Note 151 — Chapter V · ToC

Among the articles of union, it was agreed that Freemasonry should consist of the three symbolic degrees, "including the Holy Royal Arch." The present study does not contemplate a detailed study of Capitular Masonry, which has its own history and historians (Origin of the English Rite, Hughan), except to say that it seems to have begun about 1738-40, the concensus of opinion differing as to whether it began in England or on the Continent ("Royal Arch Masonry," by C.P. Noar, Manchester Lodge of Research, vol. iii, 1911-12). Lawrence Dermott, always alert, had it adopted by the Atholl Grand Lodge about thirty years before the Grand Lodge of England took it up in 1770-76, when Thomas Duckerley was appointed to arrange and introduce it. Dermott held it to be "the very essence of Masonry," and he was not slow in using it as a club with which to belabor the Moderns; but he did not originate it, as some imagine, having received the degrees before he came to London, perhaps in an unsystemized form. Duckerley was accused of shifting the original Grand Masonic word from the Third Degree to the Royal Arch, and of substituting another in its stead. Enough to say that Royal Arch Masonry is authentic Masonry, being a further elaboration in drama, following the Third Degree, of the spirit and motif of old Craft Masonry (History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders, by Hughan and Stillson).