Part I (continued 3)

I would suggest, then, that Christian Rosenkreutz was a purely mythical personage, and that the whole legend concerning his travels was invented to disguise the real sources whence the Rosicrucians derived their system, which would appear to have been a compound of ancient esoteric doctrines, of Arabian and Syrian magic, and of Jewish Cabalism, partly inherited from the Templars but reinforced by direct contact with Cabalistic Jews in Germany. The Rose-Croix, says Mirabeau, "were a mystical, Cabalistic, theological, and magical sect," and Rosicrucianism thus became in the seventeenth century the generic title by which everything of the nature of Cabalism, Theosophy, Alchemy, Astrology, and Mysticism was designated. For this reason it has been said that they cannot be regarded as the descendants of the Templars. Mr. Waite, in referring to "the alleged connexion between the Templars and the Brethren of the Rosy Cross," observes:

The Templars were not alchemists, they had no scientific pretensions, and their secret, so far as it can be ascertained, was a religious secret of an anti-Christian kind. The Rosicrucians, on the other hand, were pre-eminently a learned society and they were also a Christian sect.²⁵⁶

The fact that the Templars do not appear to have practised alchemy is beside the point; it is not pretended that the Rosicrucians followed the Templars in every particular, but that they were the inheritors of a secret tradition passed on to them by the earlier Order. Moreover, that they were a learned society, or even a society at all, is not at all certain, for they would appear to have possessed no organization like the Templars or the Freemasons, but to have consisted rather of isolated occultists bound together by some tie of secret knowledge concerning natural phenomena. This secrecy was no doubt necessary at a period when scientific research was liable to be regarded as sorcery, but whether the Rosicrucians really accomplished anything is extremely doubtful. They are said to have been alchemists; but did they ever succeed in transmuting metals? They are described as learned, yet do the pamphlets emanating from the Fraternity betray any proof of superior knowledge? "The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz," which appeared in 1616, certainly appears to be the purest nonsense--magical imaginings of the most puerile kind; and Mr. Waite himself observes that the publication of the Fama and the Confessio Fraternitalis will not add new lustre to the Rosicrucian reputations:

We are accustomed to regard the adepts of the Rosy Cross as beings of sublime elevation and preternatural physical powers, masters of Nature, monarchs of the intellectual world.... But here in their own acknowledged manifestos they avow themselves a mere theosophical offshoot of the Lutheran heresy, acknowledging the spiritual supremacy of a temporal prince, and calling the Pope anti-Christ.... We find them intemperate in their language, rabid in their religious prejudices, and instead of towering giant-like above the intellectual average of their age, we see them buffeted by the same passions and identified with all opinions of the men by whom they were environed. The voice which addresses us behind the mystical mask of the Rose-Croix does not come from an intellectual throne....

So much for the Rosicrucians as a "learned society."

What, then, of their claim to be a Christian body? The Rosicrucian student of the Cabala, Julius Sperber, in his Echo of the Divinely Illuminated Fraternity of the Admirable Order of the R.C. (1615), has indicated the place assigned to Christ by the Rosicrucians. In De Quincey's words:

Having maintained the probability of the Rosicrucian pretensions on the ground that such magnalia Dei had from the creation downwards been confided to the keeping of a few individuals--agreeably to which he affirms that Adam was the first Rosicrucian of the Old Testament and Simeon the last--he goes on to ask whether the Gospel put an end to the secret tradition? By no means, he answers: Christ established a new "college of magic" among His disciples, and the greater mysteries were revealed to St. John and St. Paul.

John Yarker, quoting this passage, adds: "This, Brother Findel points out, was a claim of the Carpocratian Gnostics"; it was also, as we have seen, a part of the Johannite tradition which is said to have been imparted to the Templars. We shall find the same idea of Christ as an "initiate" running all through the secret societies up to the present day.

These doctrines not unnaturally brought on the Rosicrucians the suspicion of being an anti-Christian body. The writer of a contemporary pamphlet published in 1624, declares that "this fraternity is a stratagem of the Jews and Cabalistic Hebrews, in whose philosophy, says Pic de la Mirandole, all things are ... as if hidden in the majesty of truth or as ... in very sacred Mysteries."²⁵⁷

Another work, Examination of the Unknown and Novel Cabala of the Brethren of the Rose-Cross, agrees with the assertion that the chief of this "execrable college is Satan, that its first rule is denial of God, blasphemy against the most simple and undivided Trinity, trampling on the mysteries of the redemption, spitting in the face of the mother of God and of all the saints." The sect is further accused of compacts with the devil, sacrifices of children, of cherishing toads, making poisonous powders, dancing with fiends, etc.

Now, although all this would appear to be quite incompatible with the character of the Rosicrucians as far as it is known, we have already seen that the practices here described were by no means imaginary; in this same seventeenth century, when the fame of the Rosicrucians was first noised abroad, black magic was still, as in the days of Gilles de Rais, a horrible reality, not only in France but in England, Scotland, and Germany, where sorcerers of both sexes were continually put to death.²⁵⁸ However much we may deplore the methods employed against these people or question the supernatural origin of their cult, it would be idle to deny that the cult itself existed.

Moreover, towards the end of the century it assumed in France a very tangible form in the series of mysterious dramas known as the "Affaire des Poisons," of which the first act took place in 1666, when the celebrated Marquise de Brinvilliers embarked on her amazing career of crime in collaboration with her lover Sainte-Croix. This extraordinary woman, who for ten years made a hobby of trying the effects of various slow poisons on her nearest relations, thereby causing the death of her father and brothers, might appear to have been merely an isolated criminal of the abnormal type but for the sequel to her exploits in the epidemic of poisoning which followed and during twenty years kept Paris in a state of terror. The investigations of the police finally led to the discovery of a whole band of magicians and alchemists--"a vast ramification of malefactors covering all France"--who specialized in the art of poisoning without fear of detection.

Concerning all these sorcerers, alchemists, compounders of magical powders and philtres, frightful rumours circulated, "pacts with the devil were talked of, sacrifices of new-born babies, incantations, sacrilegious Masses and other practices as disquieting as they were lugubrious."²⁵⁹ Even the King's mistress, Madame de Montespan, is said to have had recourse to black Masses in order to retain the royal favour through the agency of the celebrated sorceress La Voisin, with whom she was later implicated in an accusation of having attempted the life of the King.

All the extraordinary details of these events have recently been described in the book of Madame Latour, where the intimate connexion between the poisoners and the magicians is shown. In the opinion of contemporaries, these were not isolated individuals:

"Their methods were too certain, their execution of crime too skilful and too easy for them not to have belonged, either directly or indirectly, to a whole organization of criminals who prepared the way, and studied the method of giving to crime the appearance of illness, of forming, in a word, a school."²⁶⁰

The author of the work here quoted draws an interesting parallel between this organization and the modern traffic in cocaine, and goes on to describe the three degrees into which it was divided: firstly, the Heads, cultivated and intelligent men, who understood chemistry, physics, and nearly all useful sciences, "invisible counsellors but supreme, without whom the sorcerers and diviners would have been powerless"; secondly, the visible magicians employing mysterious processes, complicated rites and terrifying ceremonies; and thirdly, the crowd of nobles and plebeians who flocked to the doors of the sorcerers and filled their pockets in return for magic potions, philtres, and, in certain cases, insidious poisons. Thus La Voisin must be placed in the second category; "in spite of her luxury, her profits, and her fame," she "is only a subaltern agent in this vast organization of criminals. She depends entirely for her great enterprises on the intellectual chiefs of the corporation...."²⁶¹

Who were these intellectual chiefs? The man who first initiated Madame de Brinvilliers' lover Sainte-Croix into the art of poisoning was an Italian named Exili or Eggidi; but the real initiate from whom Eggidi and another Italian poisoner had learnt their secrets is said to have been Glaser, variously described as a German or a Swiss chemist, who followed the principles of Paracelsus and occupied the post of physician to the King and the Duc d'Orléans.²⁶² This man, about whose history little is known, might thus have been a kind of Rosicrucian. For since, as has been said, the intellectual chiefs from whom the poisoners derived their inspiration were men versed in chemistry, in science, in physics, and the treatment of diseases, and since, further, they included alchemists and people professing to be in possession of the Philosopher's Stone, their resemblance with the Rosicrucians is at once apparent. Indeed, in turning back to the branches of magic enumerated by the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd, we find not only Natural Magic, "that most occult and secret department of physics by which the mystical properties of natural substances are extracted," but also Venefic Magic, which "is familiar with potions, philtres, and with various preparations of poisons."

The art of poisoning was therefore known to the Rosicrucians, and, although there is no reason to suppose it was ever practised by the heads of the Fraternity, it is possible that the inspirers of the poisoners may have been perverted Rosicrucians, that is to say, students of those portions of the Cabala relating to magic both of the necromantic and venefic varieties, who turned the scientific knowledge which the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross used for healing to a precisely opposite and deadly purpose. This would explain the fact that contemporaries like the author of the Examination of the Unknown and Novel Cabala of the Brethren of the Rose-Cross should identify these brethren with the magicians and believe them to be guilty of practices deriving from the same source as Rosicrucian knowledge--the Cabala of the Jews. Their modern admirers would, of course, declare that they were the poles asunder, the difference being between white and black magic. Huysmans, however, scoffs at this distinction and says the use of the term "white magic" was a ruse of the Rose-Croix.

But of the real doctrines of the Rosicrucians no one can speak with certainty. The whole story of the Fraternity is wrapped in mystery. Mystery was avowedly the essence of their system; their identity, their aims, their doctrines, are said to have been kept a profound secret from the world. Indeed it is said that no real Rosicrucian ever allowed himself to be known as such. As a result of this systematic method of concealment, sceptics on the one hand have declared the Rosicrucians to have been charlatans and impostors or have denied their very existence, whilst on the other hand romancers have exalted them as depositaries of supernatural wisdom. The question is further obscured by the fact that most accounts of the Fraternity--as, for example, those of Eliphas Lévi, Hargrave Jennings, Kenneth Mackenzie, Mr. A.E. Waite, Dr. Wynn Westcott, and Mr. Cadbury Jones--are the work of men claiming or believing themselves to be initiated into Rosicrucianism or other occult systems of a kindred nature and as such in possession of peculiar and exclusive knowledge. This pretension may at once be dismissed as an absurdity; nothing is easier than for anyone to make a compound out of Jewish Cabalism and Eastern theosophy and to label it Rosicrucianism, but no proof whatever exists of any affiliation between the self-styled Rosicrucians of to-day and the seventeenth-century "Brothers of the Rosy Cross."²⁶³

In spite of Mr. Wake's claim, "The Real History of the Rosicrucians" still remains to be written, at any rate in the English language. The book he has published under this name is merely a superficial study of the question largely composed of reprints of Rosicrucian pamphlets accessible to any student. Mr. Wigston and Mrs. Pott merely echo Mr. Waite. Thus everything that has been published hitherto consists in the repetition of Rosicrucian legends or in unsubstantiated theorizings on their doctrines. What we need are facts. We want to know who were the early Rosicrucians, when the Fraternity originated, and what were its real aims. These researches must be made, not by an occultist weaving his own theories into the subject, but by a historian free from any prejudices for or against the Order, capable of weighing evidence and bringing a judicial mind to bear on the material to be found in the libraries of the Continent--notably the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris. Such a work would be a valuable contribution to the history of secret societies in our country.

But if the Continental Brethren of the Rose-Croix form but a shadowy group of "Invisibles" whose identity yet remains a mystery, the English adepts of the Order stand forth in the light of day as, philosophers well known to their age and country. That Francis Bacon was initiated into Rosicrucianism is now recognized by Freemasons, but a more definite link with the Rosicrucians of the Continent was Robert Fludd, who after travelling for six years in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain--where he formed connexions with Jewish Cabalists²⁶⁴--was visited by the German Jew Rosicrucian Michel Maier--doctor to the Emperor Rudolf--by whom he appears to have been initiated into further mysteries.

In 1616 Fludd published his Tractatus Apologeticus, defending the Rosicrucians against the charges of "detestable magic and diabolical superstition" brought against them by Libavius. Twelve years later Fludd was attacked by Father Mersenne, to whom a reply was made "by Fludd or a friend of Fludd's" containing a further defence of the Order. "The Book," says Mr. Waite, "treats of the noble art of magic, the foundation and nature of the Cabala, the essence of veritable alchemy, and of the Causa Fratrum Rosae Crucis. It identifies the palace or home of the Rosicrucians with the Scriptural House of Wisdom."

In further works by English writers the Eastern origin of the Fraternity is insisted on. Thus Thomas Vaughan, known as Eugenius Philalethes, writing in praise of the Rosicrucians in 1652, says that "their knowledge at first was not purchased by their own disquisitions, for they received it from the Arabians, amongst whom it remained as the monument and legacy of the Children of the East. Nor is this at all improbable, for the Eastern countries have been always famous for magical and secret societies."

Another apologist of the Rosicrucians, John Heydon, who travelled in Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, is described by a contemporary as having been in "many strange places among the Rosie Crucians and at their castles, holy houses, temples, sepulchres, sacrifices." Heydon himself, whilst declaring that he is not a Rosicrucian, says that he knows members of the Fraternity and its secrets, that they are sons of Moses, and that "this Rosie Crucian Physick or Medicine, I happily and unexpectedly alight upon in Arabia." These references to castles, temples, sacrifices, encountered in Egypt, Persia, and Arabia inevitably recall memories of both Templars and Ismailis. Is there no connexion between "the Invisible Mountains of the Brethren" referred to elsewhere by Heydon and the Mountains of the Assassins and the Freemasons? between the Scriptural "House of Wisdom" and the Dar-ul-Hikmat or Grand Lodge of Cairo, the model for Western masonic lodges?

It is as the precursors of the crisis which arose in 1717 that the English Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century are of supreme importance. No longer need we concern ourselves with shadowy Brethren laying dubious claim to supernatural wisdom, but with a concrete association of professed Initiates proclaiming their existence to the world under the name of Freemasonry.

5. Origins of Freemasonry

"The origin of Freemasonry," says a masonic writer of the eighteenth century, "is known to Freemasons alone."²⁶⁵ If this was once the case, it is so no longer, for, although the question would certainly appear to be one on which the initiated should be most qualified to speak, the fact is that no official theory on the origin of Freemasonry exists; the great mass of the Freemasons do not know or care to know anything about the history of their Order, whilst Masonic authorities are entirely disagreed on the matter. Dr. Mackey admits that "the origin and source whence first sprang the institution of Freemasonry has given rise to more difference of opinion and discussion among masonic scholars than any other topic in the literature of the institution."²⁶⁶ Nor is this ignorance maintained merely in books for the general public, since in those specially addressed to the Craft and at discussions in lodges the same diversity of opinion prevails, and no decisive conclusions appear to be reached. Thus Mr. Albert Churchward, a Freemason of the thirtieth degree, who deplores the small amount of interest taken in this matter by Masons in general, observes:

Hitherto there have been so many contradictory opinions and theories in the attempt to supply the origin and the reason whence, where, and why the Brotherhood of Freemasonry came into existence, and all the "different parts" and various rituals of the "different degrees." All that has been written on this has hitherto been theories, without any facts for their fundation.²⁶⁷

In the absence, therefore, of any origin universally recognized by the Craft, it is surely open to the lay mind to speculate on the matter and to draw conclusions from history as to which of the many explanations put forward seems to supply the key to the mystery.

According to the Royal Masonic Cyclopædia, no less than twelve theories have been advanced as to the origins of the Order, namely, that Masonry derived:

"(1) From the patriarchs. (2) From the mysteries of the pagans. (3) From the construction of Solomon's Temple, (4) From the Crusades. (5) From the Knights Templar. (6) From the Roman Collegia of Artificers. (7) From the operative masons of the Middle Ages. (8) From the Rosicrucians of the sixteenth century. (9) From Oliver Cromwell. (10) From Prince Charles Stuart for political purposes. (11) From Sir Christopher Wren, at the building of St. Paul's. (12) From Dr. Desaguliers and his friends in 1717."

This enumeration is, however, misleading, for it implies that in one of these various theories the true origin of Freemasonry may be found. In reality modern Freemasonry is a dual system, a blend of two distinct traditions--of operative masonry, that is to say the actual art of building, and of speculative theory on the great truths of life and death. As a well-known Freemason, the Count Goblet d'Alviella, has expressed it: "Speculative Masonry" (that is to say, the dual system we now know as Freemasonry) "is the legitimate offspring of a fruitful union between the professional guild of mediæval Masons and of a secret group of philosophical Adepts, the first having furnished the form and the second the spirit."²⁶⁸ In studying the origins of the present system we have therefore (1) to examine separately the history of each of these two traditions, and (2) to discover their point of junction.

Operative Masonry

Beginning with the first of these two traditions, we find that guilds of working masons existed in very ancient times. Without going back as far as ancient Egypt or Greece, which would be beyond the scope of the present work, the course of these associations may be traced throughout the history of Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era. According to certain masonic writers, the Druids originally came from Egypt and brought with them traditions relating to the art of building. The Culdees, who later on established schools and colleges in this country for the teaching of arts, sciences, and handicrafts, are said to have derived from the Druids.

But a more probable source of inspiration in the art of building are the Romans, who established the famous collegia of architects referred to in the list of alternative theories given in the Masonic Cyclopædia. Advocates of the Roman Collegia origin of Freemasonry might be right as far as operative masonry is concerned, for it is to the period following on the Roman occupation of Britain that our masonic guilds can with the greatest degree of certainty be traced. Owing to the importance the art of building now acquired it is said that many distinguished men, such as St. Alban, King Alfred, King Edwin, and King Athelstan, were numbered amongst its patrons,²⁶⁹ so that in time the guilds came to occupy the position of privileged bodies and were known as "free corporations"; further that York was the first masonic centre in England, largely under the control of the Culdees, who at the same period exercised much influence over the Masonic Collegia in Scotland, at Kilwinning, Melrose, and Aberdeen.²⁷⁰

But it must be remembered that all this is speculation. No documentary evidence has ever been produced to prove the existence of masonic guilds before the famous York charter of A.D. 936, and even the date of this document is doubtful. Only with the period of Gothic architecture do we reach firm ground. That guilds of working masons known in France as "Compagnonnages" and in Germany as "Steinmetzen" did then form close corporations and possibly possess secrets connected with their profession is more than probable. That, in consequence of their skill in building the magnificent cathedrals of this period, they now came to occupy a privileged position seems fairly certain.

The Abbé Grandidier, writing from Strasbourg in 1778, traces the whole system of Freemasonry from these German guilds: "This much-vaunted Society of Freemasons is nothing but a servile imitation of an ancient and useful confrèrie of real masons whose headquarters was formerly at Strasbourg and of which the constitution was confirmed by the Emperor Maximilian in 1498."²⁷¹

As far as it is possible to discover from the scanty documentary evidence the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries provide, the same privileges appear to have been accorded to the guilds of working masons in England and Scotland, which, although presided over by powerful nobles and apparently on occasion admitting members from outside the Craft, remained essentially operative bodies. Nevertheless we find the assemblies of Masons suppressed by Act of Parliament in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI, and later on an armed force sent by Queen Elizabeth to break up the Annual Grand Lodge at York. It is possible that the fraternity merely by the secrecy with which it was surrounded excited the suspicions of authority, for nothing could be more law-abiding than its published statutes. Masons were to be "true men to God and the Holy Church," also to the masters that they served. They were to be honest in their manner of life and "to do no villainy whereby the Craft or the Science may be slandered."²⁷²

Yet the seventeenth-century writer Plot, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, expresses some suspicion with regard to the secrets of Freemasonry. That these could not be merely trade secrets relating to the art of building, but that already some speculative element had been introduced to the lodges, seems the more probable from the fact that by the middle of the seventeenth century not only noble patrons headed the Craft, but ordinary gentlemen entirely unconnected with building were received into the fraternity. The well-known entry in the diary of Elias Ashmole under the date of October 16, 1646, clearly proves this fact: "I was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire with Col. Henry Mainwaring of Karticham [?] in Cheshire. The names of those that were then of the Lodge, Mr. Rich. Penket, Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Rich. Ellam and Hugh Brewer."²⁷³ "It is now ascertained," says Yarker, "that the majority of the members present were not operative masons."²⁷⁴

Again, in 1682 Ashmole relates that he attended a meeting held at Mason Hall in London, where with a number of other gentlemen he was admitted into "the Fellowship of the Freemasons," that is to say, into the second degree. We have then clear proof that already in the seventeenth century Freemasonry had ceased to be an association composed exclusively of men concerned with building, although eminent architects ranked high in the Order; Inigo Jones is said to have been Grand Master under James I, and Sir Christopher Wren to have occupied the same position from about 1685 to 1702. But it was not until 1703 that the Lodge of St. Paul in London officially announced "that the privileges of Masonry should no longer be restricted to operative Masons, but extended to men of various professions, provided they were regularly approved and initiated into the Order."²⁷⁵

This was followed in 1717 by the great coup d'état when Grand Lodge was founded, and Speculative Masonry, which we now know as Freemasonry, was established on a settled basis with a ritual, rules, and constitution drawn up in due form. It is at this important date that the official history of Freemasonry begins.

But before pursuing the course of the Order through what is known as the "Grand Lodge Era," it is necessary to go back and enquire into the origins of the philosophy that was now combined with the system of operative masonry. This is the point on which opinions are divided and to which the various theories summarized in the Masonic Cyclopcædia relate. Let us examine each of these in turn.

Speculative Masonry

According to certain sceptics concerning the mysteries of Freemasonry, the system inaugurated in 1717 had no existence before that date, but "was devised, promulgated, and palmed upon the world by Dr. Desaguliers, Dr. Anderson, and others, who then founded the Grand Lodge of England." Mr. Paton, in an admirable little pamphlet,²⁷⁶ has shown the futility of this contention and also the injustice of representing the founders of Grand Lodge as perpetrating so gross a deception.

This 1717 theory ascribes to men of the highest character the invention of a system of mere imposture.... It was brought forward with pretensions which its framers knew to be false pretensions of high antiquity; whereas ... it had newly been invented in their studies. Is this likely? Or is it reasonable to ascribe such conduct to honourable men, without even assigning a probable motive for it?

We have indeed only to study masonic ritual--which is open to everyone to read--in order to arrive at the same conclusion, that there could be no motive for this imposture, and further that these two clergymen cannot be supposed to have evolved the whole thing out of their heads. Obviously some movement of a kindred nature must have led up to this crisis. And since Elias Ashmole's diary clearly proves that a ceremony of masonic initiation had existed in the preceding century, it is surely only reasonable to conclude that Drs. Anderson and Desaguliers revised but did not originate the ritual and constitutions drawn up by them.

Now, although the ritual of Freemasonry is couched in modern and by no means classical English, the ideas running through it certainly bear traces of extreme antiquity. The central idea of Freemasonry concerning a loss which has befallen man and the hope of its ultimate recovery is in fact no other than the ancient secret tradition described in the first chapter of this book. Certain masonic writers indeed ascribe to Freemasonry precisely the same genealogy as that of the early Cabala, declaring that it descended from Adam and the first patriarchs of the human race, and thence through groups of Wise Men amongst the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Greeks.²⁷⁷ Mr. Albert Churchward insists particularly on the Egyptian origin of the speculative element in Freemasonry: "Brother Gould and other Freemasons will never understand the meaning and origin of our sacred tenets till they have studied and unlocked the mysteries of the past." This study will then reveal the fact that "the Druids, the Gymnosophists of India, the Magi of Persia, and the Chaldeans of Assyria had all the same religious rites and ceremonies as practised by their priests who were initiated to their Order, and that these were solemnly sworn to keep the doctrines a profound secret from the rest of mankind. All these flowed from one source--Egypt."²⁷⁸

Mr. Churchward further quotes the speech of the Rev. Dr. William Dodd at the opening of a masonic temple in 1794, who traced Freemasonry from "the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, the wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of Greece and philosophers of Rome," etc.²⁷⁹

But how did these traditions descend to the masons of the West? According to a large body of masonic opinion in this country which recognizes only a single source of inspiration to the system we now know as Freemasonry, the speculative as well as the operative traditions of the Order descended from the building guilds and were imported to England by means of the Roman Collegia. Mr. Churchward, however, strongly dissents from this view:

In the new and revised edition of the Perfect Ceremonies, according to our E. working, a theory is given that Freemasonry originated from certain guilds of workmen which are well known in history as the "Roman College of Artificers." There is no foundation of fact for such a theory. Freemasonry is now, and always was, an Eschatology, as may be proved by the whole of our signs, symbols, and words, and our rituals.²⁸⁰

But what Mr. Churchward fails to explain is how this eschatology reached the working masons; moreover why, if as he asserts, it derived from Egypt, Assyria, India, and Persia, Freemasonry no longer bears the stamp of these countries. For although vestiges of Sabeism may be found in the decoration of the lodges, and brief references to the mysteries of Egypt and Phœnicia, to the secret teaching of Pythagoras, to Euclid, and to Plato in the Ritual and instructions of the Craft degrees--nevertheless the form in which the ancient tradition is clothed, the phraseology and pass-words employed, are neither Egyptian, Chaldean, Greek, nor Persian, but Judaic. Thus although some portion of the ancient secret tradition may have penetrated to Great Britain through the Druids or the Romans--versed in the lore of Greece and Egypt--another channel for its introduction was clearly the Cabala of the Jews. Certain masonic writers recognize this double tradition, the one descending from Egypt, Chaldea, and Greece, the other from the Israelites, and assert that it is from the latter source their system is derived.²⁸¹ For after tracing its origin from Adam, Noah, Enoch, and Abraham, they proceed to show its line of descent through Moses, David, and Solomon²⁸²--descent from Solomon is in fact officially recognized by the Craft and forms a part of the instructions to candidates for initiation into the first degree. But, as we have already seen, this is the precise genealogy attributed to the Cabala by the Jews. Moreover, modern Freemasonry is entirely built up on the Solomonic, or rather the Hiramic legend. For the sake of readers unfamiliar with the ritual of Freemasonry a brief résumé of this "Grand Legend" must be given here.

Solomon, when building the Temple, employed the services of a certain artificer in brass, named Hiram, the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphthali, who was sent to him by Hiram, King of Tyre. So much we know from the Book of Kings, but the masonic legend goes on to relate that Hiram, the widow's son, referred to as Hiram Abiff, and described as the master-builder, met with an untimely end. For the purpose of preserving order the masons working on the Temple were divided into three classes, Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master Masons, the first two distinguished by different pass-words and grips and paid at different rates of wages, the last consisting only of three persons--Solomon himself, Hiram King of Tyre, who had provided him with wood and precious stones and Hiram Abiff. Now, before the completion of the Temple fifteen of the Fellow Crafts conspired together to find out the secrets of the Master Masons and resolved to waylay Hiram Abiff at the door of the Temple.

At the last moment twelve of the fifteen drew back, but the remaining three carried out the fell design, and after threatening Hiram in vain in order to obtain the secrets, killed him with three blows on the head, delivered by each in turn. They then conveyed the body away and buried it on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Solomon, informed of the disappearance of the master-builder, sent out fifteen Fellow Crafts to seek for him; five of these, having arrived at the mountain, noticed a place where the earth had been disturbed and there discovered the body of Hiram. Leaving a branch of acacia to mark the spot, they returned with their story to Solomon, who ordered them to go and exhume the body--an order that was immediately carried out.

The murder and exhumation, or "raising," of Hiram, accompanied by extraordinary lamentations, form the climax of Craft Masonry; and when it is remembered that in all probability no such, tragedy ever took place, that possibly no one known as Hiram Abiff ever existed,²⁸³ the whole story can only be regarded as the survival of some ancient cult relating not to an actual event, but to an esoteric doctrine. A legend and a ceremony of this kind is indeed to be found in many earlier mythologies; the story of the murder of Hiram had been foreshadowed by the Egyptian legend of the murder of Osiris and the quest for his body by Isis, whilst the lamentations around the tomb of Hiram had a counterpart in the mourning ceremonies for Osiris and Adonis--both, like Hiram, subsequently "raised"--and later on in that which took place around the catafalque of Manes, who, like Hiram, was barbarously put to death and is said to have been known to the Manicheans as "the son of the widow." But in the form given to it by Freemasonry the legend is purely Judaic, and would therefore appear to have derived from the Judaic version of the ancient tradition. The pillars of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz, which play so important a part in Craft Masonry, are symbols which occur in the Jewish Cabala, where they are described as two of the ten Sephiroths.²⁸⁴ A writer of the eighteenth century, referring to "fyve curiosities" he has discovered in Scotland, describes one as--

The Mason word, which tho' some make a Misterie of it, I will not conceal a little of what I know. It is lyke a Rabbinical Tradition in way of Comment on Jachin and Boaz, the Two Pillars erected in Solomon's Temple with ane Addition delyvered from Hand to Hand, by which they know and become familiar one with another.²⁸⁵

This is precisely the system by which the Cabala was handed down amongst the Jews. The Jewish Encyclopædia lends colour to the theory of Cabalistic transmission by suggesting that the story of Hiram "may possibly trace back to the Rabbinic legend concerning the Temple of Solomon," that "while all the workmen were killed so that they should not build another temple devoted to idolatry, Hiram himself was raised to Heaven like Enoch."²⁸⁶

How did this Rabbinic legend find its way into Freemasonry? Advocates of the Roman Collegia theory explain it in the following manner.

After the building of the Temple of Solomon the masons who had been engaged in the work were dispersed and a number made their way to Europe, some to Marseilles, some perhaps to Rome, where they may have introduced Judaic legends to the Collegia, which then passed on to the Comacini Masters of the seventh century and from these to the mediæval working guilds of England, France, and Germany. It is said that during the Middle Ages a story concerning the Temple of Solomon was current amongst the compagnonnages of France. In one of these groups, known as "the children of Solomon," the legend of Hiram appears to have existed much in its present form; according to another group the victim of the murder was not Hiram Abiff, but one of his companions named Maître Jacques, who, whilst engaged with Hiram on the construction of the Temple, met his death at the hands of five wicked Fellow Crafts, instigated by a sixth, the Père Soubise.²⁸⁷

But the date at which this legend originated is unknown. Clavel thinks that the "Hebraic mysteries" existed as early as the Roman Collegia, which he describes as largely Judaized²⁸⁸; Yarker expresses precisely the opposite view: "It is not so difficult to connect Freemasonry with the Collegia; the difficulty lies in attributing Jewish traditions to the Collegia, and we say on the evidence of the oldest charges that such traditions had no existence in Saxon times."²⁸⁹ Again: "So far as this country is concerned, we know nothing from documents of a Masonry dating from Solomon's Temple until after the Crusades, when the constitution believed to have been sanctioned by King Athelstan gradually underwent a change."²⁹⁰ In a discussion which took place recently at the Quatuor Coronati Lodge the Hiramic legend could only be traced back--and then without absolute certainty--to the fourteenth century, which would coincide with the date indicated by Yarker.²⁹¹

Up to this period the lore of the masonic guilds appears to have contained only the exoteric doctrines of Egypt and Greece--which may have reached them through the Roman Collegia, whilst the traditions of Masonry are traced from Adam, Jabal, Tubal Cain, from Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, with Hermes and Pythagoras as their more immediate progenitors.²⁹² These doctrines were evidently in the main geometrical or technical, and in no sense Cabalistic. There is therefore some justification for Eckert's statement that "the Judeo-Christian mysteries were not yet introduced into the masonic corporations; nowhere can we find the least trace of them. Nowhere do we find any classification, not even that of masters, fellow-crafts, and apprentices. We observe no symbol of the Temple of Solomon; all their symbolism relates to masonic labours and to a few philosophical maxims of morality."²⁹³ The date at which Eckert, like Yarker, places the introduction of these Judaic elements is the time of the Crusades.

But whilst recognizing that modern Craft Masonry is largely founded on the Cabala, it is necessary to distinguish between the different Cabalas. For by this date no less than three Cabalas appear to have existed: firstly, the ancient secret tradition of the patriarchs handed down from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans, and possibly through the Roman Collegia to the Craft Masons of Britain; secondly, the Jewish version of this tradition, the first Cabala of the Jews, in no way incompatible with Christianity, descending from Moses, David and Solomon to the Essenes and the more enlightened Jews; and thirdly, the perverted Cabala, mingled by the Rabbis with magic, barbaric superstitions, and--after the death of Christ--with anti-Christian legends.

Whatever Cabalistic elements were introduced into Craft Masonry at the time of the Crusades appear to have belonged to the second of these traditions, the unperverted Cabala of the Jews, known to the Essenes. There are, in fact, striking resemblances betwen Freemasonry and Essenism--degrees of initiation, oaths of secrecy, the wearing of the apron, and a certain masonic sign; whilst to the Sabeist traditions of the Essenes may perhaps be traced the solar and stellar symbolism of the lodges.²⁹⁴ The Hiramic legend may have belonged to the same tradition.

The Templar Tradition

If then no documentary evidence can be brought forward to show that either the Solomonic legend or any traces of Judaic symbolism and traditions existed either in the monuments of the period or in the ritual of the masons before the fourteenth century, it is surely reasonable to recognize the plausibility of the contention put forward by a great number of masonic writers--particularly on the Continent--that the Judaic elements penetrated into Masonry by means of the Templars.²⁹⁵ The Templars, as we have already seen, had taken their name from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. What then more likely than that during the time they had lived there they had learnt the Rabbinical legends connected with the Temple? According to George Sand, who was deeply versed in the history of secret societies, the Hiramic legend was adopted by the Templars as symbolic of the destruction of their Order. "They wept over their impotence in the person of Hiram. The word lost and recovered is their empire...."²⁹⁶ The Freemason Ragon likewise declares that the catastrophe they lamented was the catastrophe that destroyed their Order.²⁹⁷ Further, the Grand Master whose fate they deplored was Jacques du Molay. Here then we have two bodies in France at the same period, the Templars and the compagnonnages, both possessing a legend concerning the Temple of Solomon and both mourning a Maître Jacques who had been barbarously put to death. If we accept the possibility that the Hiramic legend existed amongst the masons before the Crusades, how are we to explain this extraordinary coincidence? It is certainly easier to believe that the Judaic traditions were introduced to the masons by the Templars and grafted on to the ancient lore that the masonic guilds had inherited from the Roman Collegia.

That some connexion existed between the Templars and the working masons is indicated by the new influence that entered into building at this period. A modern Freemason comparing "the beautifully designed and deep-cut marks of the true Gothic period, say circa 1150-1350," with "the careless and roughly executed marks, many of them mere scratches, of later periods," points out that "the Knights Templars rose and fell with that wonderful development of architecture." The same writer goes on to show that some of the most important masonic symbols, the equilateral triangle and the Mason's square surmounting two pillars, came through from Gothic times.²⁹⁸ Yarker asserts that the level, the flaming star, and the Tau cross which have since passed into the symbolism of Freemasonry may be traced to the Knights Templar, as also the five-pointed star in Salisbury Cathedral, the double triangle in Westminster Abbey, Jachin and Boaz, the circle and the pentagon in the masonry of the fourteenth century. Yarker cites later, in 1556, the eye and crescent moon, the three stars and the ladder of five steps, as further evidences of Templar influence.²⁹⁹ "The Templars were large builders, and Jacques du Molay alleged the zeal of his Order in decorating churches in the process against him in 1310; hence the alleged connexion of Templary and Freemasonry is bound to have a substratum of truth."³⁰⁰

Moreover, according to a masonic tradition, an alliance definitely took place between the Templars and the masonic guilds at this period. During the proceedings taken against the Order of the Temple in France it is said that Pierre d'Aumont and seven other Knights escaped to Scotland in the guise of working masons and landed in the Island of Mull. On St. John's Day, 1307, they held their first chapter. Robert Bruce then took them under his protection, and seven years later they fought under his standard at Bannockburn against Edward II, who had suppressed their Order in England. After this battle, which took place on St. John the Baptist's Day in summer (June 24), Robert Bruce is said to have instituted the Royal Order of H.R.M. (Heredom) and Knights of the R.S.Y.C.S. (Rosy Cross).³⁰¹ These two degrees now constitute the Royal Order of Scotland, and it seems not improbable that in reality they were brought to Scotland by the Templars. Thus, according to one of the early writers on Freemasonry, the degree of the Rose-Croix originated with the Templars in Palestine as early as 1188³⁰²; whilst the Eastern origin of the word Heredom, supposed to derive from a mythical mountain on an island south of the Hebrides³⁰³ where the Culdees practised their rites, is indicated by another eighteenth-century writer, who traces it to a Jewish source.³⁰⁴ In this same year of 1314 Robert Bruce is said to have united the Templars and the Royal Order of H.R.M. with the guilds of working masons, who had also fought in his army, at the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, founded in 1286,³⁰⁵ which now added to its name that of Heredom and became the chief seat of the Order.³⁰⁶ Scotland was essentially a home of operative masonry, and, in view of the Templar's prowess in the art of building, what more natural than that the two bodies should enter into an alliance? Already in England the Temple is said between 1155 and 1199 to have administered the Craft.³⁰⁷ It is thus at Heredom of Kilwinning, "the Holy House of Masonry"--"Mother Kilwinning," as it is still known to Freemasons--that a speculative element of a fresh kind may have found its way into the lodges. Is it not here, then, that we may see that "fruitful union between the professional guild of mediæval masons and a secret group of philosophical Adepts" alluded to by Count Goblet d'Aviella and described by Mr. Waite in the following words:

The mystery of the building guilds--whatever it may be held to have been--was that of a simple, unpolished, pious, and utilitarian device; and this daughter of Nature, in the absence of all intention on her own part, underwent, or was coerced into one of the strangest marriages which has been celebrated in occult history. It so happened that her particular form and figure lent itself to such a union, etc.³⁰⁸?

Mr. Waite with his usual vagueness does not explain when and where this marriage took place, but the account would certainly apply to the alliance between the Templars and Scottish guilds of working masons, which, as we have seen, is admitted by masonic authorities, and presents exactly the conditions described, the Templars being peculiarly fitted by their initiation into the legend concerning the building of the Temple of Solomon to co-operate with the masons, and the masons being prepared by their partial initiation into ancient mysteries to receive the fresh influx of Eastern tradition from the Templars.

A further indication of the Templar influence in Craft Masonry is the system of degrees and initiations. The names of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason are said to have derived from Scotland,³⁰⁹ and the analogy between these and the degrees of the Assassins has already been shown. Indeed, the resemblance between the outer organization of Freemasonry and the system of the Ismailis is shown by many writers. Thus Dr. Bussell observes: "No doubt together with some knowledge of geometry regarded as an esoteric trade secret, many symbols to-day current did pass down from very primitive times. But a more certain model was the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo"--that is to say the Dar-ul-Hikmat.³¹⁰ Syed Ameer Ali also expresses the opinion that "Makrisi's account of the different degrees of initiation adopted in this lodge forms an invaluable record of Freemasonry. In fact, the lodge at Cairo became the model of all the Lodges created afterwards in Christendom."³¹¹ Mr. Bernard Springett, a Freemason, quoting this passage, adds: "In this last assertion I am myself greatly in agreement."³¹²

It is surely therefore legitimate to surmise that this system penetrated to Craft Masonry through the Templars, whose connexion with the Assassins--offshoot of the Dar-ul-Hikmat--was a matter of common knowledge.

The question of the Templar succession in Freemasonry forms perhaps the most controversial point in the whole history of the Roman Collegia theory, Continental Masons more generally accepting it, and even glorying in it.³¹³ Mackey, in his Lexicon of Freemasonry, thus sums up the matter:

The connexion between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons has been repeatedly asserted by the enemies of both institutions, and has often been admitted by their friends. Lawrie, on this subject, holds the following language: "We know that the Knights Templar not only possessed the mysteries but performed the ceremonies and inculcated the duties of Freemasons," and he attributes the dissolution of the Order to the discovery of their being Freemasons and their assembling in secret to practise the rites of the Order.³¹⁴

This explains why Freemasons have always shown indulgence to the Templars.

It was above all Freemasonry [says Findel], which--because it falsely held itself to be a daughter of Templarism--took the greatest pains to represent the Order of the Templars as innocent and therefore free from all mystery. For this purpose not only legends and unhistorical facts were brought forward, but manœuvres were also resorted to in order to suppress the truth. The masonic reverers of the Temple Order bought up the whole edition of the Actes du Procès of Moldenhawer, because this showed the guilt of the Order; only a few copies reached the booksellers.... Already several decades before ... the Freemasons in their unhistorical efforts had been guilty of real forgery. Dupuy had published his History of the Trial of the Templars as early as 1654 in Paris, for which he had made use of the original of the Actes du Procès, according to which the guilt of the Order leaves no room for doubt.... But when in the middle of the eighteenth century several branches of Freemasonry wished to recall the Templar Order into being, the work of Dupuy was naturally very displeasing. It had already been current amongst the public for a hundred years, so it could no longer be bought; therefore they falsified it.³¹⁵

Accordingly in 1751 a reprint of Dupuy's work appeared with the addition of a number of notes and remarks and mutilated in such a way as to prove not the guilt but the innocence of the Templars.

Now, although British Masonry has played no part in these intrigues, the question of the Templar succession has been very inadequately dealt with by the masonic writers of our country. As a rule they have adopted one of two courses--either they have persistently denied connexion with the Templars or they have represented them as a blameless and cruelly maligned Order. But in reality neither of these expedients is necessary to save the honour of British Masonry, for not even the bitterest enemy of Masonry has ever suggested that British masons have adopted any portion of the Templar heresy. The Knights who fled to Scotland may have been perfectly innocent of the charges brought against their Order; indeed, there is good reason to believe this was the case. Thus the Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple relates the incident in the following manner:

After the death of Jacques du Molay, some Scottish Templars having become apostates, at the instigation of Robert Bruce ranged themselves under the banners of a new Order³¹⁶ instituted by this prince and in which the receptions were based on those of the Order of the Temple. It is there that we must seek the origin of Scottish Masonry and even that of the other masonic rites. The Scottish Templars were excommunicated in 1324 by Larmenius, who declared them to be Templi desertores and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Dominiorum Militiæ spoliatores, placed for ever outside the pale of the Temple: Extra girum Templi, nunc et in futurum, volo, dico et jubeo. A similar anathema has since been launched by several Grand Masters against Templars who were rebellious to legitimate authority. From the schism that was introduced into Scotland a number of sects took birth.³¹⁷

This account forms a complete exoneration of the Scottish Templars; as apostates from the bogus Christian Church and the doctrines of Johannism they showed themselves loyal to the true Church and to the Christian faith as formulated in the published statutes of their Order. What they appear, then, to have introduced to Masonry was their manner of reception, that is to say their outer forms and organization, and possibly certain Eastern esoteric doctrines and Judaic legends concerning the building of the Temple of Solomon in no way incompatible with the teaching of Christianity.

It will be noticed, moreover, that in the ban passed by the Ordre du Temple on the Scottish Templars the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem are also included. This is a further tribute to the orthodoxy of the Scottish Knights. For to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem--to whom the Templar property was given--no suspicion of heresy had ever attached. After the suppression of the Order of the Temple in 1312 a number of the Knights joined themselves to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, by whom the Templar system appears to have been purged of its heretical elements. As we shall see later, the same process is said to have been carried out by the Royal Order of Scotland, All this suggests that the Templars had imported a secret doctrine from the East which was capable either of a Christian or an anti-Christian interpretation, that through their connexion with the Royal Order of Scotland and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem this Christian interpretation was preserved, and finally that it was this pure doctrine which passed into Freemasonry. According to early masonic authorities, the adoption of the two St. Johns as the patron saints of Masonry arose, not from Johannism, but from the alliance between the Templars and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.³¹⁸

It is important to remember that the theory of the Templar connexion with Freemasonry was held by the Continental Freemasons of the eighteenth century, who, living at the time the Order was reconstituted on its present basis, were clearly in a better position to know its origins than we who are separated from that date by a distance of two hundred years. But since their testimony first comes to light at the period of the upper degrees, in which the Templar influence is more clearly visible than in Craft Masonry, it must be reserved for a later chapter. Before passing on to this further stage in the history of the Craft, it is necessary to consider one more link in the chain of the masonic tradition--the "Holy Vehm."

The Vehmgerichts³¹⁹

These dread tribunals, said to have been established by Charlemagne in 772³²⁰ in Westphalia, had for their avowed object the establishment of law and order amidst the unsettled and even anarchic conditions that then reigned in Germany. But by degrees the power arrogated to itself by the "Holy Vehm" became so formidable that succeeding emperors were unable to control its workings and found themselves forced to become initiates from motives of self-protection. During the twelfth century the Vehmgerichts, by their continual executions, had created a veritable "Red Terror," so that the East of Germany was known as the Red Land. In 1371, says Lecouteulx de Canteleu, a fresh impetus was given to the "Holy Vehm" by a number of the Knights Templar who, on the dissolution of their Order, had found their way to Germany and now sought admission to the Secret Tribunals.³²¹ How much of Templar lore passed into the hand of the Vehmgerichts it is impossible to know, but there is certainly a resemblance between the methods of initiation and intimidation employed by the Vehms and those described by certain of the Templars, still more between the ceremony of the Vehms and the ritual of Freemasonry.

Thus the members of the Vehms, known as the Wissende (or Enlightened), were divided into three degrees of initiation: the Free Judges, the veritable Free Judges, and the Holy Judges of the Secret Tribunal. The candidate for initiation was led blindfold before the dread Tribunal, presided over by a Stuhlherr (or master of the chair) or his substitute, a Freigraf, with a sword and branch of willow at his side. The initiate was then bound by a terrible oath not to reveal the secrets of the "Holy Vehm," to warn no one of danger threatening them by its decrees, to denounce anyone, whether father, mother, brother, sister, friend, or relation, if such a one had been condemned by the Tribunal. After this he was given the password and grip by which the confederates recognized each other. In the event of his turning traitor or revealing the secrets confided to him his eyes were bandaged, his hands tied behind his back, and his tongue was torn out through the back of his neck, after which he was hanged by the feet till he was dead, with the solemn imprecation that his body should be given as a prey to the birds of the air.

It is difficult to believe that the points of resemblance with modern masonic ritual³²² which may here be discerned can be a mere matter of coincidence, yet it would be equally unreasonable to trace the origins of Freemasonry to the Vehmgerichts. Clearly both derived from a common source, either the old pagan traditions on which the early Vehms were founded or the system of the Templars. The latter seems the more probable for two reasons: firstly, on account of the resemblance between the methods of the Vehmgerichts and the Assassins, which would be explained if the Templars formed the connecting link; and secondly, the fact that in contemporary documents the members of the Secret Tribunals were frequently referred to under the name of Rose-Croix.³²³ Now, since, as we have seen, the degree of the Rosy Cross is said to have been brought to Europe by the Templars, this would account for the persistence of the name in the Vehmgerichts as well as in the Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, who are said to have continued the Templar tradition. Thus Templarism and Rosicrucianism appear to have been always closely connected, a fact which is not surprising since both derive from a common source--the traditions of the near East.

This brings us to an alternative theory concerning the channel through which Eastern doctrines, and particularly Cabalism, found their way into Freemasonry. For it must be admitted that one obstacle to the complete acceptance of the theory of the Templar succession exists, namely, that although the Judaic element cannot be traced further back than the Crusades, neither can it with certainty be pronounced to have come into existence during the three centuries that followed after. Indeed, before the publication of Anderson's "Constitutions" in 1723 there is no definite evidence that the Solomonic legend had been incorporated into the ritual of British Masonry. So although the possession of the legend by the compagnonnages of the Middle Ages would tend to prove its antiquity, there is always the possibility that it was introduced by some later body of adepts than the Templars. According to the partisans of a further theory, these adepts were the Rosicrucians.

Rosicrucian Origin

One of the earliest and most eminent precursors of Freemasonry is said to have been Francis Bacon. As we have already seen, Bacon is recognized to have been a Rosicrucian, and that the secret philosophical doctrine he professed was closely akin to Freemasonry is clearly apparent in his New Atlantis. The reference to the "Wise Men of the Society of Solomon's House" cannot be a mere coincidence. The choice of Atlantis--the legendary island supposed to have been submerged by the Atlantic Ocean in the remote past--would suggest that Bacon had some knowledge of a secret tradition descending from the earliest patriarchs of the human race, whom, like the modern writer Le Plongeon, he imagined to have inhabited the Western hemisphere and to have been the predecessors of the Egyptian initiates. Le Plongeon, however, places this early seat of the mysteries still further West than the Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Mayax and Yucatan.³²⁴

Bacon further relates that this tradition was preserved in its pure form by certain of the Jews, who, whilst accepting the Cabala, rejected its anti-Christian tendencies. Thus in this island of Bensalem there are Jews "of a far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. For whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour against the people amongst whom they live; these contrariwise give unto our Saviour many high attributes," but at the same time they believe "that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they now use, and that when the Messiah should come and sit on His throne at Jerusalem, the King of Bensalem should sit at His feet, whereas other kings should keep at a great distance." This passage is of particular interest as showing that Bacon recognized the divergence between the ancient secret tradition descending from Moses and the perverted Jewish Cabala of the Rabbis, and that he was perfectly aware of the tendency even among the best of Jews to turn the former to the advantage of the Messianic dreams.

Mrs. Pott, who in her Francis Bacon and his Secret Society sets out to prove that Bacon was the founder of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, ignores all the previous history of the secret tradition. Bacon was not the originator but the inheritor of the ideas on which both these societies were founded. And the further contention that Bacon was at the same time the author of the greatest dramas in the English language and of The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosengreutz is manifestly absurd. Nevertheless, Bacon's influence amongst the Rosicrucians is apparent; Heydon's Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians is in fact a mere plagiarism of Bacon's New Atlantis.

Mrs. Pott seems to imagine that by proclaiming Bacon to have been the founder or even a member of the Order of Freemasonry she is revealing a great masonic secret which Freemasons have conspired to keep dark. But why should the Craft desire to disown so illustrious a progenitor or seek to conceal his connexion with the Order if any such existed? Findel, indeed, frankly admits that the New Atlantis contained unmistakable allusions to Freemasonry and that Bacon contributed to its final transformation.³²⁵ This was doubtless brought about largely by the English Rosicrucians who followed after. To suggest then that Freemasonry originated with the Rosicrucians is to ignore the previous history of the secret tradition. Rosicrucianism was not the beginning but a link in the long chain connecting Freemasonry with far earlier secret associations. The resemblance between the two Orders admits of no denial. Thus Yarker writes: "The symbolic tracing of the Rosicrucians was a Square Temple approached by seven steps ... here also we find the two pillars of Hermes, the five-pointed star, sun and moon, compasses, square and triangle." Yarker further observes that "even Wren was more or less a student of Hermeticism, and if we had a full list of Freemasons and Rosicrucians we should probably be surprised at the numbers who belonged to both systems."³²⁶

Professor Bühle emphatically states that "Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it into England." Chambers, who published his famous Cyclopædia in 1728, observes: "Some who are no friends to Freemasonry, make the present flourishing society of Freemasons a branch of Rosicrucians, or rather the Rosicrucians themselves under a new name or relation, viz. as retainers to building. And it is certain there are some Freemasons who have all the characters of Rosicrucians."

The connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism is, however, a question hardly less controversial than that of the connexion between Freemasonry and Templarism.

Dr. Mackey violently disputes the theory. "The Rosicrucians," he writes, "as this brief history indicates, had no connexion whatever with the masonic fraternity. Notwithstanding this fact, Barruel, the most malignant of our revilers, with a characteristic spirit of misrepresentation, attempted to identify the two institutions."³²⁷ But the aforesaid "brief history" indicates nothing of the kind, and the reference to Barruel as a malignant reviler for suggesting a connexion, which, as we have seen, many Freemasons admit, shows on which side this "spirit of misrepresentation" exists. It is interesting, however, to note that in the eyes of certain masonic writers connexion with the Rosicrucians is regarded as highly discreditable; the fraternity would thus appear to have been less blameless than we have been taught to believe. Mr. Waite is equally concerned with proving that there "is no traceable connexion between Masonry and Rosicrucianism," and he goes on to explain that Freemasonry was never a learned society, that it never laid claim to "any transcendental secrets of alchemy and magic, or to any skill in medicine," etc.³²⁸

The truth may lie between the opposing contentions of Prof. Bühle and his two masonic antagonists. The Freemasons were clearly, for the reasons given by Mr. Waite, not a mere continuation of the Rosicrucians, but more likely borrowed from the Rosicrucians a part of their system and symbols which they adapted to their own purpose. Moreover, the incontrovertible fact is that in the list of English Freemasons and Rosicrucians we find men who belonged to both Orders and amongst these two who contributed largely to the constitutions of English Freemasonry.

The first of these is Robert Fludd, whom Mr. Waite describes as "the central figure of Rosicrucian literature, ... an intellectual giant, ... a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his writings, of extreme personal sanctity. Ennemoser describes him as one of the most distinguished disciples of Paracelsus...."³²⁹ Yarker adds this clue: "In 1630 we find Fludd, the chief of the Rosicrucians, using architectural language, and there is proof that his Society was divided into degrees, and from the fact that the Masons' Company of London had a copy of the Masonic Charges 'presented by Mr. fflood' we may suppose that he was a Freemason before 1620."³³⁰

A still more important link is Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, astrologer, and alchemist, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, who was born in 1617. An avowed Rosicrucian, and as we have seen, also a Freemason, Ashmole displayed great energy in reconstituting the Craft; he is said to have perfected its organization, to have added to it further mystic symbols, and according to Ragon, it was he who drew up the ritual of the existing three Craft degrees--Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason--which was adopted by Grand Lodge in 1717. Whence did these fresh inspirations come but from the Rosicrucians? For, as Ragon also informs us, in the year that Ashmole was received into Freemasonry the Rosicrucians held their meeting in the same room at Mason Hall!³³¹

How, then, can it be said that there was "no traceable connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism?" and why should it be the part of a "malignant reviler" to connect them? It is not suggested that Rosicrucians, such as Fludd or Ashmole, imported any magical elements into Freemasonry, but simply the system and symbols of the Rose-Croix with a certain degree of esoteric learning. That Rosicrucianism forms an important link in the chain of the secret tradition is therefore undeniable.

The Seventeenth-Century Rabbis

There is, however, a third channel through which the Judaic legends of Freemasonry may have penetrated to the Craft, namely, the Rabbis of the seventeenth century. The Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has declared that "there were Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry,"³³² and if this statement is applied to the period preceding the institution of Grand Lodge in 1717 it certainly finds confirmation in fact. Thus it is said that in the preceding century the coat-of-arms now used by Grand Lodge had been designed by an Amsterdam Jew, Jacob Jehuda Leon Templo, colleague of Cromwell's friend the Cabalist, Manasseh ben Israel.³³³ To quote Jewish authority on this question, Mr. Lucien Wolf writes that Templo "had a monomania for ... everything relating to the Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle of the Wilderness. He constructed gigantic models of both these edifices."³³⁴ These he exhibited in London, which he visited in 1675 and earlier, and it seems not unreasonable to conclude that this may have provided a fresh source of inspiration to the Freemasons who framed the masonic ritual some forty years later. At any rate, the masonic coat-of-arms still used by Grand Lodge of England is undoubtedly of Jewish design.

"This coat," says Mr. Lucien Wolf, "is entirely composed of Jewish symbols," and is "an attempt to display heraldically the various forms of the Cherubim pictured to us in the second vision of Ezekiel--an Ox, a Man, a Lion, and an Eagle--and thus belongs to the highest and most mystical domain of Hebrew symbolism."³³⁵

In other words, this vision, known to the Jews as the "Mercaba,"³³⁶ belongs to the Cabala, where a particular interpretation is placed on each figure so as to provide an esoteric meaning not perceptible to the uninitiated.³³⁷ The masonic coat-of-arms is thus entirely Cabalistic; as is also the seal on the diplomas of Craft Masonry, where another Cabalistic figure, that of a man and woman combined, is reproduced.³³⁸

Of the Jewish influence in Masonry after 1717 I shall speak later.

To sum up, then, the origins of the system we now know as Freemasonry are not to be found in one source alone. The twelve alternative sources enumerated in the Masonic Cyclopædia and quoted at the beginning of this chapter may all have contributed to its formation. Thus Operative Masonry may have descended from the Roman Collegia and through the operative masons of the Middle Ages, whilst Speculative Masonry may have derived from the patriarchs and the mysteries of the pagans. But the source of inspiration which admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala. Whether this penetrated to our country through the Roman Collegia, the compagnonnages, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, or through the Jews of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose activities behind the scenes of Freemasonry we shall see later, is a matter of speculation. The fact remains that when the ritual and constitutions of Masonry were drawn up in 1717, although certain fragments of the ancient Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrines were retained, the Judaic version of the secret tradition was the one selected by the founders of Grand Lodge on which to build up their system.

6. The Grand Lodge Era

Whatever were the origins of the Order we now know as Freemasonry, it is clear that during the century preceding its reorganization under Grand Lodge of London the secret system of binding men together for a common purpose, based on Eastern esoteric doctrines, had been anticipated by the Rosicrucians. Was this secret system employed, however by any other body of men? It is certainly easy to imagine how in this momentous seventeenth century, when men of all opinions were coalescing against opposing forces--Lutherans combining against the Papacy, Catholics rallying their forces against invading Protestantism, Republicans plotting in favour of Cromwell, Royalists in their turn plotting to restore the Stuarts, finally Royalists plotting against each other on behalf of rival dynasties--an organization of this kind, enabling one to work secretly for a cause and to set invisibly vast numbers of human beings in motion, might prove invaluable to any party.

Thus, according to certain masonic writers on the Continent, the system used by the Rosicrucians in their fight against "Popery" was also employed by the Jesuits for a directly opposite purpose. In the manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu it is declared that in 1714 the Jesuits used the mysteries of the Rose-Croix. Mirabeau also relates that "the Jesuits profited by the internal troubles of the reign of Charles I to possess themselves of the symbols, the allegories, and the carpets (tapis) of the Rose-Croix masons, who were only the ancient order of the Templars secretly perpetuated. It may be seen by means of what imperceptible innovations they succeeded in substituting their catechism to the instruction of the Templars."³³⁹

Other Continental writers again assert that Cromwell, the arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, was "a higher initiate of masonic mysteries," and used the system for his own elevation to power³⁴⁰; further, that he found himself outdistanced by the Levellers; that this sect, whose name certainly suggests masonic inspiration, adopted for its symbols the square and compass,³⁴¹ and in its claim of real equality threatened the supremacy of the usurper. Finally, Elias Ashmole, the Rosicrucian Royalist, is said to have turned the masonic system against Cromwell, so that towards the end of the seventeenth century the Order rallied to the Stuart cause.³⁴²

But all this is pure speculation resting on no basis of known facts. The accusation that the Jesuits used the system of the Rose-Croix as a cover to political intrigues is referred to by the Rosicrucian Eliphas Lévi as the outcome of ignorance, which "refutes itself." It is significant to notice that it emanates mainly from Germany and from the Illuminati; the Prince of Hesse was a member of the Stricte Observance and Mirabeau an Illuminatus at the time he wrote the passage quoted above. That in the seventeenth century certain Jesuits played the part of political intriguers I suppose their warmest friends will hardly deny, but that they employed any secret or masonic system seems to me perfectly incapable of proof. I shall return to this point later, however, in connexion with the Illuminati.

As to Cromwell, the only circumstance that lends any colour to the possibility of his connexion with Freemasonry is his known friendship for Manasseh ben Israel, the colleague of the Rabbi Templo who designed the coat-of-arms later adopted by Grand Lodge. If, therefore, the Jews of Amsterdam were a source of inspiration to the Freemasons of the seventeenth century, it is not impossible that Cromwell may have been the channel through which this influence first penetrated.

In the matter of the Stuarts we are, however, on firm ground with regard to Freemasonry. That the lodges at the end of the seventeenth century were Royalist is certain, and there seems good reason to believe that, when the revolution of 1688 divided the Royalist cause, the Jacobites who fled to France with James II took Freemasonry with them.³⁴³ With the help of the French they established lodges in which, it is said, masonic rites and symbols were used to promote the cause of the Stuarts. Thus the land of promise signified Great Britain, Jerusalem stood for London, and the murder of Hiram represented the execution of Charles I.³⁴⁴

Meanwhile Freemasonry in England did not continue to adhere to the Stuart cause as it had done under the ægis of Elias Ashmole, and by 1717 is said to have become Hanoverian.

From this important date the official history of the present system may be said to begin; hitherto everything rests on stray documents, of which the authenticity is frequently doubtful, and which provide no continuous history of the Order. In 1717 for the first time Freemasonry was established on a settled basis and in the process underwent a fundamental change. So far it would seem to have retained an operative element, but in the transformation that now took place this was entirely eliminated, and the whole Order was transformed into a middle-and upper-class speculative body. This coup d'état, already suggested in 1703, took place in 1716, when four London lodges of Freemasons met together at the Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street, Covent Garden, "and having put into the chair the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a lodge), they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge, pro tempore, in due form." On St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24 of the next year, the annual assembly and banquet were held at the Goose and Gridiron in St. Paul's Churchyard, when Mr. Antony Sayer was elected Grand Master and invested with all the badges of office.³⁴⁵

It is evident from the above account that already in 1717 the speculative elements must have predominated in the lodges, otherwise we might expect to find the operative masons taking some part in these proceedings and expressing their opinion as to whether their association should pass under the control of men entirely unconnected with the Craft. But no, the leaders of the new movement all appear to have belonged to the middle class, nor from this moment do either masons or architects seem to have played any prominent part in Freemasonry.

But the point that official history does not attempt to elucidate is the reason for this decision. Why should the Freemasons of London--whether they were at this date a speculative or only a semi-speculative association--have suddenly recognized the necessity of establishing a Grand Lodge and drawing up a ritual and "Constitution"? It is evident, then, that some circumstances must have arisen which led them to take this important step. I would suggest that the following may be the solution to the problem.

Freemasonry, as we have seen, was a system that could be employed in any cause and had now come to be used by intriguers of every kind--and not only by intriguers, but by merely convivial bodies, "jolly Brotherhoods of the Bottle," who modelled themselves on masonic associations.³⁴⁶ But the honest citizens of London who met and feasted at the Goose and Gridiron were clearly not intriguers, they were neither Royalist nor Republican plotters, neither Catholic nor Lutheran fanatics, neither alchemists nor magicians, nor can it be supposed that they were simply revellers. If they were political, they were certainly not supporters of the Stuarts; on the contrary, they were generally reported to have been Hanoverian in their sympathies, indeed Dr. Bussell goes so far as to say that Grand Lodge was instituted to support the Hanoverian dynasty.³⁴⁷ It would be perhaps nearer the truth to conclude that if they were Hanoverian it was because they were constitutional, and the Hanoverian dynasty having now been established they wished to avoid further changes. In a word, then, they were simply men of peace, anxious to put an end to dissensions, who, seeing the system of Masonry utilized for the purpose of promoting discord, determined to wrest it from the hands of political intriguers and restore it to its original character of brotherhood, though not of brotherhood between working masons only, but between men drawn from all classes and professions. By founding a Grand Lodge in London and drawing up a ritual and "Constitutions," they hoped to prevent the perversion of their signs and symbols and to establish the Order on a settled basis.

According to Nicolai this pacific purpose had already animated English Freemasons under the Grand Mastership of Sir Christopher Wren: "Its principal object from this period was to moderate the religious hatreds so terrible in England during the reign of James II and to try and establish some kind of concord or fraternity, by weakening as far as possible the antagonisms arising from the differences of religions, ranks, and interests." An eighteenth-century manuscript of the Prince of Hesse quoted by Lecouteulx de Canteleu expresses the view that in 1717 "the mysteries of Freemasonry were reformed and purified in England of all political tendencies."

In the matter of religion, Craft Masonry adopted an equally non-sectarian attitude. The first "Constitutions" of the Order, drawn up by Dr. Anderson in 1723, contain the following paragraph:

Concerning God and Religion

A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet, 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is to be good Men and true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry becomes the Centre of Union and the Means of Conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remained at a perpetual Distance.

The phrase "that Religion in which all men agree" has been censured by Catholic writers as advocating a universal religion in the place of Christianity. But this by no means follows. The idea is surely that Masons should be men adhering to that law of right and wrong common to all religious faiths. Craft Masonry may thus be described as Deist in character, but not in the accepted sense of the word which implies the rejection of Christian doctrines. If Freemasonry had been Deist in this sense might we not expect to find some connexion between the founders of Grand Lodge and the school of Deists--Toland, Bolingbroke, Woolston, Hume, and others--which flourished precisely at this period? Might not some analogy be detected between the organization of the Order and the Sodalities described in Toland's Pantheisticon, published in 1720? But of this I can find no trace whatever. The principal founders of Grand Lodge were, as we have seen, clergymen, both engaged in preaching Christian doctrines at their respective churches.³⁴⁸ It is surely therefore reasonable to conclude that Freemasonry at the time of its reorganization in 1717 was Deistic only in so far that it invited men to meet together on the common ground of a belief in God. Moreover, some of the early English rituals contain distinctly Christian elements. Thus both in Jachin and Boaz (1762) and Hiram or the Grand Master Key to the Door of both Antient and Modern Freemasonry by a Member of the Royal Arch (1766) we find prayers in the lodges concluding with the name of Christ. These passages were replaced much later by purely Deistic formulas under the Grand Mastership of the free-thinking Duke of Sussex in 1813.

But in spite of its innocuous character, Freemasonry, merely by reason of its secrecy, soon began to excite alarm in the public mind. As early as 1724 a work entitled The Grand Mystery of the Freemasons Discovered had provoked an angry remonstrance from the Craft³⁴⁹; and when the French edict against the Order was passed, a letter signed "Jachin" appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine declaring the "Freemasons who have lately been suppressed not only in France but in Holland" to be "a dangerous Race of Men":

No Government ought to suffer such clandestine Assemblies where Plots against the State may be carried on, under the Pretence of Brotherly Love and good Fellowship.

The writer, evidently unaware of possible Templar traditions, goes on to observe that the sentinel placed at the door of the lodge with a drawn sword in his hand "is not the only mark of their being a military Order"; and suggests that the title of Grand Master is taken in imitation of the Knights of Malta. "Jachin," moreover, scents a Popish plot:

They not only admit Turks, Jews, Infidels, but even Jacobites, non-jurors and Papists themselves ... how can we be sure that those Persons who are known to be well affected, are let into all their Mysteries? They make no scruple to acknowledge that there is a Distinction between Prentices and Master Masons and who knows whether they may not have an higher Order of Cabalists, who keep the Grand Secret of all entirely to themselves?³⁵⁰

Later on in France, the Abbé Pérau published his satires on Freemasonry, Le Secret des Francs-Maçons (1742), L'Ordre des Francs-Maçons trahi et le Secret des Mopses révélé, (1745), and Les Francs-Maçons écrasés (1746)³⁵¹ and in about 1761 another English writer said to be a Mason brought down a torrent of invective on his head by the publication of the ritual of the Craft Degrees under the name of Jachin and Boaz.³⁵²

It must be admitted that from all this controversy no party emerges in a very charitable light, Catholics and Protestants alike indulging in sarcasms and reckless accusations against Freemasonry, the Freemasons retorting with far from brotherly forbearance.³⁵³ But, again, one must remember that all these men were of their age--an age which seen through the eyes of Hogarth would certainly not appear to have been distinguished for delicacy. It should be noted, however, when one reads in masonic works of the "persecutions" to which Freemasonry has been subjected, that aggression was not confined only to the one side in the conflict; moreover, that the Freemasons at this period were divided amongst themselves and expressed with regard to opposing groups much the same suspicions that non-Masons expressed with regard to the Order as a whole. For the years following after the suppression of Masonry in France were marked by the most important development in the history of the modern Order--the inauguration of the Additional Degrees.

The Additional Degrees

The origin and inspiration of the additional degrees has provoked hardly less controversy in masonic circles than the origin of Masonry itself. It should be explained that Craft Masonry, or Blue Masonry--that is to say, the first three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason of which I have attempted to trace the history--were the only degrees recognized by Grand Lodge at the time of its foundation in 1717 and still form the basis of all forms of modern Masonry. On this foundation were erected, somewhere between 1740 and 1743, the degree of the Royal Arch and the first of the series of upper degrees now known as the Scottish Rite or as the Ancient and Accepted Rite. The acceptance or rejection of this superstructure has always formed a subject of violent controversy between Masons, one body affirming that Craft Masonry is the only true and genuine Masonry, the other declaring that the real object of Masonry is only to be found in the higher degrees. It was this controversy, centring round the Royal Arch degree, that about the middle of the eighteenth century split Masonry into opposing camps of Ancients and Moderns, the Ancients declaring that the R.A. was "the Root, Heart, and Marrow of Freemasonry,"³⁵⁴ the Moderns rejecting it. Although worked by the Ancients from 1756 onwards, this degree was definitely repudiated by Grand Lodge in 1792,³⁵⁵ and only in 1813 was officially received into English Freemasonry.

The R.A. degree, which is said nevertheless to be contained in embryo in the 1723 Book of Constitutions,³⁵⁶ is purely Judaic--a glorification of Israel and commemorating the building of the second Temple. That it was derived from the Jewish Cabala seems probable, and Yarker, commenting on the phrase in the Gentleman's Magazine quoted above--"Who knows whether they (the Freemasons) have not a higher order of Cabalists, who keep the Grand Secret of all entirely to themselves"--observes: "It looks very like an intimation of the Royal Arch degree,"³⁵⁷ and elsewhere he states that "the Royal Arch degree, when it had the Three Veils, must have been the work, even if by instruction, of a Cabalistic Jew about 1740, and from this time we may expect to find a secret tradition grafted upon Anderson's system."³⁵⁸

Precisely in this same year of 1740 Mr. Waite says that "an itinerant pedlar of the Royal Arch degree is said to have propagated it in Ireland, claiming that it was practised at York and London,"³⁵⁹ and in 1744 a certain Dr. Dassigny wrote that the minds of the Dublin brethren had been lately disturbed about Royal Arch Masonry owing to the activities in Dublin of "a number of traders or hucksters in pretended Masonry," whom the writer connects with "Italians" or the "Italic Order."

A Freemason quoting this passage in a recent discussion on the upper degrees expresses the opinion that these hucksters were "Jacobite emissaries disguised under the form of a pretended Masonry," and that "by Italians and Italian Order he intends a reference to the Court of King James III, i.e. the Old Pretender at Rome, and to the Ecossais (Italic) Order of Masonry."³⁶⁰ It is much more likely that he had referred to another source of masonic instruction in Italy which I shall indicate in a later chapter.

But precisely at the moment when it is suggested that the Jacobites were intriguing to introduce the Royal Arch degree into Masonry they are also said to have been engaged in elaborating the "Scottish Rite." Let us examine this contention.

Freemasonry in France

The foundation of Grand Lodge in London had been followed by the inauguration of Masonic Lodges on the Continent--in 1721 at Mons, in 1725 in Paris, in 1728 at Madrid, in 1731 at The Hague, in 1733 at Hamburg, etc. Several of these received their warrant from the Grand Lodge of England. But this was not the case with the Grand Lodge of Paris, which did not receive a warrant till 1743.

The men who founded this lodge, far from being non-political, were Jacobite leaders engaged in active schemes for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. The leader of the group, Charles Radcliffe, had been imprisoned with his brother, the ill-fated Lord Derwentwater who was executed on Tower Hill in 1716. Charles had succeeded in escaping from Newgate and made his way to France, where he assumed the title of Lord Derwentwater, although the Earldom had ceased to exist under the bill of attainder against his brother.³⁶¹ It was this Lord Derwentwater--afterwards executed for taking part in the 1745 rebellion--who with several other Jacobites is said to have founded the Grand Lodge of Paris in 1725, and himself to have become Grand Master.

The Jacobite character of the Paris lodge is not a matter of dispute. Mr. Gould relates that "the colleagues of Lord Derwentwater are stated to have been a Chevalier Maskeline, a Squire Heguerty, and others, all partisans of the Stuarts."³⁶² But he goes on to contest the theory that they used Freemasonry in the Stuart cause, which he regards as amounting to a charge of bad faith. This is surely unreasonable. The founders of Grand Lodge in Paris did not derive from Grand Lodge in London, from which they held no warrant,³⁶³ but, as we have seen, took their Freemasonry with them to France before Grand Lodge of London was instituted; they were therefore in no way bound by its regulations. And until the Constitutions of Anderson were published in 1723 no rule had been laid down that the Lodges should be non-political. In the old days Freemasonry had always been Royalist, as we see from the ancient charges that members should be "true liegemen of the King"; and if the adherents of James Edward saw in him their rightful sovereign, they may have conceived that they were using Freemasonry for a lawful purpose in adapting it to his cause. So although we may applaud the decision of the London Freemasons to purge Freemasonry of political tendencies and transform it into a harmonious system of brotherhood, we cannot accuse the Jacobites in France of bad faith in not conforming to a decision in which they had taken no part and in establishing lodges on their own lines.

Unfortunately, however, as too frequently happens when men form secret confederacies for a wholly honourable purpose, their ranks were penetrated by confederates of another kind. It has been said in an earlier chapter that, according to the documents produced by the Ordre du Temple in the early part of the nineteenth century, the Templars had never ceased to exist in spite of their official suppression in 1312, and that a line of Grand Masters had succeeded each other in unbroken succession from Jacques du Molay to the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, who was killed in 1792. The Grand Master appointed in 1705 is stated to have been Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, later the Regent. Mr. Waite has expressed the opinion that all this was an invention of the late eighteenth century, and that the Charter of Larmenius was fabricated at this date though not published until 1811 by the revived Ordre du Temple under the Grand Master, Fabré Palaprat. But evidence points to a contrary conclusion. M. Matter, who, as we have seen, disbelieves the story of the Ordre du Temple and the authenticity of the Charter of Larmenius in so far as it professes to be a genuine fourteenth-century document, nevertheless asserts that the savants who have examined it declare it to date from the early part of the eighteenth century, at which period Matter believes the Gospel of St. John used by the Order to have been arranged so as "to accompany the ceremonies of some masonic or secret society." Now, it was about 1740 that a revival of Templarism took place in France and Germany; we cannot therefore doubt that if Matter is right in this hypothesis, the secret society in question was that of the Templars, whether they existed as lineal descendants of the twelfth-century Order or merely as a revival of that Order. The existence of the German Templars at this date under the name of the Stricte Observance (which we shall deal with in a further chapter) is indeed a fact disputed by no one; but that there was also an Ordre du Temple in France at the very beginning of the eighteenth century must be regarded as highly probable. Dr. Mackey, John Yarker, and Lecouteulx de Canteleu (who, owing to his possession of Templar documents, had exclusive sources of information) all declare this to have been the case and accept the Charter of Larmenius as authentic. "It is quite certain," says Yarker, "that there was at this period in France an Ordre du Temple, with a charter from John Mark Larmenius, who claimed appointment from Jacques du Molay. Philippe of Orléans accepted the Grand Mastership in 1705 and signed the Statutes."³⁶⁴

Without, however, necessarily accepting the Charter of Larmenius as authentic let us examine the probability of this assertion with regard to the Duc d'Orléans.

Amongst the Jacobites supporting Lord Derwentwater at the Grand Lodge of Paris was a certain Andrew Michael Ramsay, known as Chevalier Ramsay, who was born at Ayr near the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, where the Templars are said to have formed their alliance with the masons in 1314. In 1710 Ramsay was converted to the Roman Catholic faith by Fénelon and in 1724 became tutor to the sons of the Pretender at Rome. Mr. Gould has related that during his stay in France, Ramsay had formed a friendship with the Regent, Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who was Grand Master of the Ordre de Saint-Lazare, instituted during the Crusades as a body of Hospitallers devoting themselves to the care of the lepers and which in 1608 had been joined to the Ordre du Mont-Carmel. It seems probable from all accounts that Ramsay was a Chevalier of this Order, but he cannot have been admitted into it by the Duc d'Orléans, for the Grand Master of the Ordre de Saint-Lazare was not the Duc d'Orléans but the Marquis de Dangeau, who, on his death in 1720, was succeeded by the son of the Regent, the Duc de Chartres.³⁶⁵ If, then, Ramsay was admitted to any Order by the Regent, it was surely the Ordre du Temple, of which the Regent is said to have been the Grand Master at this date.

Now, the infamous character of the Duc d'Orléans is a matter of common knowledge; moreover, during the Regency--that period of impiety and moral dissolution hitherto unparalleled in the history of France--the chief of council was the Duc de Bourbon, who later placed his mistress the Marquise de Prie and the financier Paris Duverney at the head of affairs, thus creating a scandal of such magnitude that he was exiled in 1726 through the influence of Cardinal Fleury. This Duc de Bourbon in 1737 is said to have become Grand Master of the Temple. "It was thus," observes de Canteleu, "that these two Grand Masters of the Temple degraded the royal authority and ceaselessly increased hatred against the government."