
the first Lodge established in France by a warrant from the Grand
Lodge of England was held in the year 1725.  There is no doubt that
a Lodge of Freemasons met in that year at the house of one Hure,
and that it was presided over by the titular Earl of Derwentwater. 
But the researches of Bro.  Hughan have incontestably proved that
this was what we would now call a clandestine body, and that the
first French Lodge legally established by the Grand Lodge of
England was in 1732.  Besides the fact that there is no record in
that Grand Lodge of England of any Lodge in France at the early
date of 1725, it is most improbable that a warrant would have been
granted to so conspicuous a Jacobite as Derwentwater.  Political
reasons of the utmost gravity at that time would have forbidden any
such action.

Charles Radcliffe, with his brother the Earl of Derwentwater, had
been avenged in England for the part taken by them in the rebellion
of 1715 to place James III. on the throne.  They were both
condemned to death and the earl was executed, but Radcliffe made
his escape to France, where he assumed the title which, as he
claimed, had devolved upon him by the death of his brother's son. 
In the subsequent rebellion of 1745, having attempted to join the
Young Pretender, the vessel in which he sailed was captured by an
English cruiser, and being carried to London, he was decapitated in
December, 1746.

The titular Earl of Derwentwater was therefore a zealous Jacobite,
an attainted rebel who had been sentenced to death for his treason,
a fugitive from the law, and a pensioner of the Old Pretend. er or
Chevalier St. George, who, by the order of Louis XIV., had been
proclaimed King of England under the title of James III.

It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that the Grand Lodge of England
would have granted to him and to his Jacobite associates a warrant
for the establishment of a Lodge.  Its statutes had declared in
very unmistakable words that a rebel against the State was not to
be countenanced in his rebellion.  But no greater countenance could
have been given than to make him the Master of a new Lodge.

Such, however, has until very recently been universally accepted as
apart of the authentic history of Masonry in France.  In the words
of a modern feuilletonist, " the story was too ridiculous to be
believed, and so everybody believed it."

But it is an undeniable fact that in 1725 an English Lodge was
really opened and held in the house of an English confectionier
named Hure.  It was however without regular or legal authority and
was probably organized, although we have no recorded evidence to
that effect, through the advice and instructions of Ramsay-and was
a Jacobite Lodge consisting solely of the adherents and partisans
of the Old Pretender.

This is the most explicit instance that we have of the connection
of the Stuarts with Freemasonry.  It was an effort made by the
adherents of that house to enlist the Order as an instrument to
restore its fallen fortunes.  The principal members of the Lodge
were Derwentwater, Maskelyne, and Heguertly or Heguety.  Of
Derwentwater I have already spoken ; the second was evidently a
Scotsman, but the name of the third has been so corrupted in its
French orthography that we are unable to trace it to its source. 
It has been supposed that the real name was Haggerty; if so, he was
probably an Irishman.  But they were all Jacobites.

The Rite of Strict Observance, which at one time in the last
century took so strong a hold upon the Masons of Germany, and whose
fundamental doctrine was that of Ramsay-that Freemasonry was only
a continuation of the Templar system-is said to have been
originally erected in the interests of the Stuarts, and the
Brotherhood was expected to contribute liberally to the enterprises
in favor of the Pretender.

Upon a review of all that has been written on this very intricate
subject-the theories oftentimes altogether hypothetical,
assumptions in plane of facts, conjectures altogether
problematical, and the grain of history in this vast amount of
traditional and mythical trash so small-we may, I think, be
considered safe in drawing a few conclusions.

In the first place it is not to be doubted that at one time the
political efforts of the adherents of the dethroned and exiled
family of the Stuarts did exercise a very considerable effect on
the outward form and the internal spirit of Masonry, as it
prevailed on the continent of Europe.

In the symbolic degrees of ancient Craft Masonry, the influence was
but slightly felt.  It extended only to a political interpretation
of the Legend of the  Master's degree, in which sometimes the
decapitation of Charles I., and sometimes the forced abdication and
exile of James II., was substituted for the fate of Hiram, and to
a change in the substitute word so as to give an application of the
phrase the " Widow's son " to the child of Henrietta Maria, the
consort of Charles I. The effect of these change, except that of
the word which still continues in some Rites, has long since
disappeared, but their memory still remains as a relict of the
incidents of Stuart Masonry.

But the principal influence of this policy was shown in the
fabrication of what are called the " High Degrees," the " Hautes
Grades" of the French. Until the year 1728 these accumulations to
the body of Masonry were unknown.  The Chevalier Ramsay, the tutor
of the Pretender in his childhood, and subsequently his most
earnest friend and ardent supporter, was the first to fabricate
these degrees, although other inventors were not tardy in following
in his footsteps.

These degrees, at first created solely to institute a form of
Masonry which should be worked for the purpose of restoring the
Pretender to the throne of his ancestors, have most of them become
obsolete, and their names alone are preserved in the catalogues of
collectors; but their effect is to this day seen in such of them as
still remain and are practiced in existing Rites, which have been
derived indirectly from the system invented in the Chapter of
Clermont or the Chateau of St. Germain.  The particular design has
paned away but the general features still remain, by which we are
enabled to recognize the relicts of Stuart Masonry.

As to the time when this system first began to be developed there
can be but little doubt.

We must reject the notion that James II had any connection with it.
However unfitted he may have been by his peculiar temperament from
entering into any such bold conspiracy, the question is set at rest
by the simple fact that up to the time of his death there was no
Masonic organization upon which he or his partisans could have used

His son the Chevalier St. George was almost in the same category. 
He is described in history as a prince-pious, pacific and without
talents, incapable of being made the prominent actor in such a
drama, and besides, Speculative Masonry had not assumed the
proportions necessary to make it available as a part of a
conspiracy until long after he had retired from active life to the
practice of religious and recluse habits in Rome.

But his son Charles Edward, the Young Pretender as he was called,
was of an ardent temperament; an active genius, a fair amount of
talent, and a spirit of enterprise which well fitted him to accept
the place assigned him by Ramsay.  Freemasonry had then begun to
excite public attention, and was already an institution that was
rapidly gaining popularity.

Ramsay saw in it what he deemed a fitting lever to be used in
theelevation of his patron to the throne, and Prince Charles Edward
with eagerness met his propositions and united with him in the
futile effort.

To the Chevalier Ramsay we must attribute the invention of Stuart
Masonry, the foundations of which he began to lay early in the 18th
century, perhaps with the tacit approval of the Old Pretender. 
About 1725, when the first Lodge was organized in Paris, under some
illegitimate authority, he made the first public exposition of his
system in the Scottish High Degrees which he at that time brought
to light.  And finally the workings of the system were fully
developed when the Young Pretender began his unsuccessful career in
search of a throne, which once lost was never to be recovered.

This conspiracy of Ramsay to connect Freemasonry with the fortunes
of the Stuarts was the first attempt to introduce politics into the
institution. To the credit of its character as a school of
speculative philosophy, the attempt proved a signal failure.







CHAPTER XXXI

THE JESUITS IN FREEMASONRY


The opinion has been entertained by several writers of eminence
that theCompany of Jesus, more briefly styled the Jesuits, sought,
about the endof the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, to
mingle with theFreemasons and to bend the objects of that
Institution to the ambitiousdesigns of their own Order.  This view
has been denied by other writers of equal eminence, though it is
admitted that Roman Catholic, if not jesuitical, features are to be
found in some of the high degrees.

It is contended by one German writer that the object of the Jesuits
in seeking a control of the Masonic Institution was that they might
be thus assisted in their design of establishing an aristocracy
within themselves, and that they sought to accomplish this object
by securing not only the direction of the Masonic Lodges, but also
by obtaining a monopoly of the schools and churches, and all the
pursuits of science, and even of business.

But the more generally accepted reason for this attempted
interference with the Lodges is that they thus sought by their
influence and secret working to aid the Stuarts to regain the
throne, and then, as an expected result, to re-establish the Roman
Catholic religion in England.

The first of these explanations is certainly more satisfactory than
the second.  While there is a great want of historical testimony to
prove that the jesuits ever mingled with Freemasonry--a question to
be hereafter decided-there is no doubt of the egotistical and
ambitious designs (Of the disciples of Loyola to secure a control
of the public and private affairs of every government where they
could obtain a foothold.  It was a knowledge of these designs that
led to the unpopularity of the Order among even Catholic sovereigns
and caused its total suppression, in 1773, by Pope Clement XIV.,
from which it was not relieved until 1814, when their privileges
were renewed by Pope Pius VII.

But I think that we must concur with Gadeike in the conclusion to
which he had arrived, that it is proved by history to be a
falsehood that Freemasonry was ever concealed under the mask of
Jesuitism, or that it derived its existence from that source. (1)
It is, however, but fair that we should collate and compare the
arguments on both sides.

Robison, who, where Masonry was concerned, could find a specter in
every bush, is, of course, of very little authority as to facts ;
but he may supply us with a record of the opinions which were
prevalent at the time of his writing.  He says that when James II
fled from England to France, which was in 1688, his adherents took
Freemasonry with them to the continent, where it was received and
cultivated by the French in a manner suited to the tastes and
habits of that people.  But he adds that " at this time, also, the
Jesuits took a more active hand in Freemasonry than ever.  They
insinuated themselves into the English Lodges, where they were
caressed by the Catholics, who panted after the re-establishment of
their faith, and tolerated by the Protestant royalists, who thought
no concession too great a compensation for their services.  At this
time changes were made in some of the Masonic symbols, particularly
in the tracing of the Lodge, which bear evident marks of Jesuitical
interference. (2)

Speaking of the High Degrees, the fabrication of which, however, he
greatly antedates, he says that " in all this progressive mummery
we see much of the hand of the Jesuits, and it would seem that it
was encouraged by the church." (3) But he thinks that the Masons,
protected by their secrecy, ventured further than the clergy
approved in their philosophical interpretations of the symbols,
opposing at last some of " the ridiculous and oppressive
superstitions of the church," (4) and thus he accounts for the
persecution of Freemasonry at a later period by the priests, and
their attempts to suppress the Lodges.

The story, as thus narrated by Robison, is substantially that which
has been accepted by all writers who trace the origin of
Freemasonry                                                       
                                                                

(1) "Freimaurer Lexicon," art. "Jesuiten."
(2) "Proofs of a Conspiracy," p. 27
(3) Ibid., p. 30
(4) Ibid

 to the Jesuits.  They affirm, as we have seen, that it was
instituted about the time of the expulsion of James II. from
England, or that if it was not then fabricated as a secret society,
it was at Icast modified in all its features from that form which
it originally had in England, and was adapted as a political engine
to aid in the restoration of the exiled monarch and in the
establishment in his recovered kingdom of the Roman Catholic
religion.

These theorists have evidently confounded primitive Speculative
Masonry, consisting only of three degrees, with the supplementary
grades invented subsequently by Ramsay and the ritualists who
succeeded him.  But even if we relieve the theory of the connsbn
and view it as affirming that the Jesuits at the College of
Clermont modified the third degree and invented others, such as the
Scottish Knight of St. Andrew, for the purpose of restoring James
II. to the throne, we shall find no scintilla of evidence in
history to support this view, but, on the contrary, obstacles in
the way of anachronisms which it will be impossible to overcome.

James II abdicated the throne in 1688, and, after an abortive
attempt to recover it by an unsuccessful invasion of Ireland, took
up his residence at the Chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, in France,
where he died in 1701.

Between the two periods of 1688, when James abdicated, and 1701,
when he died, no one has been enabled to find either in England or
elsewhere any trace of a third degree.  Indeed, I am very sure it
can be proved that this degree was not invented until 1721 or 1722. 
It is, therefore, absolutely impossible that any modification could
have been made in the latter part of the 17th century of that which
did not exist until the beginning of the 18th.  And if there was no
Speculative Masonry, as distinguished from the Operative Art
practiced by the mediaeval guilds, during the lifetime of James, it
is equally absurd to contend that supplementary grades were
invented to illustrate and complete a superstructure whose
foundations had not yet been laid.

The theory that the Jesuits in the 17th century had invented
Freemasonry for the purpose of effecting one of their ambitious
projects, or that they had taken it as it then existed, changed it,
and added to it for the same purpose, is absolutely untenable.

Another theory has been advanced which accounts for the
establishment of what has been called " Jesuitic Masonry," at about
the  middle of the 18th century.  This theory is certainly free
from the absurd anachronisms which we encounter in the former,
although the proofs that there ever was such a Masonry are still
very unsatisfactory.

It has been maintained that this notion of the intrusion, as it may
well be called, of the Jesuits into the Masonic Order has been
attributed to the Illuminati, that secret society which was
established by Adam Weishaupt in Bavaria about the year 1776.

The original object of this society was, as its founder declared,
to enable its members to attain the greatest possible amount of
virtue, and by the association of good men to oppose the progress
of moral evil. To give it influence it was connected with
Freemasonry, whose symbolic degrees formed the substratum of its
esoteric instructions.  This has led it incorrectly to be deemed a
Masonic Rite; it could really lay no claim to that character,
except inasmuch as it required a previous initiation into the
symbolic degrees to entitle its disciples to further advancement.

The charges made against it, that it was a political organization,
and that one of its deigns was to undermine the Christian religion,
although strenuously maintained by Barruel, Robison, and a host of
other adversaries, have no foundation in truth. The principles of
the order were liberal and philosophical, but neither revolutionary
nor anti-Christian.

As the defender of free thought, it came of course into conflict
with the Roman Catholic Church and the Company of Jesus, whose
tendencies were altogether the other way.  The priests, therefore,
became its most active enemies, and their opposition was so
successful that it was suppressed in 1784.

There was also between Illuminism and the many Masonic Rites, which
about the period of its popularity were constantly arising in
Germany and in France, a species of rivalry.  With the natural
egotism of reformers, the Illuminati sought to prove the
superiority of their own system to that of their rivals.

With this view they proclaimed that all the Lodges of Free. masons
were secretly controlled by the Jesuits ; that their laws and their
mysteries were the inventions of the same Order, of whom every
Freemason was unconsciously the slave and the instrument.  Hence
they concluded that he who desired to possess the genuine mysteries
of Masonry must seek them not among the degrees of Rose Croix or
the Scottish Knights, or still less among the English Masons and
the disciples of the Rite of Strict Observance in Germany, but only
in the Eclectic Lodges that had been instituted by the Illuminati.

Such, says Barruel, was the doctrine of the Illuminati, advanced
for the purpose of elevating the character and aims of their own
institution.  The French abbe is not generally trustworthy on any
subject connected, with Freemasonry, of which he was the avowed and
implacable foe, but we must acknowledge that he was not far from
wrong in calling this story of Jesuitic Masonry " a ridiculous and
contemptible fable." For once we are disposed to agree with him,
when he says in his fervent declamation, " If prejudice did not
sometimes destroy the faculty of reasoning, we should be astonished
that the Freemasons could permit themselves to be  ensnared in so
clumsy a trap.  What is it, in fact, but to say to the Mother Lodge
of Edinburgh, to the Grand Lodges of London and York, to their
rulers, and to all their Grand Masters: You thought that you held
the reins of the Masonic world, and you looked upon yourselves as
the great  depository of its secrets, the distributors of its
diplomas ; but you are not so, and, without even knowing it, are
merely puppets of which the Jesuits hold the leading-strings, and
which they move at their pleasure.'" (1)

I think that with a little trouble we may be able to solve this
apparently difficult problem of the Jesuitical interference with
Freemasonry.

The Jesuits appear to have taken the priests of Egypt for their
model.  Like them, they sought to be the conservators and the
interpreters of religion.  The vows which they took attached them
to their Order with bonds as indissoluble as those that united the
Egyptian priests in the sacred college of Memphis.  Those who
sought admission into their company were compelled to pass through
trials of their fortitude and  fidelity.  Their ambition was as
indomitable as their cunning was astute. They strove to be the
confessors and the counsellors of kings, and to control the
education of youth, that by these means they might become of
importance in the state, and direct the policy of every government
where they 

(1) "Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire du Jacobanisme," T.N., p.
291

were admitted.  And this policy was on all occasions to be made
subservient to the interests of the church.

At one time they had not less than an hundred schools or colleges
in France, the most important being that of Clermont, which, though
at one time suppressed, had received renewed letters patent from
Louis XIV.

It was this College of Clermont, where James II. was a frequent
guest, led there by his religious feelings, that is said to have
been the seat of that conspiracy of the Stuart faction which was to
terminate either in the invention or the adoption of Freemasonry as
a means of restoring the monarch to his throne, and of
resuscitating the Roman Catholic religion in heretical England.

Now we may readily admit that the Jesuits were exceedingly anxious
to accomplish both these objects, and that for that purpose they
would enter into any intrigue which would probably lead to success.

With this design there can be but little doubt that they united
with the adherents of the Stuarts.  But this conspiracy could not
have had any reference to a Masonic organization, because
Freemasonry was during the life of James II. wholly unknown in
France, and known in England only as a guild of Operative Masons,
into which a few non-Masons had been admitted through courtesy.  It
certainly had not yet assumed the form in which we are called upon
to recognize it as the political engine used by the Jesuits.  The
Grand Lodge of England, the mother of all modern Speculative
Masonry, had no existence until 1717, or sixteen years after the
death of the king.

We are bound, therefore, if on the ground of an anachronism alone,
to repudiate any theory that connects the Jesuits with Freemasonry
during the life of James II., although we may be ready to admit
their political conspiracy in the interests of that dethroned
monarch.

During the life of his son and putative successor, the titular
James III., Speculative Masonry was established in England and
passed over into France.

The Lodge established in Paris in 1725 was, I have no doubt, an
organization of the adherents of the Stuart family, as has already
been shown.  It is probable that most of the  members were 
Catholics and under the influence of the Jesuits.  But it is not
likely that  those priests took an active part in the internal
organization of the Lodge. They could do their work better outside
of it than within it. In the Rose Croix and some other of the High
Degrees we find the influences of a Roman Catholic spirit in the
original rituals, but this might naturally arise from the religious
tendencies of their founders, and did not require the special aid
of Jesuitism.

After the year 1738 the bull of excommunication of Pope Clement
XII. must have precluded the Jesuits from all connection with
Freemasonry except as its denouncers and persecutors, parts which
up to the present day they have uninterruptedly played.

In conclusion we must, I think, refuse to accept the theory which
makes a friendly connection between Freemasonry and Jesuitism as
one of those mythical stories which, born in the imagination of its
inventors, has been fostered only by the credulity of its
believers.

At this day I doubt if there is a Masonic scholar who would accept
it as more it as a fable not even " cunningly devised," though
there was a time when it was received as a part of the authentic
history of Freemasonry. 





CHAPTER XXXII

OLIVER CROMWELL AND FREEMASONRY



Three fables have been invented to establish a connection between
Freemasonry and the dynasty of the Stuarts one which made it the
purpose of the adherents of James II. to use the Institution as a
means of restoring that monarch to the throne; a second in which
the Jesuits were  to employ it for the same purpose, as well as for
the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in England; the
third and most preposterous of these fables is that which
attributes the invention of Freemasonry as a secret society to
Oliver Cromwell, who is supposed to have employed it as a political
engine to aid him in the dethronement of  Charles I., in the
abolition of the monarchy, and in the foundation of a republic on
its ruins, with himself for its head. 

The first and second of these fables have already been discussed. 
The consideration of the third will be the subject of the present
chapter. 

The theory that Freemasonry was instituted by Oliver Cromwell was
not at first received like the other two by any large portion of
the fraternity.  It was the invention of a single mind and was
first made public in the year 1746, by the Abbe Larudan, who
presented his views in a work entitled Les Franc-Macons ecrasses,
a book which Klass, the bibliographer, says is the armory from
which all the enemies of Masonry have since delved their weapons of
abuse.

The propositions of Larudan are distinguished for their absolute
independence of all historical authority and for the bold
assumptions which are presented to the reader in the place of
facts.

His strongest argument for the truth of his theory is that the
purposes of the Masonic Institution and of the political course of
Cromwell are identical, namely, to sustain the doctrines of liberty
and equality among mankind.

Rejecting all the claims to antiquity that have been urged in
behalf of the Institution, he thinks that it was in England where
the Order of Freemasonry first saw the light of day, and that it is
to Cromwell that it owes its origin.  And this theory he claims
(with what truth we know not) to have received from a certain Grand
Master with whose astuteness and sincerity he was well acquainted. 
But even this authority, he says, would not have been sufficient to
secure his belief, had it not afterward been confirmed by his
reading of the history of the English Protector and his mature
reflections on the morals and the laws of the Order, where he
detected at every step the presence of Cromwell.

The object of Cromwell, as it has been already said, was by the
organization of a secret society, whose members would be bound by
the most solemn ties of fraternity, to reconcile the various
religions and political sects which prevailed in England in the
reign of Charles I to the prosecution of his views, which were
equally opposed to the supremacy of the king and to the power of
the Parliament, and as a consequence of the destruction of both, to
the elevation of himself to the headship of affairs.  

In the execution of this plan Cromwell proceeded with his usual
caution and address.  He first submitted the outline to several of
his most intimate friends such as Algernon Sidney, Harrington,
Monk, and Fairfax, and he held with them several private meetings.
"But it was not until the year 1648 that he began to take the
necessary steps for bringing it to maturity.

In that year, at a dinner which he gave to a large number of his
friends, he opened his designs to the company.  When his guests,
among whom were many members of Parliament, both Presbyterians and
Independents the two rival religious sects of the day, had been
well feasted, the host dexterously led the conversation to the
subject of the unhappy condition of England.  He showed in a
pathetic manner how the unfortunate nation had suffered distracting
conflicts of politics and religion, and he declared that it was a
disgrace that men so intelligent as those who then heard him did
not make an exertion to put an end to these distracting contests of
party.  

Scarcely had Cromwell ceased to speak when Ireton, his son-in-law,
who had been prepared for the occasion, rose, and, seconding the
sentiments of his leader, proceeded to show the absolute necessity
for the  public good of a conciliation and union of the many
discordant  parties which were then dividing the country.  He
exclaimed with fervor that he would not, himself, hesitate to
sacrifice his fortune and his life to remedy such calamities, and
to show to the people the road they ought to take, to relieve
themselves from the yoke which was oppressing  them and to break
the iron scepter under which they were groaning.  But to do this it
was first necessary, he insisted, to destroy every power and
influence which had betrayed the nation.  Then, turning to
Cromwell, he conjured him to explain his views on this important
matter, and to suggest the cure for these evils.

Cromwell did not hesitate to accept the task which had, apparently
without his previous concurrence, been assigned to him.  Addressing
his guests in that metaphorical style which he was accustomed to
use, and the object of which was to confuse their intellects and
make them more  ready to receive his boldest propositions, he
explained the obligation of a worship of God, the necessity to
repel force by force, and to deliver mankind from oppression and
tyranny.  He then concluded his speech,  exciting the curiosity of
his auditors by telling them that he knew a method by which they
could succeed in this great enterprise, restore peace to England,
and rescue it from the depth of misery into which it was plunged.
This method, he added, if communicated to the world, would win the
gratitude of mankind and secure a glorious memory for its authors
to the latest posterity.

The discourse was well managed and well received.  All of his
guests earnestly besought him to make this admirable expedient
known to them. But Cromwell would not yield at once to their
importunities, but modestly replying that so important an
enterprise was beyond the strength of any one man to accomplish,
and that he would rather continue to endure the evils of a bad
government than, in seeking to remove them by the efforts  of his
friends, to subject them to dangers which they might be unwilling
to encounter. 

Cromwell well understood the character of every man who sat at the
table with him, and he knew that by this artful address he should
still further excite their curiosity and awaken their enthusiasm.

And so it was that, after a repetition of importunities, he finally
consented to develop his scheme, on the condition that all the
guests should take a solemn oath to reveal the plan to no one and
to consider it  after it had been proposed with absolutely
unprejudiced mind.  This was unanimously assented to, and, the oath
of secrecy having been taken, Cromwell threw himself on his knees
and, extending his hands toward heaven, called on God and all the
celestial powers to witness the innocence of his heart and the
purity of his intentions.  All this the Abbe Larudan relates with
a minuteness of detail which we could expect only from an eye-
witness of the scene.

Having thus made a deep impression on his guests, Cromwell said
that the precise moment for disclosing the plan had not arrived,
and that an inspiration from heaven, which he had just received,
instructed him not to divulge it until four days had elapsed.

The companion though impatient to receive a knowledge of the
important secret, were compelled to restrain their desires and to
agree to meet again at the appointed time and at a place which was
designated.

On the fourth day all the guests repaired to a house in King
Street, where the meeting took place, and Cromwell proceeded to
develop his plan. (And here the Abbe Larudan becomes fervid and
diffuse in the  minuteness with which he describes what must have
been a wholly imaginary scene.) 

He commenced by conducting the guests into a dark room, where he
prepared their minds for what was going to occur by a long prayer,
in the course of which he gave them to understand that he was in
communion  with the spirits of the blessed.  After this he told
them that his design was to found a society whose only objects
would be to render due worship to God and to restore to England the
peace for which it so ardently longed. But this project, he added,
requited consummate prudence and infinite address to secure its
success.  Then taking a censer in his bands, be filled the
apartment with the most subtle fumes, so as to produce a favorable
dies position in the company to hear what he had further to say.

He informed them that at the reception of a new adherent it was
necessary that be should undergo a certain ceremony, to which all
of them, without exception, would have to submit.  He asked them
whether they were willing to pass through this ceremony, to which
proposition unanimous consent was given.  He then chose from the
company five assistants to occupy appropriate places and to perform
prescribed functions.  These assistants were a Master, two Wardens,
a Secretary, and an Orator.

Having made these preparations, the visitors were removed to
another apartment, which had been prepared for the purpose, and in
which was a picture representing the ruins of King Solomon's
Temple.  From this apartment they were transferred to another, and,
being blindfolded, were  finally invested with the secrets of
initiation.  Cromwell delivered a discourse on religion and
politics, the purport of which was to show to the contending sects
of Presbyterians and Independents, representatives of both being
present, the necessity, for the public good, of abandoning all
their frivolous disputes, of becoming reconciled, and of changing
the bitter hatred which then inspired them for a tender love and
charity toward each other.

The eloquence of their artful leader had the desired effect, and
both sects united with the army, in the establishment of a secret
association founded on the professed principles of love of God and
the maintenance of liberty and equality among men, but whose real
design was to advance the projects of Cromwell, by the abolition of
the monarchy and the establishment of a commonwealth of which he
should be the head.

It is unfortunate for the completed symmetry of this rather
interesting fable that the Abbe has refrained from indulging his
imagination by giving us the full details of the form of
initiation.  He has, however, in various parts of his book alluded
to so much of it as to enable us to learn that the instructions
were of a symbolic character, and that the Temple of Solomon
constituted the most prominent symbol.

This Temple had been built by divine command to be the sanctuary of
religion and as a place peculiarly consecrated to the performance
of its august ceremonies.  After several years of glory and
magnificence it had been destroyed by a formidable army, and the
people who had been there accustomed to worship were loaded with
chains and carried in captivity to Babylon.  After years of
servitude, an idolatrous prince, chosen as the instrument of Divine
clemency, had permitted the captives to return to Jerusalem and to
rebuild the Temple in its primitive splendor. 

It was in this allegory, says the Abbe, that the Freemasons of
Cromwell found the exact analogy of their society.  The Temple in
its first splendor is figurative of the primitive state of man. 
The religion and the ceremonies which were there practiced are
nothing else than that universal law engraved on every heart whose
principles are found in the ideas of equity and charity to which
all men are obliged. The destruction of this Temple, and the
captivity and slavery of its worshippers, symbolized the pride and
ambition which have produced political subjection among men.  The
unpitying hosts of Assyrians who destroyed the Temple and led the
people into captivity are the kings, princes, and magistrates whose
power has overwhelmed oppressed nations with innumerable evils. 
And finally, the chosen people charged with the duty of rebuilding
the Temple are the Freemasons, who are to restore men to their
original dignity.

Cromwell had divided the Order which he founded into three classes
or degrees.  The third or Master's degree was of course not without
its Hiramic legend, but the interpretation of its symbolism was
very different from that which is given at the present day.

The Abbe thus explains it.  The disorder of the workmen and the
confusion at the Temple were intended to make a profound impression
upon the mind of the candidate and to show him that the loss of
liberty and equality, represented by the death of Hiram, is the
cause of all the evils which affect mankind.  While men lived in
tranquillity in the asylum of the Temple of Liberty they enjoyed
perpetual happiness.  But they have been surprised and attacked by
tyrants who have reduced them to a state of  slavery.  This is
symbolized by the destruction of the Temple, which it is the duty
of the Master Masons to rebuild; that is to say, to restore that
liberty and equality which had been lost.

Cromwell appointed missionaries or emissaries, says Larudan, who
propagated the Order, not only over all England, but even into
Scotland and Ireland, where many Lodges were established.

The members of the Order or Society were first called Freemasons;
afterward the name was repeatedly changed to suit the political
circumstances of the times, and they were called Levelers, then
Independents, afterward Fifth Monarchy Men, and finally resumed
their original title, which they have retained to the present day. 

Such is the fable of the Cromwellian origin of Freemasonry, which
we owe entirely to the inventive genius of the Abbe Larudan.  And
yet it is not wholly a story of the imagination, but is really
founded on an extraordinary distortion of the facts of history.

Edmund Ludlow was an honest and honorable man who took at first a
prominent part in the civil war which ended in the decapitation of
Charles  I., the dissolution of the monarchy, and the establishment
of the Commonwealth.  He was throughout his whole life a consistent
and unswerving republican, and was as much opposed to the political
schemes of Cromwell for his own advancement to power as he was to
the usurpation of unconstitutional power by the King.  In the
language of the editor of  his memoirs, " He was an enemy to all
arbitrary government, though gilded over with the most specious
pretences ; and not only disapproved the usurpation of Cromwell,
but would have opposed him with as much vigor as he had done the
King, if all occasions of that nature had not been cut off by the
extraordinary jealousy or vigilance of the usurpers." (1)

Having unsuccessfully labored to counteract the influence of
Cromwell with the army, he abandoned public affairs and retired to
his home in Essex, where he remained in seclusion until the
restoration of Charles II., when he fled to Switzerland, where he
resided until his death.

During his exile, Ludlow occupied his leisure hours in the
composition of his Memoirs, a work of great value as a faithful
record of the troublous period in which he lived and of which he
was himself a great part.  In these memoirs he has given a copious
narrative of the intrigues by which Cromwell secured the alliance
of the army and destroyed the influence of the Parliament. 

The work was published at Vevay, in Switzerland, under the title of
Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, Esq.- Lieutenant-General of the Tories in 
Ireland, One of the Council of State, and a Member of the
Parliament which began on November 3, 1640. It is in two volumes,
with a supplementary one containing copies of important papers. 
The edition from which I cite bears the date of 1698.  There may
have been an earlier one.  With these memoirs the Abbe Larudan
appears to have been well acquain ted.  He had undoubtedly read
them carefully, for be has made many quotations and has repeatedly
referred to Ludlow as his authority.

But unfortunately for the Abbe's intelligence, or far more probably
for his honesty, he has always applied that Ludlow said of the
intrigues of Cromwell for the organization of a new party as if it
were meant to describe the formation of a new and secret society. 

Neither Ludlow nor any other writer refers to the existence of
Freemasonry as we now have it and as it is described by the Abbe 

(1) Ludlow's "Memoirs," Preface, p. iv.

Larudan in the time of the civil wars.  Even the Operative Masons
were not at that period greatly encouraged, for, says Northouck,"
no regard to science and elegance was to be expected from the sour
minds of the puritanical masters of the nation between the fall of
Charles I and the  restoration of his son." (1)

The Guild of Freemasons, the only form in which the Order was known
until the 18th century, was during the Commonwealth discouraged and
architecture was neglected.  In the tumult of war the arts of peace
are silent.  Cromwell was, it is true, engaged in many political
intrigues, but he had other and more effective means to accomplish
his ends than those cd Freemasonry of whose existence at that time,
except as a guild of workmen, we have no historical evidence, but
a great many historical facts to contradict its probability.

The theory, therefore, that Freemasonry owes its origin to Oliver
Cromwell, who invented it as a means of forwarding his designs
toward obtaining the supreme power of the state, is simply a fable,
the invention of a clerical adversary of the Institution, and
devised by him plainly to give to it a political character, by
which, like his successors Barruel and Robison, he sought to injure
it.

(1) Northouck's Constitutions," p. 141





CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND FREEMASONRY



The hypothesis that Freemasonry was instituted in the 17th century
and in the reign of Charles II., by a set of philosophers and
scientists who organized it under the title of the " Royal
Society," is the last of those theories which attempts to connect
the Masonic Order with the House of Stuart that we will have to
investigate.

The theory was first advanced by an anonymous writer in the German
Mercury, a Masonic journal published about the close of the last
century at Weimar, and edited by the celebrated Christopher Martin
Wieland.

In this article the writer says that Dr. John Wilkins one of the
most learned men of his time, and the brother-in-law of Oliver
Cromwell, becoming discontented with the administration of Richard
Cromwell, his son and successor, began to devise the means of re-
establishing the royal  authority.  With this view he suggested the
idea of organizing a society or club, in which, under the pretence
of cultivating the sciences the partisans of the king might meet
together with entire freedom.  General Monk and several other
military men, who had scarcely more learning than would enable them
to write their names, were members of this academy.  Their meetings
were always begun with a learned lecture, for the sake of form, 
but the conversation afterward turned upon politics and the
interests of the king.  And this politico-philosophical club, which
subsequently assumed, after the Restoration, the title of the "
Royal Society of Sciences," he asserts to have been the origin of
the fraternity of Freemasons.

We have already had abundant reason to see, in the formation of
Masonic theories, what little respect has been paid by their fram
ers to the contradictory facts of history nor does the present
hypothesis afford any exception to the general rule of dogmatic
assumption and unfounded assertion. 

Christopher Frederick Nicolai, a learned bookseller of Berlin,
wrote and published, in 1783, an Essay on the Accusations made
against the Order of Knights Templar and their Mystery with an
appendix on the Origin of the Fraternity of Freemasons. (1)

In this work he vigorously attacks the theory of the anonymous
writer in Wieland's Mercury, and the reasons on which he grounds
his dissent are well chosen but they do not cover the whole ground. 
Unfortunately, Nicolai had a theory of his own to foster, which
also in a certain way connects Freemasonry with the real founders
of the Royal Society, and the impugnment of the hypothesis of
Wieland's contribution in its whole extent impugns also his own. 
Two negatives in most languages are equivalent to an affirmative,
but nowhere are two fictions resolvable into a truth. 

The arguments of Nicolai against the Wieland theory are, however,
worth citation, before we examine his own.

He says that Wilkins could scarcely have been discontented with the
government of Richard Cromwell, since it was equally as
advantageous to  him as that of his father.  He was (and he quotes
Wood in the Athena Oxonienses as his authority) much opposed to the
court, and was a zealous Puritan before the rebellion. 

In 1648 he was made the Master of Wadham College, in the place of
a royalist who had been removed.  In 1649, after the decapitation
of Charles I,  he joined the republican party and took the oath of
allegiance to the Commonwealth.  In 1656 he married the sister of
Cromwell, and under Richard received the valuable appointment of
Master of Trinity College, which, however, he lost upon the
restoration of the monarchy in the following year.

"Is it credible," says Nicolai, "that this man could have
instituted a society for the purpose of advancing the restoration
of the king; a society all of whose members were of the opposite
party? The celebrated Dr. Goddard, who was one of the most
distinguished members, was the physician and favorite of Cromwell,
whom, after the death of the King, he attended in his campaigns in
Ireland and Scotland.  It is an extraordinary  assertion that a 

(1) "Versuch uber die Besschuldigungen, welche dem Tempelherrn
orden gemacht worden und uber dessen Geheimniss; nebst einem
Anhange uber das Enstehen der Freimaurergesellschaft," Berlin and
Stettin, 1783.

discontent with the administration of Richard Cromwell should have
given rise in 1658 to a society which was instituted in 1646.  It
is not less extraordinary that this society should have held its
meetings in a tavern.  It is very certain that in those days of
somber Puritanism the few taverns to be found in London could not
have been used as places of meeting for associations  consisting of
men of all conditions, as is now the custom.  There would have been
much imprudence in thus exposing secret deliberations on an affair
equally dangerous and important to the inspection of all the spies
who might be congregated in a tavern."

He asserts that the first meetings of the society were held at the
house of Dr. Goddard and of another member, and afterward at
Cheapside and at Gresham College.  And these facts are proved by
the records of the society, as published by its annalists.

As to the statement that Monk was one of the members of the
society-a fact that would be important in strengthening the theory
that it was organized by the friends of the monarchy and with a
design of advancing  its restoration-he shows the impossibility
that it could be correct, because Monk was a prisoner in the Tower
from 1643 until 1647, and after his release in that year spent only
a month in London, not again visiting that city till 1659, when he
returned at the head of an army and was engaged in the arrangement
of such delicate affairs and was so narrowly watched that it is not
possible to be behaved that with his well-known caution he would
have taken part in any sort of political society whatever, while
the society would have acted very inconsiderately in admitting into
its ranks military men who could scarcely write, and that too at a
time when distrust had risen to its height.

But a better proof than any advanced by Nicolai, that Monk had
nothing to do with the establishment of the Royal Society, whatever
may have been  its object, is that his name does not appear upon
the list of original or early members, taken from the official
records and published by Dr. Thompson in his history of the
society.

Finally Nicolai asserts very truthfully that its subsequent history
has shown that this society was really engaged in scientific
pursuits, and that politics were altogether banished from its
conferences.  But he also contends, but with less accuracy, that
the political principles of its members were opposed to the
restoration of the monarchy, for which statement there is no
positive authority.

Hence Nicolai concludes that " there is no truth in the statements
of the anonymous writer in Wieland's Mercury, except that the
restoration was opposed in secret by a certain society."

And now he advances his own theory, no less untenable than the one
he is opposing, that this society " was the Freemasons, who had
nothing in common with the other, except the date of foundation,
and whose views  in literature as well as in politics were of an
entirely opposite character." This was the theory of Nicolai-not
that Freemasonry originated in the Royal Society, but that it was
established by certain learned men who sought to advance the
experimental philosophy which had just been introduced by Bacon. 
But the same idea was sought by the originators of the Royal
Society, and as many of the founders of this school were also among
the founders of the Royal Society, it seems difficult to separate
the two theories so as to make of each a distinct and independent
existence.  But it will be better to let the Berlin bookseller
explain his doctrine in his own language, before an attempt is made
to apply to it the canons of criticism. 

He commences by asserting that one of the effects of the labors of
Andrea and the other Rosicrucians was the application of a
wholesome,criticism to the examination of philosophical and
scientific subjects.  He thinks even that the Fama Fraternitatis,
the great work of Andrea, had first suggested to Bacon the notion
of his immortal work on The Advancement of Learning.  At the same
time in which Bacon flourished and taught his inductive philosophy,
the Rosicrucians had introduced a system of philosophy which was
established on the phenomena of nature.

Lord Bacon had cultivated these views in his book De Augmentis
Scientiarum, except that he rejected the Rosicrucian method of
esoteric instruction.  Everything that he taught was to be open and
exoteric. Therefore, as he had written his great work in the Latin
language, for the use of the learned, he now composed his New
Atlantis in English, that all classes might be able to read it.

In this work is contained his celebrated romance of the House of 
Solomon, which Nicolai thinks may have had its influence in
originating the society of Freemasons.

In this fictitious tale Bacon supposes that a vessel lands on an
unknown island, called Bensalem, over which in days of yore a
certain King Solomon  reigned.  This King had a large
establisliment, which was called the House of Solomon or the
College of the Six Days' Work, in allusion to the six days of the
Mosaic account of the creation.  He afterward describes the immense
apparatus which was there employed in physical researches.  There
were deep grottoes and tall bowers for the observation o f the
phenomena of nature ; artificial mineral-waters; huge buildings in
which meteors, the wind, rain and thunder and lightning were
imitated; extensive botanic gardens, and large fields in which all
kinds of animals were collected for the study of their instinct and
habits, and houses filled with all the wonders of nature and art.
There were also a great number of learned men, to whom the
direction of these things was intrusted.  They made journeys into
foreign countries, and observations on what they saw.  They wrote,
they collected, they determined results, and deliberated together
as to what was proper to be published.

This romance, says Nicolai, which was in accord with the prevailing
taste of the age, contributed far more to spread the views of Bacon
on the observation of nature than his more learned and profound
work had been able to do.  The House of Solomon attracted the
attention of everybody. King Charles I was anxious to establish
something like it, but was prevented by the civil wars. 
Nevertheless this great idea, associated with that of the
Rosicrucians, continued to powerfully agitate the minds of the
learned men of that period, who now began to be persuaded of the
necessity of experimental knowledge.

Accordingly, in 1646, a society of learned men was established, all
of whom were of Bacon's opinion, that philosophy and the physical
sciences should be placed within the reach of all thinking minds. 
They held meetings at which--believing that instruction in physics
was to be sought by a mutual communication of ideas-they made many
scientific experiments in common.  Among these men were John
Wallis, John Wilkins, Jonathan Goddard, Samuel Foster, Francis
Glisson, and many others, all of whom were, fourteen years
afterward, the founders of the Royal Society.

But proceedings like these were not congenial with the intellectual
condition of England at that period.  A melancholy and somber
spirit had  overshadowed religion, and a mystical theology, almost
Gnostic in its character had infected the best minds. Devotion had
passed into enthusiasm and that into fanaticism, and sanguinary
wars and revolutions were the result. It was then that such
skillful hypocrites as Cromwell and Breton took advantage of this
weakness for the purpose of concealing and advancing their own
designs.

The taint of this dark and sad character is met with in all the
science, the philosophy, and even in the oratory and poetry of the
period.  Astrology and Theurgy were then in all their glory. 
Chemistry, which took the place of experimental science, was as
obscure as every other species of learning, and its facts were
enveloped in the allegories of the Alchemists and the Rosicrucians. 
A few learned men, disheartened by this obscuration of intellectual
light, had organized a society in 1646 ; but as they were still
imbued with a remnant of the popular prejudice, they were the
partisans of the esoteric method of instruction, and did not
believe that human knowledge should be exoterically taught so as to
become accessible to all. Hence their society became a secret one. 
The first members of this society were, says Nicolai, Elias
Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary; William Lilly, a famous
astrologer; Thomas Wharton, a physician; George Wharton; William
Oughtred, a mathematician; Dr. John Hewitt, and Dr. John Pearson,
both clergymen, and several others.  The annual festival of the
Astrologers gave rise to this association.  It had previously held
one meeting at Warrington, in Lancashire, but it was first firmly
established at London.

Its object was to build the House of Solomon in a literal sense but
the establishment was to remain as secret as the island of Bensalem
in Bacon's New Atlantis,- that is, they were to be engaged in the
study of nature, but the instructions were to remain within the
society in an esoteric form ; in other words, it was to be a secret
society. Allegories were used by these philosophers to express
their ideas.  First were the ancient columns of Hermes, by which
Jamblichus pretended that he had enlightened all the doubts of
Porphyry.  You then mounted, by several steps, to a checkered floor
divided into four regions, to denote the four superior sciences,
after which came the types of the six days, which expressed the
object of the society.  All of which was intended to teach the
doctrines that God created the world and preserves it by fixed
principles, and that he who seeks to know these principles, by an
investigation of the interior of nature, approximates to God and
obtains from His grace the power of commanding nature.  This, says
Nicolai, was the essence of the  mystical and alchemical doctrine
of the age, so that we may conclude that the society which he has
been describingwas in reality an association of alchemists, or
rather of astrologers. 

In these allegories, for which Nicolai may have been indebted to
the alchemical writings of that period, to which he refers, or for
which he may have drawn on his own imagination-we are uncertain
which, as he sees no authorities-we may plainly detect Masonic
symbols, such as the pillars of the porch of the Temple, the
mystical ladder of steps, and the mosaic pavement, and thus it is
that he seems to find an analogy between Freemasonry and the secret
society that he has been describing.

He still further pursues the hypothesis of their identity in the
following remarks: 

"It is known," he say, " that all who have the right of citizenship
in London, whatever may be their rank or condition, must be
recognized as members of some company or corporation.  But it is
always easy for a man of quality or of letters to gain admission
into one of these companies.  Now, several members of the society
that has just been described were also members of the Company of
Masons.  This was the reason of their holding their meetings at
Masons' Hall, in Masons' Alley, Basinghall Street.  They all
entered the company and assumed the name of Free and Accepted
Masons, adopting, besides, all its external marks of distinction. 
Free is the title which every member of this body assumes in
England; the right or franchise is called Freedom,- the brethren
call themselves Freemen, Accepted means, in this place, that this
private society had been  accepted or incorporated into that of the
Masons, and thus it was that chance gave birth to that denomination
of Freemasons which afterward became so famous, although it is
possible that some allusion may also have been intended to the
building of the House of Solomon, an allegory with which they were
also familiar."

Hence, according to the theory of Nicolai, two famous associations,
each of a character peculiar to itself, were at the same period
indebted to the same cause for their existence.  These were the
Royal Society and the Freemasony " Both," he says, " had the same
object and the difference in their proceedings arose only from a
difference in some of the opinions of their members.  The one
society had adopted as its maxim that the knowledge of nature and
of natural science should be indiscriminately communicated to all
classes of men, while the other contended that the  secrets of
nature should be restricted to a small number of chosen recipients. 
The former body, which was the Royal Society, therefore held open
meetings; the latter, which was the Society of Freemasons,
enveloped its transactions in mystery." 

"In those days," says Nicolai, " the Freemasons were altogether
devoted to the King and opposed to the Parliament, and they soon
occupied themselves at their meetings in devising the means of
sustaining the royal cause.  After the death of Charles I., in
1649, the Royalists becoming still more closely united, and,
fearing to be known as such, they joined the assemblies of the
Freemasons for the purpose of concealing their own identity, and
the good intentions of that society being well known many persons
of rank were admitted into it.  But as the objects which occupied
their attention were no other than to diminish the number of the
partisans of Parliament, and to prepare the way for the restoration
of Charles II. to the throne, it would have been very imprudent to
communicate to all Freemasonry without exception, the measures
which they deemed it expedient to take, and which required an
inviolable secrecy.  Accordingly they adopted the method of
selecting a certain number of their members, who met in secret, and
this committee, which had nothing at all to do with the House of
Solomon, selected allegories, which had no relation to the former
ones, but which were very appropriate to their design.  These new
Masons took Death for their symbol.  They lamented the death of
their master, Charles I ; they nursed the hope of vengeance on his
murderers;  they sought to re-establish the Word, or his son,
Charles II., for they applied to him the word Logos, which, in its
theological sense, means both the Word and the Son; and the queen,
Henrietta Maria, the relict of Charles I., being thenceforth the
head of the party, they designated themselves the Widow's Sons.  

"They agreed also upon private signs and modes of recognition, by
which the friends of the royal cause might be able to distinguish
each other from their enemies.  This precaution was of great
utility to those who traveled, and especially to those of them who
retired with the court to Holland, where, being surrounded by the
spies of the Commonwealth, it was necessary to be exceedingly
diligent in guarding their secret." 

Nicolai then proceeds to show how, after the death of Oliver
Cromwell and the abdication of his son Richard, the administration
of affairs fell into the hands of the chiefs of various parties,
whence resulted confusion and dissensions, which tended to render
the cause of the monarchy still more popular.  The generals of the
army were, however, still opposed to any notion of a restoration
and the hopes of the royalis ts centered upon General Monk, who
commanded the army in Scotland, and who, it was known, had begun to
look favorably on propositions which he had received in 1659 from
the exiled King.  

It then became necessary to bind their secret committee still more
closely, that they might treat of Scottish affairs in reference to
the interests of the King.  They selected new allegories, which
symbolized the critical state to which they were reduced, and the
virtues, such as prudence, pliancy, and courage, which were
necessary to success.  They selected a new device and a new sign, 
and in their meetings spoke allegorically of  taking care, in that
wavering and uncertain condition of falling, lest the arms should
be broken."  It is probable that, in this last and otherwise
incomprehensible sentence, Nicolai refers to some of the changes
made in the High Degrees, fabricated about the middle of the 18th
century, but whose invention he incorrectly, but like most Masonic
historians of his day, attributes to an earlier date.

As some elucidation of what he says respecting the fact of failing
and the broken arm, we find Nicolai afterward quoting a small
dictionary which he says appeared about the beginning of the 18th
century, and in which we meet with the following definition :

"Mason's Wound, An imaginary wound above the elbow, to represent a
fracture of the arm occasioned by a fall from an elevated place." 


"This," says Nicolai, "is the authentic history of the origin of
the Society of Freemasons, and of the first changes that it
underwent, changes which transformed it from an esoteric society of
natural philosophers into an association of good patriots and loyal
subjects; and hence it was that it subsequently took the name of
the Royal Art as applied to Masonry." 

He concludes by affirming that the Society of Freemasons continued
to assemble after the Restoration, in 1660, and even made, in 1663,
several regulations for its preservation, but the zeal of its
members was diminished by the changes which  science and manners
underwent during the reign of  Charles II.  Its political character
ceased by the advent of the king, and its esoteric method of
teaching the natural sciencess must have been greatly interrupted. 

The Royal Society, whose method had been exoteric and open, and
from whose conferences politics were excluded, although its members
were, in principle, opposed to the Restoration, had a more
successful progress, and was joined by many of the Freemasons, the
most prominent of whom was Elias Ashmole, who, Nicolai says,
changed his opinions and became a member of the Royal Society.

But, to prevent its dissolution, the Society of Freemasons made
several changes in its constitution, so as to give it a specific
design.  This was undertaken and the symbols of the Society were
altered so as to substitute the Temple of Solomon in the place of
Bacon's House of Solomon, as a more appropriate allegory to express
the character of the new institution. Nicolai thinks that the
building of St. Paul's Church and the persecutions endured by Sir
Christopher Wren may have contributed to the selection of these new
symbols.  But on this point he does not insist.

Such is the theory of Nicolai.  Rejecting the idea that the origin
of the Order of Freemasonry is to be traced to the founders of the
Royal Society, he claims to have found it in a society of
contemporaneous philosophers who met at Masons' Hall, in Basinghall
Street, and assumed the name of Free and Accepted Masons, and who,
claiming, in opposition to the views of the members of the Royal
Society, that all s6ences should be  communicated esoterically,
therefore held their meetings in secret, their real object therefor
being to nourish a political conspiracy for the advancement of the
cause of the monarchy and the restoration of the exiled King.

Nicolai does not expressly mention the Astrologers, but it is very
evident that he alludes to them as the so-called philosophers who
originated this secret society, and to them, therefore, he
attributes the invention of the Masonic system, as it now exists,
after the necessary changes which policy and the vicissitudes of
the times had induced.

Nicholas de Bonneville, the author of the essay entitled The
Jesuits chased out of Freemasonry, entertained a similar opinion.
He says that in 1646 a society of Rosicrucians was formed at
London, modeled on the ideas of the New Atlantis of Bacon.  It
assembled in Masons' Hall, where Ashmole and other Rosicrucians
modified the formula of reception of the Operative Masons, which
had consisted only of a few ceremonies used by craftsmen, and
substituted a mode of initiation founded in part on the mysteries
of Ancient Egypt and Greece.  They then fabricated the first degree
of Masonry as ive non, have it, and, to distinguish themselves from
common Masons, called themselves Freemasons.  Thory cites this
without comment in his Acta Latomorum, and gives it as a part of
the authentic annals of the Order.  

But ingenious and plausible as are these views, both of Nicolai and
Bonneville, they unfortunately can not withstand the touchstone of
all truth, the proofs of authentic history. 

It will be seen that we have two hypotheses to investigate-first
that advanced by the contributor to Wieland's Mercury, that the
Society of Freemasons was originated by the founders of the Royal
Society, and that maintained by Nicolai and Bonneville, that it
owes its invention to the Astrologers who were contemporary with
these founders.  Both hypotheses place the date of the invention in
the same year, 1646, and give London as the place of the invention.

We must first direct our attention to the theory which maintains
that the Royal Society was the origin of Freemasonry, and that the
founders of that academy were the establishers of the Society of
Freemasons.

This theory, first advanced, apparently, by the anonymous
contributor to Wieland's Mercury, was exploded by Nicolai, in the
arguments heretofore quoted, but something may be added to increase
the strength of what he has said.

We have the explicit testimony of all the historians of that
institution that it was not at all connected with the political
contests of the day, and that it was founded only as a means of
pursuing philosophical and scientific inquiries.

Dr. Thompson, who derives his information from the early records of
the society, says that " it was established for the express purpose
of advancing experimental philosophy, and that its foundation was
laid during the time of the civil wars and was owing to the
accidental association of several learned men who took no part in
the disturbances which agitated Great Britain." (1) 

He adds that "about the year 1645 several ingenious men who  

(1) "History of the Royal Society," by Thomas Thompson, M.D.,
F.R.S., LL.D. London, 1812, p. 1

resided in London and were interested in the progress of
mathematics and natural philosophy agreed to meet once a week to
discourse upon subjects connected with these sciences.  These
meetings were suspended after the resignation of Richard Cromwell,
but revived in 1660, upon the Restoration."' (1)

They met at first in private rooms, but afterward in Gresham
College and then in Arundel House.  Their earliest code of laws
shows that their conferences were not in secret, but open to
properly introduced visitors, as they still continue to be.

Weld, the librarian of the society, says that to it "attaches the
renown of having from its foundation applied itself with untiring
zeal and energy to the great objects of its institution." (2) He
states that, although the society was not chartered until 1660, "
there is no doubt that a society of learned men were in the habit
of assembling together to discuss scientific subjects for many
years previous to that time." (3)

Spratt, in his history of the society, says that in the gloomy
season of the civil wars they had selected natural philosophy as
their private diversion, and that at their rneetings " they chiefly
attended to some particular trials in Chemistry or Mechanics."

The testimony of Robert Boyle, Wallis, and Evelyn, contemporaries
of the founders, is to the same effect, that the society was simply
philosophical in its character and without any political design Dr.
Wallis, who was one of the original founders, makes this statement
concerning the origin and objects of the society in his Account of
some Passages in my own Life. (4)

" About the year 1645, while I lived in London (at a time when, by
our civil wars, academic studies were much interrupted in both our
Universities), besides the conversation of divers eminent divines,
as to matters theological, I had the opportunity of being
acquainted with divers worthy persons inquisitive into natural
philosophy and other paths of human learning, and 
particularly what has 

(1) "History of the Royal Society," by Thomas Thompson, M.D.,
F.R.S., LL.D., London, 1812, p.1
(2) "A History of the Royal Society," with Memoirs of its
Presidents, by Charles Richard Weld, Esq., 2 vols., London, 1848,
I. 27
(3) Ibid
(4) In Hearne's edition of Langsteff's chronicle.


been called the New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy.  We did,
by agreements, divers of us meet weekly in London on a certain day
to treat and discourse of such affairs." Wallis says that the
subjects pursued by them related to physics, astronomy, and natural
philosophy, such as the circulation of the blood, the Copernican
system, the Torricellian experiment, etc.

In all these authentic accounts of the object of the society there
is not the slightest allusion to it as a secret organization, nor
any mention of a form of initiation, but only a reception by the
unanimous vote of the members, which reception, as laid down in the
bylaws consisted merely in the president taking the newly elected
candidate by the found and saluting him as a member or fellow of
the society. 

The fact is that at that period many similar societies had been
instituted in different countries of Europe, such as the Academia
del Corriento at Florence and the Academy of Sciences at Paris,
whose members, like those of the Royal Society of London, devoted
themselves to the development of science.

This encouragement of scientific pursuits may be principally
attributed to many circumstances that followed the revival of
learning; the advent of Greeks into Western Europe, imbued with
(Grecian literature; Bacon's new system of philosophy, which alone
was enough to awaken the intellects of all thinking men ; and the
labors of Galileo and his disciples.  All these had prepared many
minds for the pursuit of philosophy by experimental and inductive
methods, which took the place of the superstitious dogmas of
preceding ages.

It was through such influences as these, wholly unconnected with
any religious or political aspirations, that the founders of the
Royal Society were induced to hold their meetings and to cultivate
without the restraints of secrecy their philosophical labors, which
culminated in 1660 in the incorporation of an institution of
learned men which at this day holds the most honored and prominent
place among the learned societies of the world.

But it is in vain to look in this society, either in the mode of
its organization, in the character of its members, or in the nature
of their pursuits, for any connection with Freemasonry, an
institution  entirely different in its construction and its
objects.  The theory, therefore, that Freemasonry is indebted for
is origin to the Royal Society of London must be rejected  as 
wholly  without  authenticity or even plausibility. But the theory
of Nicolai, which attributes its origin to another contemporaneous
society, whose members were evidently Astrologers, is somewhat more
plausible, although equally incorrect.  Its consideration must,
however, be reserved as the subject of another chapter.