Albert Mackey

History of Freemasonry

CHAPTER XXXII
THE EARLY RITUAL OF SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY

THE ritual is an important part of the organization of Speculative

Freemasonry. It is not a mere garment intended to cover the institution
and conceal its body from unlawful inspection. It is the body itself and the
very life of the institution. Eliminate from Freemasonry all vestiges of a
ritual and you make it a mere lifeless mass. Its characteristic as a
benevolent or as a social association might continue, but all its
pretensions as a speculative system of science and philosophy would be
lost.

As a definition of this important and indispensable element in the Masonic

system, it may be said that the ritual is properly the prescribed method of
administering the forms of initiation into the society, comprising not only
the ceremonies but also the explanatory lectures, the catechismal tests,
and the methods of recognition.

Every secret society, that is to say, every society exclusive in its

character, confining itself to a particular class of persons, and isolating
itself by its occult organization from other associations and from mankind
in general, must necessarily have some formal mode of admission, some
meaning in that form which would need explanation, and some method by
which its members could maintain their exclusiveness.

Every secret society must, then, from the necessity of its organization, be
provided with some sort of a ritual, whether it be simple or complex.

The Operative Freemasonry of the Middle Ages is acknowledged to have

been a secret and exclusive society or guild of architects and builders,
who concealed the secret processes of their art from all who were not
workers with them.

As a secret association, the old Operative Freemasons must have

possessed a ritual. And we have, to support this hypothesis, not only
logical inference but unquestionable historical evidence.

German archaeologists have given us the examination or catechism

which formed a part of the ritual of the German Steinmetzen or
Stonecutters.

The Sloane MS. No. 3329 contains the catechism used by the Operative
Freemasons of England in the 17th century. A copy of this manuscript has
already been given in a preceding parts of the present work, and it is
therefore unnecessary to reproduce it here.

As the Sloane MS. has been assigned to a period between 1640 and
1700, we may safely conclude that it contains the ritual then in use among
the English Operative Freemasons. At a later period it may have suffered
considerable changes, but we infer that the ritual exposed in that
manuscript was the foundation of the one which was in use by the
Operative lodges which united in the formation of the Grand Lodge in the
year 1717.
If the new society did not hesitate to adopt, at first, the old laws of the
Operative institution, it is not at all probable that it would have rejected
the ritual then in use and frame a new one. Until the Grand Lodge was
securely seated in power, and the Operative element entirely eliminated,
it would have been easier to use the old Operative ritual. In time, as the
Operative laws were replaced by others more fitting to the character of
the new Order, so the simple, Operative ritual must have given way to the
more ornate one adapted to the designs of Speculative Freemasonry.

But during the earlier years of the Grand Lodge, this old Operative ritual
continued to be used by the lodges under its jurisdiction.

The precise ritual used at that time is perhaps irretrievably lost, so that we
have no direct, authentic account of the forms of initiation, yet by a careful
collation of the historical material now in possession of the Fraternity, we
may unravel the web, to all appearance hopelessly entangled, and arrive
at something like historic truth.

It was not until 1721 that by the approval of the "Charges" which had
been compiled the year before by Grand Master Payne, the Grand Lodge
took the first bold and decisive step toward the

(1) See Part II., chap. xii., p. 626.

total abolishment of the Operative element, and the building upon its ruins
a purely Speculative institution.

The ritual used by the four old Lodges must have been very simple. It
probably consisted of little more than a brief and unimpressive ceremony
of admission, the communication of certain words and signs, and
instruction in a catechism derived from that which is contained in the
Sloane MS. But I do not doubt that this catechism, brief as it is, was
greatly modified and abridged by the lapse of time, the defects of
memory, and the impossibility of trans mitting oral teachings for any
considerable length of time.

It is probable that Dr. Desaguliers, the great ritualist of the day, may have
begun to compose the new ritual about the same time that Payne, the
great lawmaker of the day, began to compile his new laws.

What this ritual was we can only judge by inference, by comparison, and
by careful analysis, just as Champollion deciphered the Egyptian
hieroglyphics by a collation of the three inscriptions of the Rosetta Stone.

For this purpose we have a very competent supply of documents which

we may employ in a similar comparison and analysis of the primitive ritual
of the Speculative Freemasons.

Thus we have had the book called The Grand Mystery, which was
published just a year after the appearance of the first edition of
Anderson's Book of Constitutions.

Dr. Oliver, it is true, calls this production a "catchpenny." (1) It would be

great folly to assert that it did not contain some shadowing forth of what
was the ritual at the time of its publication. When, a few years aftenvard,
Samuel Prichard published his book entitled Masonry Dissected, which is
evidently based on The Grand Mystery, and in fact an enlargement of it,
showing the improvements and developments which had taken place in
the ritual, Dr.

(1) "Revelations of a Square," chap. ii., note 6. But in a posthumous work

entitled "The Discrepancies of Freemasonry," published by Hogg & Co. in
1874 (page 79), he treats it with more respect, and says that it was the
examination or lecture used by the Craft in the 17th century, the original
of which, in the handwriting of Elias Ashmole, was given to Anderson
when he made his collections for the history contained in the "Book of
Constitutions." All this is very possibly correct, but as Oliver must have
derived his information from some traditional source in his own
possession solely, and as he has cited no authentic authority, we can
hardly make use of it as an historical fact.

Anderson replied to it in the pamphlet entitled A Defense of Masonry.

In this work it will be remarked that Anderson does not directly deny the
accuracy of Prichard's formulas, but only attempts to prove, which he
does very successfully, that the ceremonies as they are described by
Prichard were neither "absurd nor pernicious."

The truth is that Anderson's Defense is a very learned and interesting

interpretation of the symbols and ceremonies which were described by
Prichard, and might have been written, just in the same way, if Anderson
had selected the ritual as it was then framed on which to found his
commentaries.

Krause accepted both of these works, as he gave them a place in his

great work on The Three Oddest Documents of the Masonic Brotherhood.

For myself, I am disposed to take these and similar productions with some
grains of allowance, yet not altogether rejecting them as utterly worthless.
From such works we may obtain many valuable suggestions, when they
are properly and judiciously analyzed.

Krause thinks that The Grand Mystery was the production of one of the
old Masons, who was an Operative builder and a man not without some
learning.

This is probably a correct supposition. At all events, I am willing to take

the work as a correct exposition, substantially, of the condition of the ritual
at the time when it was published, which was seven years after what was
called the "Revival" in London.

It will give us a very correct idea of the earliest ritual accepted by the
Speculative Masons from their Operative brethren, and used until the
genius of Desaguliers had invented something more worthy of the
Speculative science.

Adopting it then as the very nearest approximation to the primitive ritual of

the Speculative Freemasons, it will not be an unacceptable gift, nor
useless in prosecuting the discussion of the subject to which this chapter
is devoted.

It has not often been reprinted, and the original edition of 1724 is very
scarce. I shall make use of the almost fac-simile imitation of that edition
printed in 1867 by the Masonic Archaeological Society of Cincinnati, and
under the supervision of Brother Enoch T. Carson, from whose valuable
library the original exemplar was obtained.
The title of the pamphlet is as follows:

"The Grand Mystery of Free-Masons Discover'd. Wherein are the several

Questions, put to them at their Meetings and Intstallations: As also the
Oath, Health, Signs and Points to know each other by. As they were
found in the Custody of a Free-Mason who Dyed suddenly. And now
Publish'd for the Information of the Publick. London .- Printed for T. Payne
near Stationer's-Hall 1724 (Price Six Pence) "

THE CATECHISM. (1)

1. Q. Peace be here.
A. I hope there is.

2. Q. What a-clock is it?

A. It is going to Six or going to Twelve. (2)

3. Q. Are you very busy ? (3)

A. No.

4. Q. Will you give or take?

A. Both; or which you please.

5. Q. How go Squares? (4)

A. Straight.

6. Q. Are you Rich or Poor ?

A. Neither.

7. Q. Change rrle that. (5)

A. I will.

(1) The object of this reprint being only to give the reader some idea of
what was the earliest form of the ritual that we possess, the Preface, the
Free-Mason's Oath, A FreeMason's Health and the signs to know a Free
Mason have been omitted as being unnecessary to that end. The
questions have been numbered here only for facility of reference in future
remarks.
(2) This may be supposed to refer to the hours of labor of Operative
Masons who commenced work at six in the morning and went to their
noon-meal at twelve. This is the first indication that this was a catechism
originally used by Operative Free Masons.
(3) Otherwise, "Have you any work? " Krause suggests that it was the
question addressed to a traveling Fellow who came to the lodge. "Every
Mason," say the Old Constitutions," shall receive or cherish strange
Fellows when they come over the Country and sett them on work." -
Landsdowne MS.
(4) Halliwell, in his Dictionary, cites "How gang squares?" as meaning
"How do you do?" He also says that "How go the squares?" means, how
goes on the game, as chess or draughts, the board being full of squares.
Krause adopts this latter interpretation of the phrase, but I prefer the
former.
(5) Here it is probable that the grip was given and interchanged. The
mutilation of this catechism which Krause suspects is here, I think,
evident. The answer " I will " and

8. Q. In the name of, &c., (1) are you a Mason ?

9. Q. What is a Mason ?
A. A Man begot of a Man, born of a woman, Brother to a king.

10. Q. What is a Fellow?

A. A Companion of a Prince.

11. Q. How shall I know that you are a Free-Mason ?

A. By Signs, Tokens, and Points of my Entry.

12. Q. Which is the Point of your Entry ?

A. I hear (2) and conceal, under the penalty of having my Throat cut, or
my Tongue pulled out of my Head.

13. Q. Where was you made a Free-Mason ?

A. In a just and perfect Lodge.

14 Q. How many make a Lodge ?

A. God and the Square with five or seven right and perfect Masons, on
the highest Mountains, or the lowest Valleys in the world. (3)

15. Q. Why do Odds make a Lodge ?

A. Because all Odds are Men's Advantage. (4)

16. Q. What Lodge are you of ?

A. The Lodge of St. John. (5)

the expression "In the name of, &c.," are connected with the interchange
of the grip. The answer to the question "Are you a Mason?" is omitted,
and then the catechism goes on with the question "What is a Mason?"

(1) The omission here can not be supplied. It was a part of the formula of
giving the grip. Krause suggests that the words thus omitted by the editor
of the catechism might be "In the name of the Pretender" or probably "In
the name of the King and the Holy Roman Catholic Church." But the
former explanation would give the catechism too modern an origin and the
latter would carry it too far back. However, that would suit the hypothesis
of Dr. Krause. I reject both, but can not supply a substitute unless it were "
In the name of God and the Holy Saint John."
(2) The Sloane MS., in which the same answer occurs, says, "I heal and
conceal," to heal being old English for to hide. It is very clear that the
word hear is a typographical error.
(3) Krause thinks that in this answer an old and a new ritual are mixed.
God and the Square he assigns to the former, the numbers five and
seven to the latter. But the Harleian MS. requires five to make a legal
lodge.
(4) We must not suppose that this was derived from the Kabbalists. The
doctrine that God delights in odd numbers, "numero Deus impare gaudet"
(Virgil, Ed. viii.), is as old as the oldest of the ancient mythologies. It is the
foundation of all the numerical symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry.
We here see that it was observed in the oldest ritual.
(5) This hieroglyphic appears to have been the early sign for a lodge, as
the oblong square is at the present day.

17. Q. How does it stand ?

A. Perfect East and West, as all Temples do.

18. Q. Where is the Mason's Point ? (1)

A. At the East-Window, waiting at the Rising of the Sun, to set his men at
work.

9. Q. Where is the Warden's Point ?

A. At the West-Window, waiting at the Setting of the Sun to dismiss the
Entered Apprentices.

20. Q. Who rules and governs the Lodge, and is Master of it ?

A. Irah,
Iachin
or the Right Pillar.'

21. Q. How is it govern'd?

A. Of Square and Rule.

22. Q. Have you the Key of the Lodge ?

A. Yes, I have.

23. Q. What is its virtue ?

A. To open and shut, and shut and open.

24. Q. Where do you keep it ?

A. In an Ivory Box, between my Tongue and my Teeth, or within my Heart,
where all my Secrets are kept.

25. Q. Have you the Chain to the Key ?

A. Yes, I have.

26. Q. How long is it ?

A. As long as from my Tongue to my Heart. (3)

(1) I find this question thus printed in all the copies to which I have had
access. But I have not the slightest doubt that there has been a
typographical error, which has been faithfully copied. I should read it
"Where is the Master's point?" The next question confirms my conviction.
The Master sets the Craft to work, the Warden dismisses them. This has
been followed by the modern rituals.
(2) Various have been the conjectures as to the meaning of the word Irah.
Schneider, looking to the theory that modern Freemasonry was instituted
to secure the restoration of the House of Stuart, supposes the letters of
the word to be the initials of the Latin sentence "lacobus Redibit Ad
Hereditatem" - James shall return to his inheritance. Krause thinks it the
anagram of Hiram, and he rejects another supposition that it is the
Hebrew Irah, reverence or holy fear, i.e., the fear of God. It may mean
Hiram, but there is no need of an anagram. The wonted corruption of
proper names in the old Masonic manuscripts makes Irah a sufficiently
near approximation to Hiram, who is called in the Old Constitutions,
Aynon, Aman, Amon, Anon, or Ajuon. The German Steinmetzen called
Tubal Cain Walcan.
(3) Speaking of tests like this, Dr. Oliver very wisely says: "These
questions may be considered trivial. but in reality they were of great
importance and included some of the

27. Q. How many precious Jewels ?

A. Three; a square Asher, a Diamond, and a Square.

28. Q. How many Lights ?

A. Three; a Right East, South and West. (1)
29. Q. What do they represent ?
A. The Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (2)

30. Q. How many Pillars?

A. Two; Iachin and Boaz.

31. Q. What do they represent ?

A. A Strength and Stability of the Church in all Ages. (3)

32. Q. How many Angles in St. John's Lodge ?

A. Four bordering on Squares.

33. Q. How is the Meridian found out ?

A. When the Sun leaves the South and breaks in at the West-End of the
Lodge.

34. Q. In what part of the Temple was the Lodge kept ?

A. In Solomon's Porch, (4) at the West-End of the Temple, where the two
Pillars were set up.

35. Q. How many Steps belong to a right Mason ?

A. Three.

36. Q. Give me the Solution.

A. I will . . . The Right Worshipful, Worshipful Master and Worshipful
Fellows of the Right Worshipful Lodge from whence I came, greet you
well.

That Great God to us greeting, be at this our meeting

profoundest mysteries of the Craft. . . . A single Masonic question, how

puerile soever it may appear, is frequently in the hands of an expert
Master of the Art, the depository of most important secrets." On "The
Masonic Tests of the Eighteenth Century " in his "Golden Remains," vol.
iv.,pp. 14, 15.
(1) The Bauhutten or Operative lodges of the Germans probably had,
says Krause, only three windows corresponding to the cardinal points,
and the three principal officers of the lodge had their seats near them so
as to obtain the best light for their labors.
(2) This is ample proof that the earliest Freemasonry of the new Grand
Lodge was distinctly Christian. The change of character did not occur until
the adoption of the "Old Charges" as printed in Anderson's first edition.
But more of this in the text.
(3) There is an allusion to strength in the German Steinmetzen's
catechism: "What is the Strength of our Craft?" Strength continued to be
symbolized as a Masonic attribute in all subsequent rituals and so
continues to the present day.
(4) An allusion to the Temple of Solomon is common in all the old
Constitutions. But no hypothesis can be deduced from this of the
Solomonic origin of Freemasonry. The subject is too important to be
discussed in a note.

and with the Right Worshipful Lodge from whence you came, and you are.
(1)

37. Q. Give me the Jerusalem Word. (2)

A. Giblin.
38. Q. Give me the Universal Word.
A. Boaz.

39. Q. Right Brother of ours, your Name ?

A. N. orM.
Welcome Brother M. or N. to our Society.

40. Q. How many particular Points pertain to a Free-Mason ?

A. Three; Fraternity, Fidelity, and Tacity.

41. Q. What do they represent?

A. Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth among all Right Masons; for all
Masons were ordain'd at the Building of the Tower of Babel and at the
Temple of Jerusalem. (3)

42. Q. How-many proper Points?

A. Five: Foot to Foot, Knee to Knee, Hand to Hand, Heart to Heart, and
Ear to Ear. (4)

43. Q. Whence is an Arch derived ?

A. From Architecture. (5)

(1) It is most probable that this answer was given on the three steps which
were made while the words were being said.
(2) The "Jerusalem Word" was probably the word traditionally confined to
the Craft while they were working at the Temple, and the "Universal
Word" was that used by them when they dispersed and traveled into
foreign countries. The old "Legend of the Craft" has a tradition to that
effect which was finally developed into the Temple Allegory of the modern
rituals.
(3) 0f this answer Krause gives the following interpretation - "Perhaps the
Tower of Babel signifies the revolution under and after Cromwell, and the
Temple of Jerusalem the restoration of the Stuart family in London" -
which may be taken for what it is worth and no more, especially as the
stories of the Tower and the Temple formed prominent points in the Craft
legend which was formulated some two centuries at least before the time
of Cromwell or of the restored Stuarts.
(4) At first glance this answer would seem to be adverse to the theory that
the Third was not known in the year 1717, unless it were to be supposed
that the passage was an interpolation made subsequent to the year 1720.
But the fact is that, as Krause remarks these expressions were not
originally a symbol of the Master's degree (Meisterzeichen), but simply a
symbol of Fellowship, where heart and heart and hand and hand showed
the loving-kindness of each brother. Afterward, under the title of "The Five
Points of Fellowship," it was appropriated to the Third Degree and
received the symbolic history which it still retains.
(5) Here, say Schneider and Krause, is a trace of Royal Arch Masonry.
Not so. Architecture was the profession of the Operative Freemasons and
became naturally a point in the examination of a craftsman. Such as this
catechism evidently was.

44. Q. How many Orders in Architecture ?

A. Five: The Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite.

45. Q. What do they answer ?

A. They answer to the Base, Perpendicular, Diameter, Circumference,
and Square.
46. Q. What is the right Word, or right Point of a Mason ?
A. Adieu.

End of the Catechism.

Such is this important document, but of whose real value different

opinions have been expressed. Oliver, as we have seen, calls it a
"catchpenny." This epithet would, however, refer to the motives of the
printer who gave the public the work at sixpence a copy and not to the
original writer against whom no such charge, nor no such mercenary
views should be imputed. The Rev. Mr. Sidebotham, who reprinted it in
the Freemasons' Monthly Magazine, for August, 1855, from a copy found
among the collection of Masonic curiosities deposited in the Bodleian
Library, calls it "only one of the many absurd attempts of ignorant
pretenders;" but his attempts to prove absurdities are themselves absurd.

The learned Mossdorf who, in 1808, found a copy of the second editions
in the Royal Library at Leipsic, which Dr. Krause reprinted in his Three
Oldest Documents of the Masonic Fraternity, designates it as a delicately
framed but very bitter satire against the old lodges in London, which had
just established the Grand Lodge. But a perusal of the document will
disclose nothing of a satirical character in the document itself, and only a
single paragraph of the preface in which the design of the institution is
underrated, and the depreciation illustrated by a rather coarse attempt at
a witticism.

But the preface was the production of the editor or printer, and must not
be confounded with the catechism, which is free from anything of the kind.
The very title, which might be deemed ironical, was undoubtedly an
assumed one given to the original document by the same editor or printer
for the purpose of attracting purchasers.

(1) It was the 2d edition, 1725, with which Mossdorf was acquainted, and
to this were annexed "Two Letters to a Friend," which are not contained in
the 1st edition. These gave him the opinion of the satirical character of
the work.

Bro. Steinbrenner, of New York, who has written one of our most valuable
and interesting histories of Freemasonry, (1) thus describes it, and has
given it what I think must have been its original title.

"The oldest fragment of a ritual or Masonic lecture in the English

Language (2) which we have met with is the 'Examination upon Entrance
into a Lodge,' as used at the time of the Revival."

Dr. Krause is the first writer who seems to have estimated this old
catechism at anything like its true value. He calls it a remarkable
document, and says that after a careful examination he has come to the
conclusion that it was written by one of the old Operative Masons, who
was not without some scholarship, but who esteemed Masonry as an art
peculiarly appropriate to builders only, and into which a few non-Masons
were sometimes admitted on account of their scientific attainments.

He thinks that this catechism presents the traces of a high antiquity, and
so far as its essential constituent parts are concerned, it might have
derived its origin from the oldest York ritual, probably as early as the 12th
or 13th century.
I am not inclined to accept all of the Krausean theory on the subject of the
origin or of the antiquity of this document. It is not necessary for the
purpose of employing it in the investigation of the primitive ritual adopted
by the Speculative Freemasons when they organized their Grand Lodge,
to trace its existence beyond the first decade of the 18th century, though it
might be reasonably extended much farther back.

The statement in the preface or introduction, that the original manuscript

was printed, and had "been found in the custodv of a Freemason who
died suddenly," may be accepted as a truth. There is nothing improbable
about it, and there is no reason to doubt the fact.

Connecting this with the date of the publication, which was just seven
years after the establishment of the Grand Lodge, and only four years
after what is supposed to be the date of the fabrication of

(1) "The Origin and Early History of Masonry," by G. W. Steinbrenner,

Past Master. New York, 1864.
(2) When Steinbrenner wrote the above the Sloane MS. No. 3339 had not
been discovered. And yet it is doubtful whether it and the original
manuscript of "The Grand Mystery" are not contemporaneous.

the three degrees; and comparing it with the Sloane MS. 3329, where we
shall find many instances of parallel or analogous passages; and seeing
that the Sloane MS. was undeniably an Operative ritual, since its
acknowledged date is somewhere between the middle and the close of
the 17th century; considering all these points, I think that we may safely
conclude that the original manuscript of the printed document called The
Grand Mystery was the "Examination upon Entrance into a Lodge" of
Operative Freemasons.

The following inferences may then be deduced in respect to the character

of this document with the utmost plausibility:

1. That it was a part, and the most essential part, of the ritual used by the
Operative Freemasons about the close of the 17th and the beginning of
the 18th century, and if anything was wanting toward a complete ritual it
was supplemented by the Sloane MS. No. 3329

2. That it was the ritual familiar to the four Lodges which in 1717 united in
the establishment of the Speculative Grand lodge of England.

3. That on the establishment of that Grand Lodge it was accepted as the

ritual of the Speculative Freemasons and so used by them until they
perfected the transition from wholly Operative to wholly Speculative
Freemasonry by the fabrication of degrees and the development of a
more philosophical ritual, composed, as it has always been conjectured,
by Desaguliers and Anderson, but principally always by the former.

Having premised these views, we may now proceed to investigate, with

some prospect of a satisfactory result, the character and condition of
Speculative Freemasonry so far as respects a ritual during the earliest
years of the Grand Lodge.

In the first place, it may be remarked that internal evidence goes to prove
that this catechism is appropriate solely for Operative Freemasons. It was
undoubtedly constructed at a time when Speculative Freemasonry, in the
modern sense, was not in existence, and when the lodges which were to
use it were composed of Operatives the Theoretic members not being at
all taken into consideration.

This is very clearly shown by various passages in the catechism. Thus,

Question 2 alludes to the hours of labor; Question 3 is an inquiry whether
the brother who is being examined is in want of work, because the old
Operative Constitutions directed the Craft "to receive or cherish strange
Fellows when they came over the country and set them to work." Hence,
in view of this hospitable duty, the visitor is asked if he is busy, that is to
say, if he has work to occupy and support him.

Questions 18 and 19 make reference to the time and duty of setting the
men to work, and of dismissing them from labor.

Questions 14 and 21 refer to the square and rule as implements of

Operative Masonry employed in the lodge. Question 27 speaks of the
ashlar, and 43 and 44 of the orders of architecture. All of these are
subjects appropriate and familiar to Operative Masons, and indicate the
character of the catechism.

The next point that calls for attention is that in this Operative ritual there is
not the slightest reference to degrees. They are not mentioned nor
alluded to as if any such system existed. The examination is that of a
Freemason, but there is no indication whatever to show that he was a
Master, Fellow, or an Apprentice. He could not probably have been the
last, because, as a general rule, Apprentices were not allowed to travel.
The German Steigmetzen, however, sometimes made an exception to this
regulation, and the Master who had no work for his Apprentice would
furnish him with a mark and send him forth in search of employment.

If a similar custom prevailed among the English Freemasons, of which

there is no proof for or against, the wandering Apprentice woulds on
visiting a strange lodge, doubtless make use of this catechism. There is
nothing in its text to prevent him from doing so, for, as has already been
said, there is no mention in it of degrees.

There does not seem to be any doubt in the minds of the most
distinguished Masonic scholars, with perhaps a very few exceptions, that
in the Operative ritual there were no degrees, the words Apprentice,
Fellow, and Master referring only to gradations of rank. It is also believed
that the ceremonies of admission were exceedingly simple, and that all
these ranks were permitted to be present at a reception.

According to this catechism a lodge consisted of five or seven Masons,

but it does not say that they must be all Master Masons.

The Sloane M S. says that there should be in a lodge two Apprentices,

two Fellow-Crafts, and two Master Masons.

The Statutes of the Scottish Masons explicitly require the presence of two
Apprentices at the reception of a Master.

The Old Constitutions, while they have charges specially for Masters and
Fellows, between whom they make no distinction, have other "charges in
general" which, of course, must include Apprentices, and in these they
are commanded to keep secret "the consells of the lodge," from which it is
to be inferred that Apprentices formed a constituent part of that body.

It has been usual to say that from 1717 to 1725 there were only
Apprentices' lodges. The phraseology is not correct. They were lodges of
Freemasons, and they so continued until the fabrication of a system of
degrees. After that period the lodges might properly be called Apprentice
lodges, because the first degree only could be conferred by them, though
Fellow-Craft and Master Masons were among their members, these
having until 1725 been made in the Grand Lodge exclusively.

The fact that this ritual, purposely designed for Operative Freemasons
only, and used in the Operative lodges of London at the beginning of the
18th century, was adopted in 1717 when the four Lodges united in the
organization of a Grand Lodge, is, I think, a convincing proof that there
was no expressed intention at that time to abandon the Operative
character of the institution, and to assume for it a purely Speculative
condition.

I use the word "expressed" advisedly, because I do not contend that there
was no such covert intention floating in the minds of some of the most
cultivated Theoretic Freemasons who united with their Operative brethren
in the organization.

But these Theoretic brethren were men of sense. They fully appreciated
the expediency of the motto, festina lente. They were, it is true, anxious to
hasten on the formation of an intellectual society, based historically on an
association of architects, but ethically on an exalted system of moral
philosophy; they perfectly appreciated, however, the impolicy of suddenly
and rudely disrupting the ties which connected them with the old
Operative Freemasons. Hence, they fairly shared with these the offices of
the Grand Lodge until 1723, after which, as has been shown, no
Operative held a prominent position in that body. The first laws which they
adopted, and which were announced in the "Charges of a Free Mason,"
compiled by Payne and Anderson about 1719, had all the features of an
Operative Code, and the ritual of the Operative Freemasons embodied in
the document satirically called The Grand Mystery was accepted and
used by the members of the Speculative Grand Lodge until the fabrication
of degrees made it necessary to formulate another and more
philosophical ritual.

But it is not necessary to conclude that when the system of degrees was
composed, most probably in 1720 and 1721, principally by Dr.
Desaguliers, the old Operative ritual was immediately cast aside. In all
probability it continued to be used in the lodges, where the Fellow-Crafts
and Masters' degrees were unknown, until 1725, the conferring of them
having been confined to the Grand Lodge until that year. There were
even Operative lodges in England long after that date, and the old ritual
would continue with them a favorite. This will account for the publication
in 1724, with so profitable a sale as to encourage the printing of a second
edition with appendices in 1725.

But the newer ritual became common in 1730 or a little before, and the
able defense of it by Anderson in the 1738 edition of the Book of
Constitutions shows that the old had at length been displaced, though
some of its tests remained for a long time in use among the Craft, and are
continued, in a modified form, even to the present day.

The early Operative ritual, like the Operative laws and usages, has made
an impression on the Speculative society which has never been and
never will be obliterated while Freemasonry lasts.

The next feature in this Operative ritual which attracts our attention is its
well-defined Christian character. This is shown in Question 29, where the
three Lights of the Lodge are said to represent "The Three Persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

Originating as it did, and for a long time working under ecclesiastical

control, being closely connected with the Church, and engaged
exclusively in the construction of religious edifices, it must naturally have
become sectarian.

In the earliest times, when the Roman Catholic religion was the prevailing
faith of Christendom, Operative Freemasonry was not only Christian but
Roman Catholic in its tendencies. Hence, the oldest of the manuscript
Constitutions contains an invocation to the Virgin Mary and to the Saints.
In Germany the patrons of the Freemasons were the Four Crowned
Martyrs.

But when in England the Protestant religion displaced the Roman

Catholic, then the Operative Freemasons, following the sectarian
tendencies of their countrymen, abandoned the reference to the Virgin
and to the Saints, whose worship had been repudiated by the reformed
religion, and invoked only the three Persons of the Trinity. The Harleian
MS. commences thus:

"The Almighty Father of Heaven with the Wisdom of the Glorious Sonne,
through the goodness of the Holy Ghost, three persons in one Godhead,
bee with our beginning & give us grace soe to governe our Lives that we
may come to his blisse that never shall have end."

All the other manuscript Constitutions conform to this formula, and hence
we find the same feature presented in this catechism, and that in the ritual
used when the Grand Lodge was established the three Lights
represented the three Persons of the Trinity.

Operative Freemasonry never was tolerant nor cosmopolitan. It was in the

beginning ecclesiastical, always Christian, and always sectarian.

Of all the differences that define the line of demarcation between

Operative and Speculative Freemasonry, this is the most prominent.

The Theoretic Freemasons, that is, those who were non-Masons, when
they united with their Operative fellow-members in the organization of a
Grand Lodge, did not reject this sectarian character any more than they
did the ritual and the laws of the old association.

But the non-Masonic or non-Operative element of the new Society was

composed of men of education and of liberal views. They were anxious
that in their meetings a spirit of toleration should prevail and that no angry
discussions should disturb the hours devoted to innocent recreation.
Moreover, they knew that the attempt to revive the decaying popularity of
Freemasonry and to extend its usefulness would not be successful unless
the doors were thrown widely open to the admission of moral and
intellectual men of all shades of political and religious thought. Hence,
they strove to exclude discussions which should involve the bitterness of
partisan politics or of sectarian religion.

Dr. Anderson describes the effect produced by this liberality of sentiment

when he says, speaking of this early period of Masonic history:

"Ingenious men of all faculties and stations, being convinced that the
cement of the lodge was love and friendship, earnestly requested to be
made Masons, affecting this amicable fraternity more than other societies
then often disturbed by warm disputes." (1)
Thus it was that the first change affected in the character of the institution
by which the ultimate separation of Speculative from Operative
Freemasons was foreshadowed, was the modification of the sectarian
feature which had always existed in the latter.

Therefore, in 1721, the Grand Lodge, "finding fault" with the "Old Gothic
Constitutions" or the laws of the Operative Freemasons, principally, as
the result shows, on account of their sectarian character, instructed Dr.
Anderson "to digest them in a new and better method."

This task was duly accomplished, and the "Charges of a Freemason,"

which were published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions,
announce for the first time that cosmopolitan feature in the religious
sentiments of the Order which it has ever since retained.

"Though in ancient times," so runs the first of these " Charges," "Masons
were charged in every country to be of the religion of that country or
nation, whatever it was; yet it is now thought more expedient only to
oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular
opinions to themselves."

In consequence of this declaration of tolerance, the ritual which was

framed after the old Operative one, exemplified in The Ground Mystery,
ceased to derive any of its symbolism from purely Christian dogmas,
though it can not be denied that Christian sentiments have naturally had
an influence upon Speculative Freemasonry.

But the institution, in all the countries into which it has since extended,
has always, with a very few anomalous exceptions, been true to the
declaration made in 1721 by its founders, and has erected its altars,
around which men of every faith, if they have only a trusting belief in God
as the Grand Architect of the universe, may kneel and worship.

But before this sentiment of perfect toleration could be fully developed, it

was necessary that the tenets, the usages, and the influence of the
Operative element should be wholly eliminated from the new society. The
progress toward this disruption of the two systems, the old and the new,
would have to be slow and gradual.

(1) "Book of Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 114.

Very justly has Bro. Gould remarked that "Speculative Masonry was, so to
speak, only on its trial during the generation which succeeded the authors
of the Revival. The institution of a society of Free and Accepted Masons
on a cosmopolitan and unsectarian basis was one thing; its consolidation,
however, opposed as its practical working showed it to be to the ancient
customs and privileges of the Operatives, was another and a very
different affair." (1)

Therefore, as a matter of sheer policy, and also because it is probable

that no intention of effecting such a change had, in the beginning, entered
into the minds of the future founders of Speculative Freemasonry, it was
deemed necessary to continue the use of the simple ritual which had so
long been familiar to the Operatives, and it was accordingly so continued
to be used until, in a few years, the opportune time had arrived for the
fabrication of a more complex one, and one better adapted to the objects
of a Speculative Society.
As it appears, then, to be clearly evident that the Operative ritualwas
practiced by the Grand Lodge from 1717 until 1721 or 1722, and for a
much longer period by many of the lodges under its jurisdiction, it is
proper that we should endeavor, so far as the materials in our possession
will permit, to describe the character of that ritual.

Masonic scholars who have carefully investigated this subject do not now
express any doubt that the rite practiced by the mediceval Freemasons of
every country, and which, under some modifications, was used by the
Operative Freemasons when the Grand Lodge of England was
established, was a very simple one, consisting of but one degree.

In fact, as the word degree literally denotes a step in progression, and

would import the possible existence of a higher step to which it is related,
it would seem to be more proper to say that the Operative rite was without
degrees, and consisted of a form of admission with accompanying
esoteric instructions, all of which were of the simplest nature.

Master, Fellow, and Apprentice were terms intended to designate the

different ranks of the Craftsmen, which ranks were wholly unconnected
with any gradations of ritualistic knowledge.

(1) "The Four Old Lodges," p. 33.

Masters were those who superintended the labors of the Craft, or were,
perhaps, in many instances the employers of the workmen engaged on an
edifice. Paley suggests that they were probably architects, and he says
that they must have been trained in one and the same school, just as our
clergy are trained in the universities, and were either sent about to
different stations or were attached to some church or cathedral, or took up
their permanent residence in certain localities. (1)

This description is very suitable to the most flourishing period of Gothic

architecture, when such Craftsmen as William of Sens or Erwin of
Steinbach were the Masters who directed the construction of those noble
works of architecture which were to win the admiration of succeeding
ages.

But in the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, when there was a
decadence in the old science of Gothic architecture, every Fellow who
was appointed by an employer or selected by his brethren to govern a
lodge and to direct the works of the Craftsmen, became by that
appointment or selection a Master Mason.

We know that this usage was for some time observed by the Speculative
Freemasons, for in the form of constituting a new lodge as prescribed in
1723 by the Duke of Wharton, who was then Grand Master, it is said that
the Master who is to be installed, "being yet among the Fellow-Craft,"
must be taken from among them, and be inducted into office by the Grand
Master; by which act he became a Master Mason, and not by the
reception of a degree; and the investiture of certain additional secrets. (2)

The Fellows were workmen who had served an apprenticeship of several

years, and had at length acquired a knowledge of the trade. They
constituted the great body of the Craft, as is evident from the constant
reference to them in the Old Constitutions.
The Apprentices, as the etymology of the word imports, were learners.
They were youths who were bound to serve their Masters for a term of
five or seven years, on the condition that the Master shall instruct them in
the trade, that at the expiration of their term of service they might be
admitted into the rank or class of Fellows.

As there was but one ceremony of admission common to all

(1) "Manual of Gothic Architecture," p. 209.

(2) See the form in the 1st edition of Anderson, p. 71.

classes of the Craft, it follows that there could be no secrets of a ritual

character which belonged exclusively to either of the three classes, and
that whatever was known to Masters and Fellows must also have been
communicated to Apprentices; and this is very evident from the well-
known fact that the presence of members of each class was necessary to
the legal communications of a lodge.

The Mason Word is the only secret spoken of in the minutes of the Scotch
lodges, but the German and English rituals show that there were other
words and methods of recognition besides an examination which
constituted the esoteric instructions of Operative Masonry.

The most important of these points is, however, the fact that at the time of
the organization of the Grand Lodge in 1717, and for a brief period
afterward, there was but one degree, as it is called, which was known to
the Operatives, and that for a brief period of three or four years this
simple system was accepted and practiced by the founders of Speculative
Freemasonry.

But the discussion of this fact involves a thorough investigation, and can
not be treated at the close of a chapter.

The inquiry, so far as it has advanced, has, I think, satisfied us that the
Operative ritual was that which was at first adopted by the founders of
Speculative Freemasonry.

When, afterward, they discarded this ritual as too simple and as

unsuitable to their designs, they were obliged, in the construction of their
new system, to develop new degrees.

The task, therefore, to which our attention must now be directed, is first to
demonstrate that the primitive ritual accepted in 1717 by the Speculatives
consisted of but one degree, if for convenience I may be allowed to use a
word not strictly and grammatically correct; and, secondly, to point out the
mode in which and the period when a larger ritual, and a system of
degrees, was invented.

And these must be the subjects of the two following chapters.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ONE DEGREE OF OPERATIVE FREEMASONS

In the articles of union agreed to in 1813 by the two Grand Lodges of
England, the "Moderns" and the "Ancients" as they were called, it was
declared that "pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degrees and no
more." If by Ancient Masonry it was intended to designate the system then
existing, and no other and earlier one - if the character of antiquity was to
be circumscribed within the one hundred preceding years, or thereabouts
- then the declaration might be accepted as an historical truth. But if it
was designed to refer by these words to the whole period of time, within
which included the era of Operative, and of combined Operative and
Speculative Freemasonry, as well as that later one when pure
Speculative Masonry alone prevailed, then the assertion must be
considered as apocryphal and as having no foundation in authentic
history.

If our judgment on this subject were to be formed merely on the complete

silence of the Old Records, we should be forced to the conclusion that
until the close of the second decade of the 18th century, or about the year
1720, when the Speculative element was slowly disintegrating itself from
the Operative, there was only one degree known as the word is
understood in the present day.

We have evidence that the Operative Freemasons of Scotland in the 15th

century adopted, to some extent, the secret ceremonies observed by the
medieval builders of the continent. (1) we may therefore refer to the
records of the Scotch lodges for a correct knowledge of what was the
degree system practiced, not only in Scotiand but on the continent, at that
period.

(1) See Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 234. This is evident
from, the charter granted to the Masons and Wrights of Edinburgh in
1475, copied by Lyon (p. 230) from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh,
where reference is made for their government to the customs "in the
towne of Bruges."

Now we have abundant evidence by deduction from the records of the old
Scottish lodges that there was in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries only
one degree known to the brotherhood.

There were, it is true, three classes or ranks of Masons, namely, Masters,

men who made contracts and undertook the work of building for
employers; Fellow-Crafts or Journeymen employed by these Masters; and
Entered Apprentices, who were received that they might be taught the art
of building. But this difference of rank involved no difference of esoteric
instruction. There was but one ceremony and one set of secrets for all,
and common to and known by everyone, from the youngest Apprentice to
the oldest Master. This is plainly deducible from all the Old Records.

Thus, in the Schaw statutes, whose date is December 28, 1498, it is

enacted as follows:

"Item that na maister or fellow of craft be ressavit nor admittit without the
number of sex maisters and twa enterit prenteissis the wardene of that
lodge being one of the said sex."

The same regulation, generally, in very nearly the same words, is to be

found in subsequent records, constitutions, and minutes of the 16th and
17th centuries.
Now what deduction must be drawn from the oft-repeated language of this
statute? Certainly only this, that if two Apprentices were required to be
present at the reception of a Fellow-Craft or a Master, there could have
been no secrets to be communicated to the candidates as Fellow-Crafts
or Masters which were not als ready known to the Apprentices. In other
words, that these three ranks were not separated and distinguished from
each other by any ceremonies or instructions which would constitute
degrees in the modern acceptation of the term. In fact, there could have
been but one degree common to all.

Upon this subject Bro. Lyon says: "It is upon Schaw's regulation anent the
reception of Fellows or Masters, that we found our opinion that in primitive
times there were no secrets communicated by lodges to either Fellows of
Craft or Masters that were not known to Apprentices, seeing that
members of the latter grade were necessary to the legal constitution of
communications for the admission of Masters or Fellows." (1)

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.

We are confirmed in this conclusion by what is said in the same Old

Records of the "Mason Word."

The Mason Word and what was connected with it appeared to constitute
the only secret known to the Masons of the centuries preceding the 18th.
It was, however, not simply a word, but had other mysteries connected
with it, as is apparent from an expression in the minutes of the Lodge of
Dunblane, where it is said that two Apprentices of the Lodge of Kilwinning
being examined on their application for affiliation, were found to have " a
competent knowlsedge of the secrets of the Mason Word." (1)

These secrets consisted also probably of a sign and grip. Indeed, the
records of Haughfort Lodge in 1707 state the fact that there was a grip,
and it is known that as early as the 12th century the German Masons
used all these modes of recognition. (2)

There was also a Legend or Allegory, nothing, however, like the modern
legend of the Third degree, which connected the Craft traditionally with
the Tower of Babel and the Temple of Solomon. This Legend was
contained in what we now call the Legend of the Craft or the Legend of
the Guild. This is contained, with only verbal variations, in all the old
manuscript Constitutions. That this Legend was always deemed a part of
the secrets of the brotherhood, is very evident from the destruction of
many of those manuscripts by scrupulous Masons in 1720, from the fear,
as Anderson expresses it, that they might fall into strange hands.

But whatever were the secrets connected with the "Mason Word," there is
abundant evidence that they were communicated in full to the Apprentice
on his initiation.

First, we have the evidence of the Schaw statutes that two Apprentices
were required to be present at the reception of a Mason or a Fellow-Craft.
Then the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh for 1601, 1606, and 1637,
referred to by Bro. Lyon, (3) show that Apprentices were present during
the making of Fellow-Crafts. Again, we find the following conclusive
testimony in the Laws and Statutes of the Lodge of Aberdeen, adopted
December 27, 1760:
(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 417.
(2) The English Masons in the beginning of the 18th century, and I
suppose before that penod, had two words, the "Jerusalem Word" and the
"Universal Word." See the Examination in the last chapter. The German
Masons also had two words, at least.
(3) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 74.

"Wee Master Masons and Entered Prentises, all of us under. seryvers,

doe here protest and vowe as hitherto we ehave done at our entrie when
we received the benefit of the Mason Word," &c. (1)

From all of which we are authorized to entertain the opinion, in the

language of Bro. Lyon, who has thoroughly investigated the subject, so
far at least as relates to Scotland, "that 'the Word' and other secrets
peculiar to Masons were communicated to Apprentices on their admission
to the lodge, and that the ceremony of passing was simply a testing of the
candidate's fitness for employment as a journeyman." (2)

In the English lodges of the same period, that is, up to the beginning of
the 18th century, we find no indications of the existence of more than one
degree common to the whole Craft. The Apprentices, however, do not
occupy in the old English Constitutions so conspicuous a place as they do
in the Scotch. We can, for instance, find no regulation like that in the
Schaw statutes which requires Apprentices to be present at the making of
Fellow-Crafts.

But in the oldest of the English Constitutions which have been unearthed
by the labors of Masonic archaeologists - namely, the one known as the
Halliwell MS., the date of which is supposed to be not later than the
middle of the 15th century - we find indications of the fact that the
Apprentices were in possession of all the secret knowledge possessed by
the Masters and Fellows, and that they were allowed to be present at
meetings of the lodge. Thus, the thirteenth article of that early
Constitution says:

" - gef that the mayster a prentes have

Enterlyche thenne that he hym teche,
And meserable poyntes that he hym reche,
That he the crafte abelyche may conne,
Whersever he go undur the sonne." (3)

That is, if a Master have an Apprentice, he shall give him thorough

instruction, and place him in the possession of such points as will enable
him to recognize the members of the Craft wheresoever he may go. He
was to be invested with the modes of recognition common to all, whereby
a mutual intercourse might be held. It

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 423.

(2) Ibid., p. 233
(3) Halliwell MS., lines 240 - 244.

was not that he was to know just enough to prove himself to be an

Apprentice, but he was to have such knowledge as would enable him to
recognize in a stranger a Fellow-Craft or a Master - in other words, he
was to have all that they had, in the way of recognition.

But a more important admission, namely, that the Apprentice was

permitted to be present at the meetings of a lodge of Masters and
Fellows, and to participate in, or at least be a witness of, their private
transactions, is found in the third point of this same Constitution, which is
in the following words:

"The thrydee poynt must be severele,

With the prentes knowe hyt wele,
Hys mayster cownsel he kepe and close,
And hys fellowes by hys goode purpose;
The prevystye of the chamber telle he no mon,
Ny yn the logge whatsever they done;
Whatsever thon heryst or eyste hem do
Telle hyt no mon, whersever thou go;
The cownsel of halle and yeke of boure,
Kepe hyt lvel to gret honoure,
Lest hyt wolde torne thyself to blame,
And brynge the craft ynto gret schame." (1)

That is, the Apprentice was directed to keep the counsel of his Master
and Fellows, and to tell to no one the secrets of tlle chamber nor what he
should see or hear done in the lodge. (2)

He was to keep the counsel of "hall and bower," a medizeval phrase

denoting all sorts of secrets, and all this he was to observe lest he should
bring the Craft into shame.

Now I do not think we need anything more explicit to prove that

Apprentices were admitted to share the secrets of the Fellows and be
present at the meetings of the lodge, all of which is a conclusive evidence
against the existence of separate degrees.

The same reference to Apprentices as being in possession of the secrets

of the Craft, which they were not to communicate unlawfully, is found in
subsequent Constitutions, as late as 1693. In the York Constitutions, first
published by Bro. Hughan in his History of Freemasonry in York, under
the title of "The Apprentice

(1) Halliwell MS., lines 275-286.

(2) Similar to this is "The Apprentice Charge" contained in the Lodge of
Hope MS., the date of which is 1680. It says that the Apprentice "shall
keep counsell in all things spoken in lodge or chamber by fellowes or free
masons."

Charge," it is said that "he shall keepe councell in all things spoken in
Lodg or Chamber by any Masons, Fellowes or Fremasons."

The Masonic student, while carefully perusing the Old Records of the
English Masons and comparing them with those of the Scotch, will be
struck with one important difference between them. In the Scotch
Statutes, Constitutions, and Minutes, the Apprentices assume a
prominent position, and are always spoken of as a component and
necessary part of the brotherhood.

Thus, the Schaw statutes prescribe the fee for the admission of Fellow-
Crafts, followed immediately by another prescribing the fee for the
admission of Apprentices; twice in the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh
(1706 and 1709) it is recorded that a notary who was appointed for the
purpose of acting as "clerk to the brethren masons" was initiated as Jane
entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft," (1) and lastly, Apprentices were
required to be present at the admission of Fellow-Crafts and Masters.

I think, therefore, that the most eminent Masonic historians of the present
day have been justified in the conclusion to which they have arrived after
a careful examination of old documents, that until a short time after the
organization of the Grand Lodge in the year 1717, there is no evidence of
the existence of more than one degree; that all the secrets were
communicated to the Apprentices, and that the ceremony of passing to a
Fellow-Craft was simply a testing of the candidate's fitness for
employment as a journeyman. (2)

Bro. Hughan says that "no record prior to the second decade of the last
century ever mentions Masonic degrees, and all the MSS. preserved
decidedly confirm us in the belief that in the mere Operative (although
partly Speculative) career of Freemasonry the ceremony of reception was
of a most unpretentious and simple character, mainly for the
communication of certain lyrics and secrets, and for the conservation of
ancient customs of the Craft." (3)

In another place the same distinguished writer says: "I have carefully
perused all the known Masonic MSS. from the 14th century down to A.D
1717 (of which I have eitherseen the originals or

(1) Lyon, " History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 43.

(2) Such is the opinion of Bro. Lyon. See "History of the Lodge of
Edinburgh," p. 233,
(3) Voice of Masonry, vol. xii., June, 1874, p. 340.

have certified copies), and have not been able to find any reference to
three degrees." (1)

Bro. Findel says: "Originally it seems there was but one degree of
initiation in the year 1717; the degrees or grades of Apprentice, Fellow,
and Master were introduced about the year 1720." (2)

Bro. Lyon, also, who has thoroughly investigated the customs of the early
Scottish lodges, in referring to the Schaw statute, which required two
Apprentices to be present at the admission of Fellows, says that in 1693
"the lodge recognized 'passing,' i.e., a promotion to the fellowship, simply
as an 'honour and dignity.'" And he adds:

"If the communication by Mason Lodges of secret words or signs

constituted a degree - a term of modern application to the esoteric
observances of the Masonic body - then there was under the purely
Operative regime only one known to Scotch lodges, viz., that in which,
under an oath, Apprentices obtained a knowledge of the Mason Word and
all that was implied in the expression." (3)

Even Dr. Oliver, who, of all writers, is the least skeptical in respect to
Masonic traditions, acknowledges that there is no evidence of the
existence of degrees in Freemasonry anterior to the beginning of the 18th
century.

The only living Masonic scholar of any eminence who, so far as I am

aware, denies or doubts this fact is the Rev. Bro. W. A. Woodford, and he
asserts his opinion rather negatively, as if he were unwilling to doubt,
than positively as if he were ready to deny the fact, that the old Operative
system consisted of but one degree.

As Bro. Woodford is one whose learning and experience entitle his

opinion on any point of Masonic history to a deferential consideration, it
will be proper to examine the weight of his arguments on this subject.

In the year 1874 Bro. Hughan proposed, in the London Freemason, to

defend in future communications three historical statements against
anyone who should oppugn them.

(1) Cited by Lyon in "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 211.

(2) "History of Freemasonry," p. 150, Lyon's Translation.
(3) Lyon, " History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.

One of these statements was made in the following words:

"The references to Masonic degrees (as we understand the term now)

never occur in the ancient minutes; no rituals of degrees prior to 1720 are
in existence, and whatever esoteric customs may have been
communicated to Craftsmen before the last century, they do not appear to
have necessitated the temporary absence of either class of members from
the Lodge." (1)

To this challenge Bro. Woodford responded in a subsequent number of

the same paper. (2)

The gist of our learned Brother's argument in reply appears to be that

though, as Vaughan asserts, there may be no ritual evidence of the
existence of the three degrees before 1720, yet "such a proposition need
not be understood as asserting that they did not exist, but only that, so
far, we have no ritual evidence of their distinct existence as now."

As a logical conclusion, it appears to me that such a disposition of the

question is wholly untenable. It was an excellent maxim of the schools,
which has been adopted in philosophy, in physical science, and in law,
thats "of things which do not appear and of things which do not exist, the
reasoning is the same." (3)

We can only arrive at a correct judgment when we are guided by

evidence; without it no judgment can be reasonably formed.

Dr. Hedge, in his excellent manual of logic, says: "The proof that the
Romans once possessed Great Britain is made up of a rariety of
independent arguments: as immemorial tradition; the testimony of
historians; the ruins of Roman buildings, camps, and walls; Roman coins,
inscriptions, and the like. These are independent arguments; but they all
conspire to establish the fact." (4)

Now, if we apply this method of reasoning to the question of the existence

of Masonic degrees prior to the year 1720, we shall see clearly how
completely the affirmative proposition is without support. We have no
immemorial tradition, no historical testimony, no allusion in old
documents, such as the manuscript Constitutions, the minutes of the
Scottish or of the very few English lodges that are extant, nor in the
English or German Freemasons, which tend

(1) London freemason, June 27, 1874.

(2) Ibid., July 27, 1874.
(3) De non apparentibus et de non existentibus, eadem est ratio.
(4) "Elements of Logic," by Levi Hedge, LL.D., Boston, 1827, p. 74

to prove the existence of degrees in the old system of Operative

Freemasonry. On the contrary, we have abundant evidence in these
Constitutions and minutes that the secrets of the Craft were common to
the three classes, and that Apprentices were required to he present at the
admission of Masters.

The other argument of Bro. Woodford is, that, "notwithstanding the Scotch
lodges had an open court for their members, that does not preclude the
possibility of the existence of other secrets and separate degrees."

It is possible, but it does not thence follow that it is true. In this

investigation we seek not possibilities but facts, and, as Bro. Woodford,
usually so careful and so accurate in his historical and archaeological
inquiries, has supplied no proof of the hypothesis which he has advanced,
it must be accepted as a mere assumption, and may be fairly met with a
contrary one.

But the remarks of Bro. Hughan himself, in reply to the argument of Bro.
Woodford, are so conclusive and throw so much light upon this interesting
subject that I can not refrain from enriching the pages of this work with the
very words of this eminent authority in Masonic archaeology. (1)

"Now what do the old lodge minutes say on this subject ? we have had
authorized excerpts from these valuable books published (with few
exceptions). The whole of the volumes have been most diligently and
carefully searched, the result made known, and every Masonic student
furnished with the testimony of these important witnesses, all of which,
from the 16th century to the first half of the second decade of the 18th
century, unite in proving that there is no register of any assembly of
Masons working ceremonies or communicating 'secrets' from which any
portion of the Fraternity was excluded or denied participation; neither can
there be found a single reference in these lodge minutes to justify one in
assuming 'three degrees' to be even known to the brethren prior to A.D.
1716-1717. (2) Of course, there can be no doubt as to what may be
termed grades in Ancient Masonry, Apprentices had to serve their 'regular
time' before being accounted Fellow-Crafts, and then subsequently the
office

(1) Contained in article in the London Masonic Magazine for August,

1874.
(2) The learned Brother makes here a rather too liberal admission. I have
found no evidence of the existence of three degrees in the year 1717, and
it will be hereafter seen that their fabrication is assigned to a later date.

or position of Master Mason was conferred upon a select few; but no word
is ever said about 'degrees.' All the members were evidently eligible to
attend at the introduction of Fellow-Crafts and Master Masons, as well as
at the admission of Apprentices; and so far as the records throw light on
the customs of our early brethren, the Apprentices were as welcome at
the election and reception of Masters - as the latter were required to
participate in the initiation of the former.

"We are quite willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that a word may
have been whispered in the ear of the Master of the lodge (or of Master
Masons) on their introduction or constitution in the lodge; but supposing
that such were the case (and we think the position is at least probable),
the 'three degrees' are as far from being proved as before, especially as
we have never yet traced any intimation, ever so slight, of a special
ceremony at the 'passing' of Fellow-Crafts, peculiar to that grade, and
from which Apprentices were excluded.

"If we have overlooked such a minute, we shall be only too glad to

acknowledge the fact; but at present we must reiterate our conviction, that
whatever the ceremonies may have been at the introduction of Fellow-
Crafts and Master Masons anterior to the last century, they were not such
as to require the exclusion of Apprentices from the lodge meetings; and in
the absence of any positive information on the subject, we are not justified
in assuming the existence of 'three degrees of Masonry' at that period; or,
in other words, we can only fairly advocate that two have existed of which
we have evidence, and whatever else we may fancy was known, should
only be advocated on the grounds of probability. If the proof of 'three
degrees' before 1717 is to rest on the authority of the Sloane MS. 3329,
we shall be glad to give our opinion on the subject.

"With all respect, then, for our worthy Brother, the Rev. A. F. A.
Woodford, whose exertions and contributions to Masonic literature have
been continuous and most valuable for many years, we feel bound to
state we do not believe according to the evidences accumulated that the
'three degrees were distinct grades in the Operative Order; but that the
term Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason simply denoted
Masonic, relative, or official positions.'"

If, then, there was originally but one degree, the one into which
Freemasons of every class or rank were initiated, according to a very
simple form, upon their admission to the Craft, it follows that the degree
Fellow-Craft and Master Mason must be of comparatively recent origin.
This is legitimately a logical conclusion that can not, I believe, be
avoided.

And if so, then the next question that we have to meet and discuss is as
to the time and the circumstances of the fabrication of these degrees

CHAPTER XXXIV

INVENTION OF THE FELLOW-CRAFT'S DEGREE

IT having been satisfactorily shown, first, that during the existence of pure
Operative Freemasonry there was but one degree, or ritual, of admission,
or system of secret working in a lodge, which was accessible in common
to all the members of the Craft, Apprentices as well as Fellows and
Masters; secondly, that in the year 1717, when the Speculative element
began to assume a hitherto unknown prominence, though it did not at
once attempt to dissever the connection with the Operative, the Grand
Lodge then formed, accepted, and practiced for some time this system of
a single degree; and thirdly, that in the year 1723 we have the authentic
documentary evidence of the "General Regulations " published in that
year, that two degrees had been superimposed on this original one, and
that at that time Speculative Freemasonry consisted of three degrees; it
follows as a natural inference, that in the interval of six years, between
1717 and 1723, the two supplemental degrees must have been invented
or fabricated.

It must be here remarked, parenthetically, that the word degree, in

reference to the system practiced by the Operative Freemasons, is used
only in a conventional sense, and for the sake of convenience. To say, as
is sometimes carelessly said, that the Operative Freemasons possessed
only the Apprentice's degree, is to speak incorrectly. The system
practiced by the Operatives may be called a degree, if you choose, but it
was not peculiar to Apprentices only, but belonged in common to all the
ranks or classes of the Fraternity.

When the Speculative branch wholly separated from the Operative, and
three divisions of the Order, then properly called degrees, were invented,
this ritual of the latter became the basis of them all. Portions of it were
greatly modified and much developed, and became what is now known as
the First degree, though it continued for many years to receive increments
by the invention of new sym. bols and new ceremonies, and by sometimes
undergoing important changes. Other portions of it, but to a less extent,
were incorporated into the two supplemental degrees, the Second and the
Third.

Thus it was that by development of the old ritual, and by the invention of a
new one, the ancient system, or, conventionally speaking, the original
degree of the Operatives, became the Entered Apprentice's degree of the
Speculatives, and two new degrees, one for the Fellow-Crafts and one for
the Master Masons, were invented.

Then the important and most interesting question recurs, When and by
whom were these two new degrees invented and introduced into the
modern system of Speculative Freemasonry?

The answer to this question which, at this day, would probably be given
by nearly all the Masonic scholars who have, without preconceived
prejudices, devoted themselves to the investigation of the history of
Freemasonry, as it is founded on and demonstrated by the evidence of
authentic documents, combined with natural and logical inferences and
not traditionary legends and naked assumptions, is that they were the
invention of that recognized ritualist, Dr. John Theophilus Desaguliers,
with the co-operation of Dr. James Anderson, and perhaps a few others,
among whom it would not be fair to omit the name of George Payne. The
time of this invention or fabrication would be placed after the formation of
the Grand Lodge in 1717, and before the publication of the first edition of
its Book of Constitutions in 1723.

To the time and manner of the fabrication of the Fellow-Craft's degree the
writers who have adopted the theory here announced have not paid so
much attention as they have to that of the Master Mason. Recognizing the
fact that the two supplementary degrees were fabricated between the
years 1717 and 1723, they have not sought to define the precise date,
and seem to have been willing to believe them to have been of
contemporaneous origin.

But after as careful an investigation as I was capable of making, I have

been led to the conclusion that the fabrication of the degree of Fellow-
Craft preceded that of Master Mason by three or four years, and that the
system of Speculative Freemasonry had been augmented by the addition
of a new degree to the original one in or about the year 1719.

There is documentary evidence of an authentic character which proves

the existence of a "Fellow-Craft's part" in the year 1720, while it is not
until the year 1723 that we find any record alluding to the fact that there
was a " Master's part."

Hence, in a chronological point of view, it may be said that the single

degree or ritual in which, and in the secrets of which, all classes of
workmen, from the Apprentice to the Master, equally participated,
constituted, under various modifications, a part of Operative Freemasonry
from the earliest times. The possession of those secrets, simple as they
were, distinguished the Freemasons from the Rough Layers in England,
from the Cowans in Scotland, and from the Surer, or Wall Builders, in
Germany.

This degree, in its English form, was the only one known or practiced in
London in the year 1717, at the era which has incorrectly been called the
"Revival." The degree of Fellow-Craft, in the modern signification of the
word degree, was incorporated into the system, probably a very few years
after the organization of the Grand Lodge, and was fully recognized as a
degree in the year 1719, or perhaps early in 1720.

Finally, the Third or Master's degree was added, so as to make the full
complement of degrees as they now exist, between the years 1720 and
1723 - certainly not before the former nor after the latter period.

Of this theory we have, I think, documentary evidence of so authentic a

character, that we must be irresistibly led to the conclusion that the theory
is correct.

Bro. Lyon, in his History of thve Lodge of Edinburgh, cites a record which
has a distinct relevancy to the question of the time when the Second
degree originated. It is contained in the minutes of the Lodge of
Dunblane, under the date of December 27, 1720, which is about sixteen
years prior to the establishment of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

The minute records that a lawyer, and therefore a Theoretic Mason, who
had formerly been entered, had, after a due examination, been " duely
passed from the Squair to the Compass and from ane Entered Prentiss to
a Fellow of Craft." In commenting on this minute, Bro. Lyon says:

"It would appear from this that what under the modern ritual of the
Fraternity is a symbol peculiar to the Second Degree, was, under the
system which obtained in Scotland prior to the introduction of the Third
Degree, the distinctive emblem of the Entered Apprentice step - and what
is now a leading symbol in the degree of Master Mason, was then
indicative of the Fellow-Craft, or highest grade of Lodge membership.'' (1)

This authentic record surely corroborates the theory just advanced that
the Fellow-Craft's degree was formulated in London after the year 1717
and before the close of the year 1720. Here, I think, we are warranted in
pursuing the following method of deduction.

If the first notice of the degree of Fellow-Craft being conferred in

Scotland, as a degree, occurs in the record of a lodge in the last days of
the year 1720; and if, as we know from other sources, that Scotland
derived the expanded system of degrees from the sister kingdom; then it
is reasonable to suppose that the degree must have been given in
Scotland at as early a period after its fabrication in England as was
compatible with a due allowance of time for its transmission from the
lodges of the latter kingdom to those of the former, and for the necessary
preparation for its legal adoption.
The degree must, of course, have been practiced in London for some time
before it would be transmitted to other places, and hence we may accept
the hypothesis, as something more than a mere presumption, that the
Second degree had been invented by Desaguliers and his collaborators
on the ritual of the new Grand Lodge in the course of the year 1719,
certainly not later than the beginning of the year 1720.

Between the 24th of June, 1717, when the Grand Lodge was established,
and the end of the year 1718, the period of less than eighteen months
which had elapsed was too brief to permit the overthrow of a long-existing
system, endeared to the Craft by its comparative antiquity. Time and
opportunity were required for the removal of opposition, the conciliation of
prejudices, and the preparation of rituals, all of which would bring us to
the year 1719 as the conjectural date of the fabrication of the Second
degree.

It is highly probable that the degree was not thoroughly formulated and
legally introduced into the ritual until after the 24th of June, 1719, when
Desaguliers, who was then Grand Master, and the Proto-Grand Master,
Sayer, who was then one of the Grand Wardens,

(1) No reference is here made to the subsequent disseverment of the

Third degree which resulted in the composition of the Royal arch degree,
as that subject will be here- after fully discussed.

had, from their official positions, sufficient influence to cause the

acceptance of the new degree by the Grand Lodge.

We can gather very little, except inferentially, from the meager records of
Anderson, and yet he shows us that there was certainly an impetus given
to the Order in 1719, which might very well have been derived from the
invention of a new and more attractive ritual.

Anderson says, referring to the year 1719, that "now several old brothers,
that had neglected the Craft, visited the lodges; some noblemen were
also made brothers, and more new lodges were constituted."

The record of the preceding year tells us that the Grand Master Payne
had desired the brethren to bring to the Grand Lodge any old writings
concerning Masonry "in order to shew the usages of ancient times."

Northouck, a later but not a discreditable authority, expanding the

language of his predecessor, says that "the wish expressed at the Grand
Lodge for collecting old manuscripts, appears to have been preparatory to
the compiling and publishing a body of Masonical Constitutions."

I can see in this act the suggestion of the idea then beginning to be
entertained by the Speculative leaders of the new society to give it a more
elevated character by the adoption of new laws and a new form of
ceremonies. To guide them in this novel attempt, they desired to obtain all
accessible information as to old usages.

And now, some of the older Operative Craftsmen, becoming alarmed at

what they believed was an effort to make public the secrets which had
been so scrupulously preserved from the eyes of the profane by their
predecessors, and who were unwilling to aid in the contemplated attempt
to change the old ritual, an attempt which had been successful in the
fabrication of a Second degree, and the modification of the First, resolved
to throw obstructions in the way of any further innovations.

This will account for the fact recorded by Anderson that, between June,
1719, and June, 1720, (1) several valuable manuscripts concerning the
ancient " regulations, charges, secrets, and usages "

(1) Dr. Anderson, in his chronological records, counts the years from the
installation of one Grand Master in June to that of the next in June of the
following year.

were "burnt by some scrupulous brothers, that those papers might not fall
into strange hands."

The records do not say so, in as many words, but we may safely infer
from their tenor that the conflict had begun between the old Operative
Freemasons who desired to see no change from the ancient ways, and
the more liberal-minded Theoretic members, who were anxious to develop
the system and to have a more intellectual ritual - a conflict which
terminated in 1723 with the triumph of the Theoretics and the defeat of
the Operatives, who retired from the field and left the institution of
Speculative Freemasonry to assume the form which it has ever since
retained, as "a science of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by
symbols," a definition which would be wholly inapplicable to the old
Operative system.

In the minute of the Dunblane Lodge which has been cited through Bro.
Lyon, it was said that the candidate in being advanced from an Entered
Apprentice to a Fellow-Craft had "passed from the Square to the
Compass."

It is curious and significant that this expression was adopted on the

Continent at a very early period of the 18th century, when the hautes
grades or high degrees began to be manufactured. With the inventors of
these new degrees the Square was the symbol of Craft Masonry, while
the Compass was the appropriate emblem of what they called their more
elevated system of instruction. Hence, instead of the Square which is
worn by the Master of an Ancient Craft Lodge, the Master of a Lodge of
Perfection substitutes the Compasses as the appropriate badge of his
office.

But in Ancient Craft Masonry, with whose history alone we are now
dealing, the Compass is at this day a symbol peculiar to the Third degree,
while it would seem from the above-cited minute that in the beginning of
the 18th century it was appropriate to the Fellow-Crafts.

In commenting on this phrase in the record of the Lodge of Dunblane,

Bro. Lyon makes the following remarks:

"To some it will appear to favor the theory which attributes the existence
of the Third degree to a disjunction and a rearrangement of the parts of
which the Second was originally composed."

I have no objection to accept this theory in part. I believe, and the

hypothesis is a very tenable one, that when the Second degree was
fabricated, the secrets, the ritual, and instructions which were formerly
comprised in the single degree which was then given to the whole Craft,
indiscriminately, to Apprentices, to Fellows, and to Masters alike, were
divided between the two degrees which were then formulated, with certain
new additions; and that subsequently, when the Third degree was
invented, there was a further disintegration, and a portion of that which
had constituted the "part of a Fellow-Craft " was, with many new points,
transferred to that of the Master.

I have thus, by what I believe to be a tenable hypothesis, sought to fix the

time of the first expansion of the old ritual of the Operatives, which was for
a short time made use of, in all its simplicity, by the Speculative Grand
Lodge.

The next step in this expansion was the fabrication of the Third or Master
Mason's degree. To the time when this important event took place and to
the circumstances attending it we are now to direct our attention. This
shall therefore be the subject to be treated in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXXV
NON-EXISTENCE OF A MASTER MASON'S DEGREE AMONG THE
OPERATIVE FREEMASONS

The history of the origin of the Third or Master's degree - that is, so much
of it as refers to the precise time of its invention - has, at this day, been
involved in much doubt, and been the source of earnest controversy in
consequence of the searching investigations of recent scholars, whose
incisive criticism has shown many theories to be untenable which were
once held to be plausible.

Until within a few years the opinion was universally entertained that the
Third degree must have been in existence from the time of the invention
of the Masonic system, and at whatever period that event was placed, the
doctrine was held as indisputable that the First, the Second, and the Third
degrees must have had a contemporaneous origin, no one preceding the
other in point of time, but all springing at the same epoch into form and
practice.

The theory that Freemasonry originated at the Temple of Solomon was for
a very long time a universally accepted proposition, constituting, in fact,
the orthodox creed of a Freemason, and conscientiously adopted, not
merely by the common and unlearned masses of the Fraternity, but even
by Masonic scholars of distinguished reputation.

Consequent upon this theory was another, that at the same time the
Master's degree was invented and that the builders of the Temple were
divided into the same three classes distinguished as de. greed which
constitute the present system of Freemasonry.

This theory was derived from the esoteric narrative contained in the
modern ritual of the Third degree. If this narrative is accepted as an
authentic history of events which actually occurred at that time, then there
need be no more difficulty in tracing the in vention of the Third degree to
the time of King Solomon than there can be in placing the origin of
Freemasonry at the same remote period.

But unfortunately for the repose of those who would be willing to solve a
difficult problem by the Alexandrian method of cutting the Gordian knot,
rather than by the slower process of analytical investigation, the theory of
the Temple origin of the Master's degree has now been repudiated by
nearly all Masonic scholars. A few may be accepted who, like Bro.
Woodford, still express a doubtful recognition of the possibility that the
legend may be true. (1)

Thus Bro. Woodford, referring to the Temple legend, says: "As there is no
a priori reason why an old Masonic tradition should not be true in the
main, we see no reason to reject the world-wide story of King Solomon's
protection of a Masonic association. Indeed, modern discovery seems to
strengthen the reality of our Masonic legends, and we should always, as it
appears to us, distinguish between what is possible and probable and
what is actually provable or proved by indubitable evidence." In reply to
this it must be remembered that of all the arguments in favor of an event,
the possibility of its occurrence is the weakest that can be adduced. In
dialectics there is an almost illimitable gulf between possibility and
actuality. A hundred things may be possible or even probable, and yet not
one of them may be actual. With the highest respect for the scholarship of
our reverend Brother, I am compelled to dissent from the views he has
here expressed. Nor am I prepared to accept the statement that "modern
discovery seems to strengthen the reality of our Masonic legends." A
contrary opinion now generally prevails, though it must be admitted that
the modern interpretations of these legends have given them a value, as
the expression of symbolic ideas, which does not pertain to them when
accepted, as they formerly were, as truthful narratives.

The Temple legend, however, must be retained as a part of the ritual as

long as the present system of Speculative Freemasonry exists, and the
legendary and allegorical narrative must be repeated by the Master of the
lodge on the occasion of every initiation into the mysteries of the Third
degree, because, though it is no longer to be accepted as an historical
statement, yet the events which it records are still recognized as a myth
containing within itself, and

(1) Kenning's "Masonic Cyclopedia," art. Temple of Solomon, p. 612.

independent of all question of probability, a symbolical significance of the

highest importance.

This mythical legend of the Temple, and of the Temple Builder, must ever
remain an inseparable part of the Masonic ritual, and the narrative must
be repeated on all appropriate occasions, because, without this legend,
Speculative Masonry would lose its identity and would abandon the very
object of its original institution. On this legend, whether true or false,
whether a history or a myths is the most vital portion of the symbolism of
Freemasonry founded.

In the interpretation of a legendary symbol or an allegory it is a matter of

no consequence to the value of the interpretation whether the legend be
true or false; the interpretation alone is of importance. We need not, for
instance, inquire whether the story of Hiram Abif is a narrative which is
true in all its parts, or merely a historical myth in which truth and fiction
are variously blended, or, in fact, only the pious invention of some
legendmaker, to whose fertile imagination it has been indebted for all its
details.

It is sufficient when we are occupied in an investigation of subjects

connected with the science of symbolism, that the symbol which the
legend is intended to develop should be one that teaches some dogma
whose truth we can not doubt. The symbologist looks to the truth or
fitness of the symbol, not to that of the legend on which it is founded.
Thus it is that we should study the different myths and traditions which are
embodied in the ritual of Freemasonry.

But when we abandon the role of the symbologist or ritualist, and assume
that of the historian - when, for the time, we no longer interest ourselves
in the lessons of Masonic symbolism, but apply our attention to the origin
and the progress of the institution, then it really becomes of importance
that we should inquire whether the narrative of certain supposed events
which have hitherto been accepted as truthful, are really historical or
merely mythical or legendary.

And, therefore, when the question is asked in an historical sense, at what

time the Third degree was invented, and in the expectation that the reply
will be based on authentic historical authority, we at once repudiate the
whole story of its existence at the Temple of Solomon as a mere myth,
having, it is true, its value as a symbol but being entitled to no
consideration whatever as an historical narrative.

It is, however, most unfortunate for the study of Masonic history that so
many writers on this subject, forgetting that all history must have its basis
in truth, have sought rather to charm their readers by romantic episodes
than to instruct them by a sober detail of facts. One instance of this kind
may be cited as an example from the visionary speculations of Ragon, a
French writer of great learning, but of still greater imagination.

In his Orthvodoxie Mafonnifue he has attributed the invention of all the

degrees to Elias Ashmole, near the end of the 17th century. He says that
the degree of Master Mason was formulated soon after the year 1648, but
that the decapitation of King Charles I., and the part taken by Ashmole in
favor of the House of Stuart, led to great modifications in the ritual of the
degree, and that the same epoch saw the birth of the degrees of Secret
Master, Perfect Master, Elect, and Irish Master, of all of which Charles the
First was the hero, under the name of Hiram. (1)

Assertions like this are hardly worth the paper and ink that would be
consumed in refuting them. Unlike the so-called historical novel which has
its basis in a distortion of history, they resemble rather the Arabian Tales
or the Travels of Gulliver, which owe their existence solely to the
imaginative genius of their authors.

Still there are some writers of more temperate judgment who, while they
reject the Temple theory, still claim for the Third degree an antiquity of no
certain date, but much anterior to the time of the organization of the
Grand Lodge in the beginning of the I8th century.

Thus, Bro. Hyde Clark, in an article in the London Freemasons'

Magazine, says that "the ritual of the Third degree is peculiar and
suggestive of its containing matter from the old body of Masonry," whence
he concludes that it is older than the time of the so-called Revival in 1717,
and he advances a theory that the First degree was in that olden time
conferred on minors, while the Second and Third were restricted to adults.
(2)

This view of the origin of the degrees can only be received as a

(1) "Orthodoxie Maconnique," par J. M. Ragon, Paris, 1853, p. 29.

(2) "Old Freemasonry before Grand Lodges," by Hyde Clark, in the
London Freemasons' Magazine, No. 534.

bare assumption, for there is not a particle of authentic evidence to show

that it has an historical foundation. No old document has been yet
discovered which gives support to the hypothesis that there were
ceremonies or esoteric instructions before the year 1719 which were
conferred upon a peculiar class. All the testimony of the Old Records and
manuscript Constitutions is to the effect that there was but one reception
for the Craftsmen, to which all, from the youngest to the oldest Mason,
were admitted.

It is true that one of the Old Records, known as the Sloane MS. 3329,
mentions different modes of recognition, one of which was peculiar to
Masters, and is called in the manuscript "their Master's gripe," and
another is called "their gripe for fellowcrafts."

Of the many Masonic manuscripts which, within the last few years have
been discovered and published, this is perhaps one of the most important
and interesting. Findel first inserted a small portion of it in his History of
Freemasonry, but the whole of it in an unmutilated form was subsequently
published by Bro. Woodford in 1872, and also by Hughan in the same
year in the Voice of Masonry. It was discovered among the papers of Sir
Hans Sloane which were deposited in the British Museum, and there is
numbered 3329. Bro. Hughan supposes that the date of this manuscript is
between 1640 and 1700; Messrs. Bond and Sims, of the British Museum,
think that the date is "probably of the beginning of the 18th century."
Findel thinks that it was originally in the possession of Dr. Plot, and that it
was one of the sources whence he derived his views on Freemasonry. He
places its date at about the end of the 17th century. Bro. Woodford cites
the authority of Mr. Wallbran for fixing its date in the early part of that
century, in which opinion he coincides. The paper-mark of the manuscript
in the British Museum appears to have been a copy of an older one, for
Bro. Woodford states that though the paper-mark is of the early part of
the 18th century, experts will not deny that the language is that of the
17th. He believes, and very reasonably, that it represents the cerernonial
through which Ashmole passed in 1646.

As this is the only Old Record in which a single passage is to be found

which, by the most liberal exegesis, can be construed even into an
allusion to the existence of a Third degree with a separate ritual before
the end of the second decade of the 18th century, it may be well to quote
such passages of the manuscript as appear to have any bearing on the
question.

The methods of recognition for Fellow-Crafts and Masters is thus

described in the Sloane MS.:

"Their gripe for fellow craftes is grasping their right hands in each other,
thrusting their thumb naile upon the third joynt of each others first Fing'r;
their masters gripe is grasping their right hands in each other; placing
their four fingers nailes hard upon the carpus or end of others wrists, and
their thumb nailes thrust hard directly between the second joynt of the
thumb and the third joynt of the first Finger; but some say the mast'rs grip
is the same I last described, only each of their middle Fing'rs must reach
an inch or three barley corns length higher to touch upon a vein y't comes
from the heart."

No indication is to be found in this passage of the existence at the time of

three degrees and three separate rituals. All that it tells us is that the
Fellow-Crafts were provided with one form of salutation and the Masters
with another, and we are left in uncertainty whether these forms used by
one class were unknown to the other, or whether the forms were openly
used only to distinguish one class from the other, as the number of stripes
on the arm distinguish the grades of non-commissioned officers in the
army.

That the latter was the use would appear evident from the fact that the
close of the passage leaves it uncertain that the "gripes" were not
identical, or at least with a very minute difference. "Some say," adds the
writer, "the Master's grip is the same" as the FellowCraft's - "only" - and
then he gives the hardly appreciable variation.

Here is another passage which appears to show that no value was

attached to the use of the grip as marking a degree, though it might be
employed to distinguish a rank or class.

"Another salutation," says the manuscript, "is giving the Masters or fellows
grip, saying the right worshipful the mast'rs and fellows in that right
worshipful lodge from whence we last came, greet you, greet you, greet
you well, then he will reply, God's good greeting to you, dear brother."

Here I take it that all that is meant is that the Masters saluted with the grip
peculiar to their class, and the Fellows that peculiar to theirs. But what
has become of the Apprentices ? Did they salute with the grip of the
Fellows or that of the Masters? If so, they must have been acquainted
with one or both, and then the secret instruction incidental to the condition
of degrees and a distinct ritual must be abandoned, or the Apprentices
were not admitted to the privileges of the Craft, and were debarred from a
recognition as members of a lodge.

Let the following questions and answers decide that point. They are
contained in the manuscript, and there called "a private discourse by way
of question and answer."

"Q. Where were you made a mason ?

"A. In a just and perfect or just and lawful lodge.

"Q. What is a perfect or just and lawful lodge ?

"A. A just and perfect lodge is two Interprintices two fellow crafts, and two
Mast'rs, more or fewer, the more the merrier, the fewer the better chear,
but if need require five will serve, that is, two Interprintices, two fellow
crafted and one Mast'r on the highest hill or the lowest valley of the world
without the crow of a cock or the bark of a dog."

This was no lodge of Master Masons, nor of Fellow-Crafts, nor of Entered

Apprentices, as they have been distinguished since the establishment of
degrees. It was simply a lodge of Freemasons to legalize and perfect
whose character it was necessary that representatives of all the classes
should be present. The Apprentices forming a part of the lodge must have
been privy to all its secrets; and this idea is sustained by all the Old
Constitutions and "Charges" in which the Apprentices are enjoined to
keep the secrets of the lodge.

The manuscript speaks of two words, "the Mast'r Word" and " the Mason
word." The latter is said to have been given in a certain form, which is
described. It is possible that the former may have been communicated to
Masters as a privilege attached to their rank, while the latter was
communicated to the whole Craft. In a later ritual it has been seen that
there were two words, "the Jerusalem Word" and "the universal word," but
both were known to the whole Fraternity. The Sloane MS. does not
positively state that the two words used in its ritual were like these two, or
that the Master's was confined to one class. It is, however, likely that this
Word was a privileged mark of distinction to be used only by the Masters,
though possibly known to the rest of the Fraternity. How else could it be
given in the lodge where the three classes were present ? Bro. Lyon has
arrived at the same conclusion. He says: " It is our opinion that in primitive
times there were no secrots communicated by Lodges to either fellows or
craft or master's that were not known to apprentices, seeing that members
of the latter grade were necessary to the legal constitution of
communications for the admission of masters or fellows." (1) The
argument, indeed, appears to be unanswerable.

The Word might, however, as has been suggested, have been whispered
by the Master communicating it to the one to whom it was communicated.
If this were so, it supplies us with the origin of the modern Past Master's
degree. But even then it could only be considered as a privileged mark of
a rank or class of the Crafts men and not as the evidence of a degree.

I will merely suggest, but I will not press the argument, that it is not
impossible that by a clerical mistake, or through some confusion in the
mind of the writer, "Mast'r Word" may have been written for "Mason
Word," an expression which has been made familiar to us in the minutes
of the Scottish lodges, and which is the onlv word the secrecy of which is
required by the oath that is contained in the manuscript. On the other
hand, " Master Word " is a phrase not met with in any other manuscript,
Scotch or English.

The "Oath," which forms a part of the Sloane MS., supplies itself the
strongest proof that, during the period in which it formed a part of the
ritual, that ritual must have been one common to the three classes; in
other words, there could have been but one degree, because there was
but one obligation of secrecy imposed, and the secrets, whatever they
were, must have been known to all Freemasons, to the Apprentices as
well as on to the Master. The "Oath" is in the following words:

"The Mason Word and everything therein contained you shall keep
secret, you shall never put it in writing directly or indirectly; you shall keep
all that we or your attenders shall bid you keep secret from man, woman
or child, stock or stone, and never reveal it but to a brother or in a Lodge
of Freemasons, and truly observe the charges in the Constitution; all this
you promise and swear faithfully to keep and observe, without any
manner of equivocation or mental reservation, directly or indirectly; so
help you God and the contents of this Book."

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.

The "Mason Word," with the secrets connected with it, formed a very
prominent part of the ritual of the Scotch Freemasons, though there is no
reference to it in any of the English manuscripts except in the Sloane.

In fact, so important was this word considered as to be sometimes

figuratively employed to designate the whole body of the Fraternity. Thus,
in a record of the Musselburgh Lodge, in December, 1700, where
complaint is made of the great disorders into which the lodge had fallen, it
is said, among other evils, that the practice of Fellow Grafts encouraging
Apprentices to take work as journeymen, " at last, by degrees, will bring
all law and order and consequently the Mason Word to contempt " (1) -
where, evidently by a figure of speech, it is meant that the Fraternity or
Craft of Masonry will be brought to contempt.

In the Lodge of Edinburgh, which was the principal Lodge of Scotland,

and whose records have been best preserved, the Masons or employers
were, up to the beginning of the 18th century, the dominant power, and
seldom called the Fellows or Craftsmen of an inferior class, who were
only journeymen, into their counsel.

The controversy between the Masters and journeymen, which led, in

1712, to the establishment of a new lodge, are faithfully de scribed by
Bro. Lyon from the original records. (2) It is sufficient here to say that one
of the principal grievances complained of by the latter was in respect to
the giving of the Mason Word, with the secrets connected with it and the
fees arising from it. The Masters claimed the right to confer it and to
dispose of the fee, so to speak, of initiation.

Finally, the controversy was partially ended by arbitration. The "Decreet-

Arbitral," as is the Scottish legal phrase, or award of the arbitrators made
on January 17, 1715, has been recorded, and has been published by Bro.
Lyon. The only point of importance to the present subject is that the
arbitrators decreed that the journeymen Masons, that is, the Fellow-
Crafts, should be allowed "to meet together by themselves, as a Society
for giving the Mason Word and to receive dues therefor."

From this fact it is clearly evident that the knowledge of the

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 175.

(2) Ibid., p. 140

"Mason Word" and the secrets pertaining to it formed no part of a degree

exclusively confined to the Masters, but that all esoteric knowledge in
connection with this subject was also the property of the Fellow-Crafts,
and of the Apprentices, too, because it has been shown that they were
required to be present at all lodge meetings.

The expression, "Mason Word," which is common in the Scottish lodge

records, has been, so far, found only in one English manuscript, the
Sloane 3329. But as the theory is now generally accepted as having been
proved, that the Scottish Freemasons derived their secrets from their
English brethren, there can hardly be a doubt that the regulations relative
to this Word must have been nearly the same in both countries.

That this was the case after the organization of the Grand Lodge of
England, there can be no doubt. It is proved by the visit of Dr. Desaguliers
to Edinburgh in 1721, and long before. Bro. Lyon was aware of that visit.
He had, from other considerations, expressed the opinion " that the
system of Masonic degrees which for nearly a century and a half has
been known in Scotland as Freemasonry, was an importation from
England." (1)

What this "Mason Word" was, either in England or Scotland, we have, at

this day, no means of knowing. But we do know from the records of the
17th century, which have been preserved, that it was the most important,
and in Scotland perhaps the only, secret that was communicated to the
Craft.
"The Word," says Bro. Lyon, "is the only secret that is even alluded to in
the minutes of Mary's Chapel, or in those of Kilwinning, Acheson's Haven,
or Dunblane, or any other that we have examined of a date prior to the
erection of the Grand Lodge." (2)

We know also that in England, in Scotland, and in Germany, the giving of

the Word was accompanied by a grip and by the communication of other
secrets.

But we know also, positively, that this Word and these secrets were
bestowed upon Fellows as well as Masters, and also, as we have every
reason to infer, upon Apprentices.

Besides the proofs that we derive from old Masonic records, we have a
right to draw our inferences from the prevalence of similar customs among
other crafts.

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 153

(2) Ibid., p. 22.

Thus, the carpenters, wrights, joiners, slaters, and other crafts who were
connected in the art of building with the Masons, were called in Scotland
"Squaremen," and they had a secret word which was called the
"Squaremen Word." This word, with a grip and sign, was communicated to
both journeymen and apprentices in a ceremony called the "brithering." A
portion of this ceremony which was performed in a closely guarded
apartment of a public-house was the investiture with a leather apron. (1)

I can not doubt that the communication of the "Mason Word and the
secrets pertaining to it" was accompanied by similar ceremonies in
Scotland, and by a parity of reasoning also in England.

The final conclusion to which we must arrive from the proofs which have
been adduced, is that as there was no such system as that of degrees
known to the mediaeval Operative Freemasons, that no such system was
practiced by the Speculative Freemasons who in 1717 instituted the
Grand Lodge of England, until at least two years after its organization;
that in 1719 the two degrees of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft were
invented; and that subsequently the present system of symbolic or ancient
Craft degrees was perfected by the fabrication of a new degree, now
recognized as the Third or Master Mason's degree.

At what precise time and under what circumstances this Third degree was
invented and introduced into the Grand Lodge system of modern
Freemasonry, is the next subject that must engage our attention.

(1) Lyon's "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE INVENTION OF THE THIRD OR MASTER MASON'S DEGREE

WE have seen that up to the year 1719 the Masonic ritualistic system
consisted of but one degree, which was common to the whole. and the
secrets of which were communicated to the Apprentice at his initiation, or
as it was, perhaps, more properly called, in reference to the paucity of
ceremonies, his admission. At that time Desaguliers and his collaborators
originated a Second degree, to be appropriated to the Fellow-Crafts. To
do this it was necessary, or, at least, it was deemed expedient, to
disintegrate the primitive degree and out of it to make two degrees, those
of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft.

For a short time - how long is to be hereafter seen - the Masonic system
consisted of two degrees, and the summit of the system was the Fellow-
Craft's degree.

From this time the Fellow-Crafts began to take a prominent place in the
business of Masonry, and the Apprentice lost some of the importance he
had obtained in early times as a component part of the Craft and an equal
participant with Masters and Fellows in its secrets. He was permitted, it is
true, to be present at the meetings of the lodge, and to take his share in
its business (except, of course, where candidates were to be "passed "),
and even to vote in the Grand Lodge on the question of an alteration of
the "General Regulations," but the offices were to be held and the lodge
represented in the Grand Lodge by Fellow-Crafts only. Of this there is
abundant evidence in contemporary documents.

The first edition of Anderson's Constitutions contains "the Charges of a

Free-mason, extracted from the Records of Lodges beyond Sea." The
exact date when these "Charges" were compiled is not known. It must
have been after 1718, for they distinctly refer to the Fellow-Craft's degree,
and it must have been before the beginning of 1723, for that is the year of
their publication. It is, however, certain from their phraseology that when
they were compiled for the use of the lodges, the Fellow-Craft's degree
had been instituted, but the Master's degree was not yet known. For this
reason I am inclined to place the date between 1718, in which year
Anderson tells us that "several old copies of the Gothic Constitutions were
produced and collated," and 1721, when he submitted his manuscript,
including the "Charges" and "Regulations" to the Grand Lodge. There is
no date prefixed to the "Charges," but I think it not improbable that they
were constructed by Payne in 1720, at the same time that he compiled the
"General Regulations." It is certain that they must have been in existence
on December 27, 1721, when a committee was appointed by the Grand
Lodge to examine them and the Constitutions. And this date sufficiently
accounts for the fact that there are no allusions in them to the Master's
degree.

These "Charges," therefore, give us a very good idea of the status of

Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts in English Masonry at the time when the
system consisted of two degrees, and the "part of Master" had not yet
been composed.

In Charge IV. it is said that if the Apprentice has learned his art, he then
may in due time be made a Fellow-Craft, and then if otherwise qualified
may become a Warden and successively Master of his lodge, the Grand
Warden, and at length the Grand Master.

Here we see that at that time the Fellow-Craft was at the summit of the
Fraternity so far as degrees and qualifications for promotions in rank were
concerned. Nothing is said of the degree of Master; it was still simply as
in primitive times - a gradation of rank.

In the same Charge we are told that "no Brother can be a Warden until he
has passed the part of a Fellow-Craft, nor a Master (1) until he has acted
as a Warden; nor Grand Warden until he has been Master of a lodge; nor
Grand Master unless he has been a Fellow Craft before his election."

It is very evident that at this time there could be no degree higher than
that of the Fellow-Craft. If there had been, that higher degree would have
been made the necessary qualification

(1) That is, Master of a Lodge, as the context shows.

for these high offices. We are not without the proof of how these
"Charges" would have been made to read had the degree of Master
Mason been in existence at the time of their compilation.

Notwithstanding that Speculative Freemasonry owes much to Dr.

Anderson, we are forced to reluctantly admit that, as an historian, he was
inexact and inaccurate, and that while he often substituted the inventions
of tradition for the facts of history, he also often modified the phraseology
of old documents to suit his own views.

In 1738 he published a second edition of the Book of Constitutions, a

work which, although at first perhaps carelessly approved, was
subsequently condemned by the Grand Lodge. In this work he inserted a
copy of these "Charges." But now the Master's degree had been long
recognized and practiced by the lodges as the summit of the ritual.

Now let us see how these "Charges" were modified by Dr. Anderson in
this second edition, so as to meet the altered condition of the Masonic
system. The Apprentice is no longer admonished, as he was in the first
edition, that his ambition should be to become a Fellow-Craft and in time
a Warden, a Master of a Lodge, a Grand Warden, and even a Grand
Master. But in the copy of 1738 he is told that "when of age and expert he
may become an Entered Prentice, or a Free-Mason of the lowest degree,
and upon his due improvement a Fellow-Craft and a Master Mason."

Again, in the "Charges" of 1720, (1) it is said that is "no brother can be a
Warden until he has passed the part of a Fellow-Craft."

In the "Charges" of 1738, it is said that "the Wardens are chosen from
among the Master Masons."

In Charge V. of 1720 it is directed that "the most expert of the Fellow

Crafts shall be chosen or appointed the Master or Overseer of the Lord's
Work."

In the same Charge, published in 1738, it is prescribed that "a Master

Mason only must be the Surveyor or Master of Work."

Now, what else can be inferred from this collation of the two editions
(which, if deemed necessary, could have been much further extended),
except that in 1720 the Fellow-Craft was the highest degree,

(1) I assume this date for convenience of reference, and because, as I

have already shown, it is probably correct.

and that after that year and long before 1738 the Master's degree had
been invented.

But let us try to get a little nearer to the exact date of the introduction of
the Third degree into the Masonic system.

The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, commonly called the Book of

Constitutions, was ordered by the Grand Lodge, on March 25, 1722, to be
printed and was actually printed in that year, for it was presented by Dr.
Anderson to the Grand Lodge "in print" on January 17, 1723. So that
although the work bears on its title-page the imprint of 1723, it must really
be considered as having been controlled in its composition by the
opinions and the condition of things that existed in the year 1722.

Now, in the body of this book there is no reference to the degree of

Master Mason. It is true that on page 33 the author speaks of is such as
were admitted Master Masons or Masters of the Work," by which
expression he evidently meant not those who had received a higher
degree, but those who in the "Charges" contained in the same book were
said to be "chosen or appointed the Master or Overseer of the Lord's
Work," and who the same Charge declares should be "the most expert of
the Fellow-Craftsmen."

On the contrary, when speaking of the laws, forms, and usages practiced
in the early lodges by the Saxon and Scottish kings, he says: Neither
what was conveyed nor the manner how, can be communicated by
writing; as no man can indeed understand it without the key of a Fellow-
Craft." (2)

So that in 1722, when this note was written, there was no higher degree
than that of Fellow-Craft, because the Fellow-Crafts were, as being at the
summit of the ritual, in possession of the key to all the oral and esoteric
instructions of the Craft.

Guided by the spirit of the "General Regulations," printed in the first

edition of Anderson's Constitutions, I am induced to place the invention of
the Third degree in the year 1722, although, as will be hereafter seen, it
did not get into general use until a later period. The investigations which
have led me to this conviction were pursued in the following train, and I
trust that the reader, if he will follow

(1) Its preparation by Dr. Anderson had been previously directed on

September 29, 1721. This and the date of its publication in January,
1723, lead us irresistibly to the conclusion that the work was written in
1722.
(2)Anderson's "Constitutions," 1st edition, p. 29, note.

the same train of investigation with me, will arrive at the same conclusion.
In pursuing this train of argument, it will be unavoidably necessary to
repeat some of what has been said before. But the subject is so important
that a needful repetition will be surely excused for the sake of explicitness
in the reasoning.

The "General Regulations" were published in the first edition of the Book
of Constitutions, edited by Anderson. This edition bears the imprint of
1723, but Anderson himself tells us that the work was " in print " and
produced before the Grand Lodge on the 17th of January in that year.
Hence, it is evident that although the work was published in 1723, it was
actually printed in 1722. Whatever, therefore, is contained in the body of
that work must refer to the condition of things in that year, unless
Anderson may (as I shall endeavor to show he has done) have made
some slight alteration or interpolation, toward the end of 1722 or the very
beginning of 1723, while the book was passing through the press.

I have shown by the sold Charges," whose assumed date is 1720, that at
that time the degree of Fellow-Craft was the highest recognized or known
in Speculative Freemasonry, and I shall now attempt to prove from the
"General Regulations" that the same condition existed in 1722, the year in
which those "Regulations" were printed.

The "General Regulations" consist of thirty-nine articles, and throughout

the whole composition, except in one instance, which I believe to be an
interpolation, there is not one word said of Master Masons, but the only
words used are Brethren and Fellow-Crafts - Brethren being a generic
term which includes both Fellows and Apprentices.

Thus it is said (art. vi.), that "no man can be entered a Brother in any
particular Lodge or admitted to be a Member thereof without the
unanimous consent of all the members."

That is, no man can be made an Entered Apprentice, nor having been
made elsewhere, be affiliated in that particular lodge.

Again (art. vii.), "every new Brother, at his making, is decently to cloath
the Lodge." That is, every Apprentice at his making, etc.

The word "Brother," although a generic term, has in these instances a

specific signification which is determined by the context of the sentence.

The making of a Brother was the entering of an Apprentice, a term we still

use when speaking of the making of a Mason. The Fellow-Craft was
admitted, or, as Ashmole says in his Diary, "admitted into the Fellowship
of Freemasons."

Lyon,' referring to the nomenclature of the Scottish lodges "of the olden
time," says, that the words "made" and "accepted" were frequently used
as indicating the admission of Fellow-Crafts, but he adds that the former
was sometimes, though rarely, used to denote the entry of Apprentices.
He states, however, that toward the end of the 17th century these words
gave way to the expression "passed," to indicate the reception of a
Fellow-Craft, and that the Lodge of Mary's Chapel, at about that time,
used the word "accepted" as equivalent to the making or passing of a
Fellow Craft. But the Schaw statutes of 1598, which are among the very
oldest of the Scottish records extant, employs the word "entered" in
reference to the making of an Apprentice, and received or "admitted" in
reference to the making of a Fellow-Craft.

I think, however, that in the English lodges, or at least in the "General

Regulations" of 1720, the words "making a Brother" meant, as it does in
the present day, the initiation of an Entered Apprentice, and that Fellow-
Crafts were "admitted." The word 'passed" soon afterward came into use.

With this explanation of certain technical terms which appeared to be

necessary in this place, let us proceed to examine from the document
itself what was the status of Fellow-Crafts at the time of the compilation of
the "General Regulations" by Grand Master Payne, in 1720, and their
adoption in 1722 by the Grand Lodge. From this examination I contend
that it will be found that at that period there was in Freemasonry only two
degrees, those of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft.
It will be admitted that in a secret society no one has such opportunities of
undetected "eavesdropping" as the guardian of the portal, and hence, the
modern ritual of Freemasonry requires that the Tiler shall be in
possession of the highest degree worked by the body which he tiles.

Now the 13th General Regulation prescribes that a Brother "who must be
a Fellow-Craft should be appointed to look after the door of the Grand
Lodge."

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 76.

But it may be argued that the Grand Lodge always met and worked in the
Entered Apprentices' degree, and that Apprentices as well as Fellow-
Crafts were present at its communications.

I admit the fact, and acknowledge that from this point of view my argument
would be untenable. But why was not the office of Tiler entrusted to an
Entered Apprentice ? Because, if there were three degrees at the time, it
would have been manifestly improper to have bestowed this trustworthy
and responsible office on one who was in possession of only the lowest.
And if it was prudent and proper, as I suppose will be admitted, that it
should have been bestowed on one of the highest degree, why was it not
given to a Master Mason ? Simply, I reply, because there were no Master
Masons, as a degree class, from whom the selection could be made. As
the laws of every lodge at the present day prescribe that the Tiler must be
a Master Mason, because the Third degree is the highest one known to or
practiced in the lodge, so the laws of the Grand Lodge in 1723, or the
"General Regulations," required the Tiler to be a Fellow-Craft because
the Second degree was the highest one known to or practiced in the
Grand Lodge at that time. It would seem hardly to need an argument to
prove that if the Third degree had been in practical existence when these
"Regulations" were approved by the Grand Lodge, they would have
directed that the guardian of the door should be in possession of that
degree.

Another clause in this 13th Regulation is very significant. The Treasurer

and Secretary of the Grand Lodge are permitted to have, each, a clerk,
and it is directed that he "must be a Brother and Fellow-Craft." Again, and
for a silnilar reason, the officer is selected from the highest degree. Had
the Third degree been known at that time, these assistants would surely
have been chosen from among the Master Masons; for if not, theywould
have had to be sometimes entrusted with the records of the transactions
of a degree of which they had no right to possess a knowledge.

In the 14th Regulation it is prescribed that in the absence of the Grand

Wardens the Grand Master may order private Wardens, that is, the
Wardens of a subordinate lodge, to act as Grand Wardens pro fempore,
and then, that the representation of that lodge in the Grand Lodge may be
preserved, the lodge is to supply their place, not by two Master Masons,
but "by two Fellow-Crafts of the same lodge, called forth to act or sent
thither by the particular Master thereof."

The fact that the second was the highest degree known in the early part
of the year 1723 is confirmed by the formula inserted in the first edition of
the Book of Constitutions, and which is there entitled "the Manner of
Constituting a New Lodge, as practiced by his Grace the Duke of
Wharton, the present Right Worshipful Grand Master, according to the
ancient usages of Masons." It was, according to Anderson's record in the
second edition, presented to the Grand Lodge and approved on January
17, 1723. It is therefore a fair testimony as to the condition of the degree
question at that date.

In this formula it is said that 'the new Master and Wardens being yet
among the Fellow-Craft" the Grand Master shall ask his Deputy if he has
examined them and finds the Candidate well skilled, etc. And this being
answered in the affirmative, he is duly installed, after which the new
Master, "calling forth two Fellow-Craft, presents them to the Grand Master
for his approbation," after which they are installed as Wardens of the
lodge. (1)

This, I think, is conclusive evidence that the degree of Fellow Craft was
then the highest known or used. In January, 1723, it did not require a
Mason to be more than a Fellow-Craft to prove himself, as Wharton's form
of Constitution has it, " well skilled in the noble science and the Royal Art,
and duly instructed in our mysteries, and competent to preside as Master
over a lodge."

In the 25th of these "General Regulations" it is directed that a committee

shall be formed at the time of the Grand Feast, to examine every person
bringing a ticket, "to discourse him, if they think fit, in order to admit or
debar him as they shall see cause." It was, in fact, an examining
committee, to inquire into the qualifications of applicants for admission to
the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge. The members of such a
committee must necessarily have been in possession of the highest
degree practiced by the Grand Lodge. It is very evident that a Fellow-
Craft was not competent to examine into the qualifications and
attainments of a Master Mason. Yet the Regulation prescribes that to
compose

(1) Anderson's "Constitutions," edition of 1723, pp. 71, 72.

such a committee "the Masters of lodges shall each appoint one

experienced and discreet Fellow-Craft of his lodge."

But there is evidence in these "Regulations," not only that Fellow-Crafts

were in 1723 appointed to the responsible offices of Tilers, Wardens, and
Committees of Examination, but that they were competent to fill the next
to the highest office in the Craft. The 17th Regulation says that " if the
Deputy Grand Master be sick, or necessarily absent, the Grand Master
may chuse any Fellow-Craft he pleases to be his Deputy pro tempore."

This, I think, is as conclusive proof as legitimate logical deduction can

produce, that at the beginning of the year 1723, which was the date of the
publication of these "Regulations" for the governrnent of the Grand
Lodge, the degree of Fellow-Craft was the highest practiced by the Grand
Lodge, and that the degree of Master Mason was not then known or
recognized in the system of Speculative Freemasonry. A Fellow-Craft
presiding over Master Masons would indeed be a Masonic anomaly of
which it would require something more than a blind reverence for the
claims of antiquity to extort belief.

The citations that I have made seem to me to leave no doubt on the mind.
The whole spirit and tenor of these "General Regulations," as well as the
"Form of Constituting a new Lodge," which is so closely appended to
them as to make, as it were, a part of them, go to prove that at the time
they were approved by the Grand Lodge, which was on January 17, 1723,
there were but two degrees recognized in Speculative Freemasonry,
namely, those of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft; and that at that
time the degree of Master Mason constituted no part of the system.

That Anderson himself placed the same interpretation on these passages,

and was perfectly aware of the deduction to be made from them, is
evident from the fact that when he next published these "General
Regulations," which was in the second edition of the Book of
Constitutions, in 1738, at which time there is no doubt of the existence of
the Master's degree, he almost invariably changed the words "Fellow-
Craft" to "Master Mason."

And, accordingly, we find that in 1738 the Wardens, the Tiler, and the
Assistant Treasurer and Secretary were required to be Master Masons.
The change had taken place, and the Third degree had been adopted
between the years 1723 and 1738.

But those who deny this theory and contend that the Third degree is of
greater antiquity, and was known and practiced long before the beginning
of the 18th century, would quote against my argument the words
contained in the 13th Regulation, which words are as follows:

Apprentices must be admitted Masters and Fellow-Craft only here (in the
Grand Lodge) unless by a dispensation."

I candidly admit that if this passage be proved to be a genuine part of the

original "General Regulations," compiled in 1720 by Grand Master Payne
and approved in 1723 by the Grand Lodge, the question would be
decided at once and we could no longer doubt that the Third degree was
in existence not only in 1723, but three years before, that is, in 1720.

But I do not hesitate to assert that this passage is an interpolation by

Anderson and Desaguliers, made for a certain purpose, and I think that
this assertion is capable of critical proof.

In criticism there are two methods of determining whether a suspected

passage in an ancient work or an old document is genuine or spurious.

The first method is by the collation of other editions or manuscripts. If, in

the examination of an ancient manuscript, a certain passage is found
which is not met with in any other manuscripts of an anterior or a
contemporary date, it is deduced from this collation that the passage is an
interpolation by the writer of that particular manuscript, because if it were
genuine and a part of the original writing it would have been found in all
the older manuscripts, from one of which it must have been copied.

It is by this method of reasoning that the most eminent Biblical critics have
arrived at the conclusion that the celebrated passage in the First Epistle
General of St. John (v. 7) is an interpolation. Since it is not found in any of
the earlier Greek manuscripts of the Epistle, it must, they argue, have
been subsequently inserted, perhaps from a marginal commentary, either
carelessly or designedly, by some later copyist whose error has been
followed by all succeeding scribes. This is criticism from external
evidence.

But there are other instances in which it is not possible to collate the book
or manuscript which contains the suspected passage with others of an
earlier date. Where there is but one copy extant there can, of course, be
no comparison. In such cases it becomes necessary to determine whether
the passage be genuine or spurious by what the critics call the method by
internal evidence.

If the suspected passage is found to contain the expression of opinions

which, we are led to believe from the known character of the author, he
could not have uttered; or, if the statements which it sets forth are plainly
in conflict with other statements made in the same work; or if it be found in
a part of the work where it does not harmonize with the preceding and
following portions of the context; or, in short, if the whole spirit and tenor
of the other writings of the same author are in unmistaken opposition to
the spirit and tenor of the passage under review; and, above all, if a
reasonable motive can be suggested which may have given occasion to
the interpolation, then the critic, guided by all or most of these reasons,
will not hesitate to declare that the suspected passage is spurious; that it
formed no part of the original book or manuscript, and that it is an
interpolation made subsequent to the original composition. This is
criticism from internal evidence.

It is by this method that the critics have been led to the conclusion that a
certain passage in the Antiquities of Flavius Josephus, in which he
eulogizes Jesus, was not written, and could not have been written, by the
Jewish historian. Not only does its insertion very awkwardly interrupt the
continuity of the narrative in which the author was engaged at the time,
but the sentiments of the passage are wholly irreconcilable with the
character of Josephus. As a Pharisee, at least professedly, he was
influenced by all the prejudices of his sect and his nation against the new
sect of Christians and its founder. Such a man never could have vouched,
as the writer of this passage does, for the Messiahship, the miraculous
powers, and the resurrection of Jesus.

Hence it is now believed by nearly all scholars that the passage was
interpolated as a "pious fraud" by some early Christian who was anxious
to enlist in favor of his religion the authority of one of the most eminent of
its adversaries.

It is now my purpose to apply these principles to an investigation of the

only passage in the "General Regulations" which furnishes any evidence
of the existence of the Third degree at the time when they were compiled.

As the copy of the "General Regulations" contained in Anderson's

Constitutions of 1723 is the first edition; as the original manuscript copy is
lost; and as there were no previously printed copies, it is impossible,
through comparison and collation, to prove from external evidence that
the passage referring to the Third degree is spurious.

We must then have recourse to the second method of critical

investigation, that is, by internal evidence.

And submitted to this test, the suspected passage fails, I think, to

maintain a claim to genuineness.

Although the first edition of the Constitutions is now readily accessible in

consequence of its numerous reprints, still, for the sake of convenience to
the reader, in the discussion I shall copy the whole of the paragraph in
which the suspected passage is contained, marking that passage by
italics.

The passage will be found in the first paragraph of Article XIII. of the
"General Regulations," and is in these words:
"At the said Quarterly Communications, all Matters that concern the
Fraternity in general, or particular Lodges or single Brothers, are quietly,
sedately, and maturely to be discours'd of and transacted: Apprentices
must be admitted Masters and FellowCraft only here unless by a
Dispensatson. Here also all Differences that can not be made up and
accommodated privately, nor by a particular Lodge, are to be seriously
considered and decided; And if any Brother thinks himself aggrieved by
the decision of this Board, he may appeal to the annual Grand Lodge next
coming, and leave his Appeal in Writing, with the Grand Master or his
Deputy, or the Grand Wardens."

Anyone not prepossessed with the theory of the antiquity of the Third
degree who will look at this paragraph will, I think, be struck with the
suspicious incongruity of the clause in italics in relation to the parts that
precede and follow it. I will endeavor to demonstrate this point as follows:

The 13th Article of the "General Regulations" is divided into eight

paragraphs. Each of these paragraphs is wholly independent and
homogeneous in respect to its subject-matter. Each is devoted to the
consideration of one subject only, to the exclusion of all others.

Thus the first paragraph relates to matters that concern lodges and
private brethren, such as differences that can not be settled otherwise
than by the Grand Lodge. The second paragraph relates to the returns of
lodges and the mode and manner of making them. The third relates to the
charity fund and the most effectual method of collecting and disposing of
money for that purpose. The fourth to the appointment of a Treasurer and
a Secretary for the Grand Lodge, and to their duties. The fifth to the
appointment of a clerk for each of those officers. The sixth to the mode of
inspecting their books and accounts. The seventh to the appointment of a
Tiler to look after the door of the Grand Lodge. And the eighth provides
for the making of a new regulation for the government of these officers
whenever it may be deemed expedient.

Thus it will be seen, from this synopsis, that each of these paragraphs
embraces but one subject. Whatever is begun to be treated at the
opening of a paragraph is continued without interruption and without the
admission of any other matter to its close.

This methodical arrangement has, in fact, been preserved throughout the

whole of the thirty-nine "Regulations." No Regulation will be found which
embodies the consideration of two different and irrelevant subjects.

So uniformly is this rule observed that it may properly be called a peculiar

characteristic of the style of the writer, and a deviation from it becomes,
according to the axioms of criticism, at once suspicious.

Now this deviation occurs only in the first paragraph of the 13th Article,
the one which has been printed above.

That paragraph, as originally written, related to the disputes and

difference which might arise between particular lodges and between
single brethren, and prescribed the mode in which they should be settled
when they could not "be made up and accommodated privately." Leaving
out the lines which I have printed in italics, we will find that the paragraph
is divided into three clauses, each separated from the other by a colon.

The first clause directs that all matters that concern the Fraternity in
general, particular lodges or single brethren, "are quietly, sedately, and
maturely to be discoursed of and transacted" in the Grand Lodge. It is to
questions that might arise between lodges and brethren - questions which
in modern phraseology are called grievances - that the clause evidently
refers. And in the Grand Lodge only are such questions to be discussed,
because it is only there that they can be definitely settled.

The second clause continues the same subject, and extends it to those
differences of brethren which can not be accommodated privately by the
lodges of which they are members.

And the third clause provides that if the decision made by the Grand
Lodge at its Quarterly Communication is not satisfactory to the parties
interested, it may be carried up, by appeal, to the Grand Lodge in its
Annual Communication.

Now, it is evident that this whole paragraph is intended to explain the

duties of the Quarterly Communication as a Board of Inquiry in respect to
matters in dispute between lodges and between the Craft, and the
paragraph itself calls the decision of the Grand Lodge on these occasions
the "Decision of this Board."

Viewed in this way, this first paragraph of the 13th Article is entirely
congruous in all its parts, refers to but one subject, and is a perfect
specimen of the style adopted by the compiler and pursued by him in all
the other portions of the "Regulations" without a single exception - a style
plain, simple, and methodical, yet as marked and isolated from other
styles as is the Doric roughness of Carlyle or the diffusiveness of De
Quincey from the manner of composition of other authors in a more
elevated class of literature.

But if we insert the passage printed in italics between the first and second
clauses, we will at once see the incongruity which is introduced by the
interpolation.

Placed as it is between the first and second clauses, it breaks the

continuity of the subject. A regulation which refers to the differences and
disputes among the Craft, and the mode of settling them, is disjointed and
interrupted by another one relating to an entirely different subject -
namely, the initiation of Master Masons and Fellow-Crafts.

What has the subject of initiation to do with that of fraternal or lodge

disputes? Why should a regulation relating to degrees be mixed up with
another of a totally distinct and different character?

Judging, as we are not only authorized but compelled, as critical

observers, to do, from the style of the compiler of the "Regulations" and
the uniform custom pursued by him, we feel certain that if this passage
formed a genuine part of the "Regulations," he would have placed it in an
independent paragraph. That this has not been done affords a strong
presumption that the passage is an interpolation, and that it formed no
part of the "Regulations" when compiled about the year 1720, most
probably by Grand Master Payne, at the same time that he compiled the
"Charges" printed in the same volume.

Still more suspicious is the fact that except in this passage there is not in
the "General Regulations" the slightest allusion to Master Masons or to
the Master's degree. As has already been shown, the whole spirit and
tenor of the "Regulations" is to the effect that the highest grade in
Freemasonry at that time, and the one from which all officers were to be
selected, was that of Fellow-Craft. It is impossible to believe that if, at the
time of the preparation of the "Regulations" and their approval by the
Grand Lodge, the degree of Master Mason was in existence, it would
have been passed over in such complete silence, and all important
matters referred to a subordinate degree.

Hence I again deduce the conclusion that at the time of the compiling of
these "Regulations" and their approval by the Grand Lodge, the Third
degree was not in existence as a part of Speculative Masonry.

And then I assume as a logical deduction from these premises that the
clause in the first paragraph of the 13th General Regulation is an
interpolation inserted in those "Regulations" between the time of their
being approved and the time of their final passage through the press.

It is barely possible that the suspected clause may have been inserted in
the copy presented to the Grand Lodge on March 25, 1722, for
examination and approval, and have escaped the attention of the
reviewers from the fact that it was obscurely placed in the center of a
paragraph relating to an entirely different subject. Or the Committee may
have concurred with Desaguliers and Anderson in the policy of
anticipating the control of the degree when it should be presented to the
Craft, by an ante factum regulation.

Be that as it may, the passage formed neither then nor at any time
thereafter a genuine part of the "General Regulations," although from its
appearance in the printed copies it was as a mere matter of course
accepted as a part of the law. It was, however, soon afterward repealed
and a regulation was adopted on November 22, 1725, which remitted to
the Master and Wardens, with a competent number of the lodge, the
power of making Masters and Fellows at discretion.

The questions next arise, by whom, at what time, and for what purpose
was this interpolation inserted ?

By whom ? I answer, by Anderson at the instigation of Desaguliers, under

whose direction and with whose assistance the former had compiled the
first edition of the Book of Constitutions. (1)

At what time ? This question is more difficult to answer than the preceding
one. At the communication of the Grand Lodge, September 29, 1721,
Anderson was ordered to prepare the Book of Constitutions. On
December 27, 1721, the manuscript was presented to the Grand Lodge
and referred to a committee. On March 25, 1722, the Committee reported
and the work was ordered to be printed. On January 17, 1723, Anderson
produced the new Book of Constitutions, which was again approved, "with
the addition of the Ancient manner of constituting a lodge."

Now, between September, 1721, when the book was ordered to be

prepared, and March, 1722, when the work was approved and ordered to
be printed, the passage could not have existed as a regulation, because,
in the first place, it was directly antagonistic to the body of the work, in
which there is no mention of the Third degree; (2) but, on the contrary, it
is distinctly stated that the FellowCrafts were in possession of all the
secrets, and they alone could understand them. (3) And, secondly, any
such regulation would come in direct conflict with the "Manner of
Constituting a Lodge" approved at the same time, and which, completely
ignoring the Master's degree, directed the Master and Wardens to be
selected from among the Fellow-Crafts of the lodge. The Master's degree
could not have been known at that time as a part of the system of
(1) This edition is dedicated to the Duke of Montague, not by Anderson,
but by Desaguliers, with an air of patronage to the author, as if it were a
work accomplished by his direction.
(2) In describing the Temple of Solomon, Anderson, it is true, enumerates
among the workmen " 3,600 Princes or Master Masons, to conduct the
work according to Solomon's directions." (Page 10.) But it is very clear
that these were simply "Masters of the Work" - the "Magistri Operis" of the
old Operative Freemasons - skilled Craftsmen appointed to superintend
the bands or lodges of workmen engaged in the construction of the
building.
(3) In a note on a page of the "Book of Constitutions," Anderson says: "No
man can indeed understand it (Masonry) without the key of a Fellow-
Craft." Certainly, he at that time knew nothing of a higher degree. This
passage was probably written in 1721, when he was directed by the
Grand Lodge to compile a "Book of Constitutions." Much of the proposed
work was then in manuscript.

Freemasonry, and no regulation in reference to it was therefore

necessary.

Anderson has by implication admitted the soundness of this reasoning,

because when he published the second edition of the Constitution in
1738, the Third degree being then a recognized part of the system, he
changed the words "Fellow Crafts" whereever they occurred in the
"Charges," as indicating the highest degree in the "Regulations," and in
the "Manner of Constituting a Lodge," to the words "Master Mason."

I think, therefore, that the suspected clause was inserted in the 13th
Regulation at the beginning of the year 1723, just before the work was
issued from the press. There was neither time nor opportunity to make
any other changes in the book and its appendices, and therefore this
clause stands in reference to all the other parts of the Constitutions,
Regulations, etc., in all the incongruity which I have endeavored to
demonstrate.

For what purpose? The reply to this question will involve the
determination of the time at which the Third degree was introduced into
the ritual of Freemasonry. The theory which I present on this subject is as
follows:

If the suspected clause which has been under consideration be admitted

to be no genuine part of the Book of Constitutions, then it must follow that
there is not the slightest evidence of the existence of the Third degree in
the Ritual of Speculative Masonry up to the year 1723.

It is now very generally admitted that the arrangement of Freemasonry

into the present system of three degrees was the work of Dr. Desaguliers,
assisted by Anderson, Payne, and perhaps some other collaborators. The
perfecting of this system was of very slow growth. At first there was but
the one degree, which had been derived from the Operative Masons of
preceding centuries. This was the degree practiced in 1717, when the so-
called "Revival" took place. It was no doubt improved by Desaguliers, who
was Grand Master in 1719, and who probably about that time began his
ritualistic experiments. The fact that Payne, in 1718, "desired any
brethren to bring to the Grand Lodge any old writings and records
concerning Masons and Masonry in order to shew the usages of antient
times," (1) exhibits a disposition and preparation for improvement.
(1) "Book of Constitutions," 2d edition, 1738.

The First and Second degrees had been modeled out of the one primitive
degree about the year 1719. The "Charges" compiled in 1720 by Grand
Master Payne recognize the Fellow-Craft as the leading degree and the
one from which the officers of lodges and of the Grand Lodge were to be
selected. The same recognition is found in the "General Regulations,"
and in the Constitutions which were printed in 1723.

Up to this time we find no notice of the Third degree. The "particular

lodges " conferred only the First degree. Admission or initiation into the
Second degree was done in the Grand Lodge. This was perhaps owing to
the fact that Desaguliers and the inventors of the new degree were
unwilling to place it out of their immediate control, lest improper persons
might be admitted or the ceremonies be imperfectly performed.

In 1722 I imagine that Desaguliers and his collaborators had directed

their attention to a further and more complete organization.

The Operative Masons had always had three different ranks or classes of
workmen, but not degrees in the modern Masonic sense of that word.
These were the Masters, who undertook the work and superintended it;
the Fellow-Crafts or Journeymen, who did the manual labor; and the
Apprentices, who were engaged in acquiring a knowledge of their
handicraft.

After the "Revival," in 1717 (I use the term under protest), Desaguliers
had divided the one degree which had been common to the three classes
into two, making the degrees of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft. It is
not to be supposed that this was a mere division of the esoteric instruction
into two parts. All is here, of course, mere guess-work. The rituals were
oral, and there is no memorial of them left except what we can learn from
The Grand Mystery and the Sloane MS. 3329. But we may believe that
taking the primitive degree of the Operatives as a foundation, there was
built upon it an enlarged superstructure of ceremonies and lectures. The
catechism of the degree was probably changed and improved, and the
"Mason Word," as the Operatives had called it, with the secrets
connected with it, was transferred to the Second degrees to be afterward
again transferred to the Third degree.

After this, Desaguliers continued to exercise his inventive genius, and

consummated the series of degrees by adding one to be appropriated to
the highest class, or that of the Masters. But not having thoroughly
perfected the ritual of the degree until after the time of publication of the
Book of Constitutions, it was not probably disseminated among the Craft
until the year 1723.

The Second degree, as we have seen, had been invented in the year
1719. Its ritual had been completed, but the Masters of the lodges had not
yet become so well acquainted with its forms and ceremonies as to be
capable of managing an initiation.

The lodges, therefore, between 1719 and 1723, did not confer the Second
degree. They were not restricted from so doing by any regulation, for
there were no regulations on the subject enacted until the approval of the
Book of Constitutions by the Grand Lodge in January, 1723. Besides, if
there had been any law restricting the conferring of the Second degree lo
the Grand Lodge, Desaguliers would not have violated the law, which was
of his own making, by conferring it in 1721 in a lodge in Edinburgh.
The fact undoubtedly is, that the lodges did not confer the Second degree
in consequence of a usage derived from necessity. Dr. Desaguliers and
his collaborators were the only persons in possession of the ritual, and
therefore qualified to confer the degree, which they always did in the
Grand Lodge, for two reasons: first, for their own convenience, and
secondly, because they feared that if the ceremony of initiation was
intrusted to the officers of the lodges who were inexperienced and
unskillful, it might be mutilated or unsatisfactorily performed.

In the meantime Desaguliers had extended his labors as a ritualmaker,

and had invented a supplementary or Third degree. But as is said of a
cardinal whose appointment the Pope has made but has not yet
announced to the college of Cardinals, the degree was still in petto. The
knowledge of it was confined to Dr. Desaguliers and a few of his friends.

It is absolutely impossible that the degree could have been known

generally to the members of the Grand Lodge. For with the knowledge
that the establishment of such a degree was even in contemplation, they
would not have approved a series of regulations which recognized
throughout the Second or Fellow-Craft as the highest degree in
Speculative Freemasonry, and the one from which Grand Masters were in
future to be selected.

But a code of laws was about to be established for the government of the
Craft - a code expressly appropriated to the new system of Speculative
Freemasonry, which by this time had completely dissevered itself from the
Operative institution.

This code was to be published for the information of the Fraternity, so that
every Freemason might know what was to be henceforth his duties and
his rights. Law was now to become paramount to usage, and if there were
no positive regulation which restricted the conferring of the Second
degree to the Grand Lodge, it would, if permanently adopted as a part of
the new system, fall into the hands of the Masters of the particular lodges.

This was an evil which, for the reason already assigned, was, if possible,
to be avoided. It would also apply to the Third degree, which, though not
yet in practical existence, was, soon after the adoption of the "General
Regulations," to be presented to the Grand Lodge and put in working
order.

Therefore, anticipating the dissemination of the Third degree, and being

desirous to restrict it as well as the Second, by a positive law, to the
Grand Lodge, he, with Anderson, interpolated, at the last moment, into the
13th of the "General Regulations" the words, "Apprentices must be
admitted Masters and Fellow-Craft only here, unless by dispensation."

This is a serious charge to make against any writer of good reputation,

and it would be an act of great temerity to do so, unless there were ample
proof to sustain it. But I think the arguments I have advanced, though only
based on legitimate inferences and the internal evidence afforded by the
document itself, have shown that this passage could never have formed a
part of the "Regulations" as originally compiled by Payne and afterward
approved and adopted by the Grand Lodge.

But while we pay all due respect to the memory of Dr. Anderson, and hold
in grateful remembrance his zeal and devotion in the foundation and
advancement of Speculative Freemasonry, it is impossible to concede to
him the possession of those virtues of accuracy and truthfulness which
are essential to the character of an historian.

The motive of Desaguliers and Anderson for inserting the interpolated

clause into the "General Regulations" was to prevent the two new
degrees from falling into the hands of unskilled Masters of lodges, until by
future experience they should become qualified to confer them.

(Facsimile reprint from the original edition of the "Book of Constitutions.")

THE
CONSTITUTIONS
OF THE
FREE-MASONS.

CONTAINING THE

History, Charges, Regulations, &c. of that most Ancient and Right

Worshipful FRATERNITY

For the Use of the LODGES.

LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM HUNTER, for JOHN SENEX at the Globe, and JOHN
HOOKE at the Flower-de-luce over-against St. Dunstan's Church, in
Fleet-Street.

In the Year of Masonry 5723

Anno Domini 1723

THE

CONSTITUTION.

History, Laws, Charges, Orders,

Regulations, and Usages,

OF THE
Right Worshipful FRATERNITY of

Accepted Free MASONS;

COLLECTED

From their generaI RECORDS, and their faithful TRADITIONS of many

Ages.

TO BE READ

At the Admission of a NEW BROTHER, when the Master or Warden shall

begin, or order some other Brother to read as follows:

ADAM, our first Parent, created after the Image of God, the great
Architect of the Universe, must have had the Liberal Sciences, particularly
Geometry, written on his Heart; for even since the Fall, we find the
Principles of it in the Hearts of his Offspring, and which, in process of
time, have been drawn forth into con

(49)
THE
CHARGES
OF A

FREE-MASON,

EXTRACTED FROM
The ancient RECORDS of LODGES beyond Sea, and of those in
England, Scotland, and Ireland, for the use of the Lodges in LONDON:

TO BE READ

At the making of NEW BRETHREN, or when the MASTER shall order it.

The General Reads, viz.

I. Of GOD and RELIGION

II. Of the CIVIL MAGISTRATE Supreme and Subordinate.

III. Of LODGES.

IV. Of MASTERS, Wardens, Fellows, and Apprentices.

V. Of the Management of the Craft in working

VI. Of BEHAVIOUR, viz.

1. In the Lodge while constituted.

2. After the Lodge is over and the Brethren not gone.

3. When Brethren meet without Strangers, but not in a Lodge

4. In Presence of Strangers not Masons.

5. At Home, and in the Neighbourhood

6. Towards a strange Brother,

(50)

I Cocerning GOD and RELIGION.

A Mason is oblig'd, 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 charg'd 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 Center of Union, and the Means of conciliating true
Friendship among Persons that must have remain'd at a perpetual
Distance.

II. Of the CIVIL MAGISTRATE Supreme and Subordinate.

A Mason is a peaceable Subject to the Civil Powers, wherever he resides

or works, and is never to be concern'd in Plots and Conspiracies against
the Peace and Welfare of the Nation, nor to behave himself undutifully to
inferior Magistrates; for as Masonry hath been always injured by War,
Bloodshed, and Confusion, so ancient Kings and Princes have been
much dispos'd to encourage the Craftsmen, because of their
Peaceableness and Loyalty, whereby they practically answer'd the Cavils
of their Adversaries, and promoted the Honour of the Fraternity, who ever
flourish'd in Times of Peace. So that if a Brother should be a Rebel
against the State, he is not to be countenanc'd in his Rebellion, however
he may be pitied as an unhappy Man; and, if convicted of no other Crime,
though the loyal Brotherhood must and ought to disown his Rebellion, and
give no Umbrage or Ground of political Jealousy to the Government for
the time being; they cannot expel him from the Lodge, and his Relation to
it remains indefeasible.

(51)

III. Of LODGES.

A LODGE is Place where Masons assemble and work: Hence that

Assembly, or duly organizd Society of Masons, is call'd a Lodge, and
every Brother ought to belong to one, and to be subject to its By-Laws
and the GENERAL REGULATIONS. It is either particular or general, and
will be left understood by attending it, and by the Regulations of the
General or Grand Lodge hereunto annex'd. In ancient Times, no Master
or Fellow could be absent from it, especially when warn'd to appear at it,
without incurring a severe Censure, until it appear'd to the Master and
Wardens, that pure Necessity hinder'd him.

The Persons admitted Members of a Lodge must be good and tre Men,
free-born, and of mature and discreet Age, no Bondmen, no Women, no
immoral or scandalous Men, but of good Report.

IV Of MASTERS, WARDENS, FELLOWS, and Apprentices.

All Preferment among Masons is grounded upon real Worth and personal
Merit only; that so the Lords may be well served, the Brethren not put to
Shame, nor the Royal Craft despis'd: Therefore no Master or Warden is
chosen by Seniority, but for his Merit. It is impossible to describe these
things in writing, and every Brother must attend in his Place, and learn
them in a way peculiar to this Fraternity: Only Candidates may know, that
no Master should take an Apprentice, unless he has sufficient Imployment
for him, and unless he be a perfect Youth, having no Maim or Defect in
his Body, that may render him uncapable of learning the Art, of Serving
his Master's LORD, and of being made a Brother, and then a Fellow-Craft
in due time, even after he has served such a Term of Years as the
Custom of the Country directs; and that be should be descended of
honest Parents; that so, when otherwise qualify'd he may arrive to the
Honour of being the WARDEN, and then the Master of the Lodge, the
Grand Warden, and at length GRAND MASTER of all the Lodges
according to his Merit.

(52)

No Brother can be a WARDEN until he has passd the part of a Fellow-

Craft; nor a MASTER until he has acted as a Warden, nor a GRAND-
WARDEN until he has been Master of a Lodge, nor Grand Master unless
he has been a Fellow-Craft before his Election, who is also to be nobly
born, or a Gentleman of the best Fashion, or some eminent Scholar, or
some curious Architect, or other Artist, descended of honest Parents, and
who is of singular great Merit in the Opinion of the Lodges. And for the
better, and easier, and more by honourable Discharge of his Office, the
Grand-Master has a Power to chuse his own DEPUTY GRAND-MASTER,
who must be then, or must have been formerly, the Master of a particular
Lodge, and has the Privilege of acting whatever the GRAND-MASTER,
his Principal, should act, unless the said Principal be Present, or
interpose his Authority by a Letter.

These Rulers and Governors, Supreme and Subordinate, of the ancient

Lodge, are to be obey'd in their respective Stations by all the Brethren,
according to the old Charges and Regulations, with all Humility,
Reverance, Love, and Alacrity.

V. Of the Management of the CRAFT in working

All Masons shall work honestly on working Days, that they may live
creditably on holy Day; and the time appointed by the Law of the Land, or
confirm'd by Custom, shall be observ'd;

The most expert of the Fellow-Craftsmen shall be chosen or appointed

the Master, or Overseer of the Lord's Work; who is to be call'd MASTER
by those that work under him. The Craftsman are to avoid all ill Language,
and to call each other by no disobliging Name, but Brother or Fellow; and
to behave themselves courteously within and without the Lodge.

The Master, knowing himself to be able of Cunning, shall undertake the

Lord's Work as reasonably as possible, and truly dispend his Goods as if
they were his.own; nor to give more Wages to any Brother or Apprentice
than he really may deserve.

Both the Master and the Masons receiving their Wages justly, shall be
faithful to the Lord, and honesty finish their Work, whether Task

(53)

or Journey, nor put the Work to Task that hath been acoustom'd to
Journey.

None shall discover Envy at the Prosperity of a Brother, nor supplant him,
or put him out of his Work, if he be capable to finish the fame; for no Man
can finish another's Work so much to the Lord's Profit, unless he be
thoroughly acquainted with the Designs and Draughts of him that began
it.

When a Fellow-Craftsman is chosen Warden of the Work under the

Master, he shall be true both to Master and Fellows, shall carefully
oversee the Work in the Masters Absence to the Lord's Profit; and his
Brethren shall obey him.

All Masons employ'd, shall meekly receive their Wages without

Murmuring or Mutiny, and not desert the Master till the Work is finish'd.

A younger Brother shall be instructed in working, to prevent spoiling the

Materials for want of Judgment, and for encreasing and continuing of
Brotherly Love.

All the Tools used in working shall be approved by the Grand Lodge.

No Labourer shall be employ'd in the proper Work of Masonry; nor shall

Free Masons work with those that are not free, without an urgent
Necessity; nor shall they teach Labourers and unaccepted Masons, as
they should teach a Brother or Fellow.

VI. Of BEHAVIOUR, VIZ.

1. In the Lodge while constituted.

You are not to hold private Committees, or Separate Conversation,

without Leave from the Master, nor to talk of anything impertinent or
unseemly, nor interrupt the Master or Wardens, or any Brother speaking
to the Master: Nor behave yourself ludicrously or priestingly while the
Lodge is engaged in what is serious and solemn; nor use any
unbecoming Language upon any Pretence whatsoever;

(54)

but to pay due Reverence to your Master, Wardens and Fellows, and put
them to worship

If any Complaint be brought, the Brother find guilty shall stand to the
Award and Determination of the Lodge, who are the proper and
competent Judges of all such Controversies, (unless you carry it by
Appeal to the GRAND LODGE) and to whom they ought to be referr'd,
unless a Lord's Work be hinder'd the mean while, in which Cafe a
particular Reference may be made; but you must never go to Law about
what concerneth Masonry, without an absolute Necessity apparent to the
Lodge.

2. Behaviour after the LODGE is over and the Brethren not gone.

You may enjoy yourselves with innocent Mirth, treating one another
according to Ability, but avoiding all Excess, or forcing any brother to eat
or drink beyond his Inclinations or hindering him from going when his
Occasions call him, or doing or saying anything offensive, or that may
forbid an easy and free Conversation; for that would blast our Harmony,
and defeat our laudable purposes. Therefore no Private Piques or
Quarrels must be brought within the Door of the Lodge, far less any
Quarrels about Religion, or Nations, or State Policy, we being only, as
Masons, of the Catholick Religion above-mention'd; we are also of all
Nations, Tongues, Kindreds, and Languages, and are resolv'd against all
politicks, as what never yet conduc'd to the Welfare of the Lodge, nor
ever will. This Charge has been always strictly enjoin'd and observ'd; but
especially ever since the Reformation in BRITAIN, or the Different and
Secession of these Nations from the Communion of ROME.

3. Behaviour when Brethren meet without Strangers, but not in a Lodge

form'd

You are to salute one another in a courteous manner, as you will be

instructed, calling each other Brother, freely giving mutual Instruction as
shall be thought expedient, without being overseen or over

(55)

heard, and without encroaching upon each other, or derogating from that
respect which is due to any brother, were he not a Mason: For though all
Masons are as Brethren upon the same Level, yet Masonry takes no
Honour from a Man that he had before; nay rather it adds to his Honour,
especially if he has deferv'd well of the Brotherhood, who must give
Honour to whom it is due, and avoid ill Manners.
4. Behaviour in Presence of STRANGERS not Masons.

You shall be cautious in your Words and Carriage, that the most
penetrating stranger shall not be able to discover or find out what is not
proper to be intimated; and sometimes you shall divert a Discourse, and
manage it prudently for the Honour of the worshipful Fraternity.

5. Behaviour at HOME, and in your Neighbourhood.

You are to act as becomes a moral and wise Man; particularly, not to let
your Family, Friends and Neighbours know the Concerns of the Lodge,
&c. but wisely to consult your own Honour, and that of the ancient
Brotherbood, for Reasons not to be mention'd here. You must also consult
your Health, by not continuing together too late, or too long from home,
after Lodge Hours are past; and by avoiding of Gluttony or Drunkenness,
that your Families be not neglected or injured, nor you disabled from
working.

6. Behaviour towards a strange Brother

You are cautiously to examine him, in such a Method as Prudence shall

direct you, that you may not be impos'd upon by an ignorant false
Pretender, whom you are to reject with Contempt and Derision, and
beware of giving him any Hints of Knowledge.

But if you discover him to be a true and genuine Brother, you are to
respect him accordingly; and if he is in want, you must relieve him if you
can, or else direct him how he may be reliev'd: You must employ

(56)

him some Days, or else recommend him to be employ'd. But you are not
charged to do beyond your Ability, only to prefer a poor Brother, that is a
good Man and true, before any other poor People in the same
Circumstances.

FINALLLY, All these Charges you are to observe, and also those that
shall be communicated to you in another way; cultivating BROTHERLY
LOVE, the Foundation and Cape-stone, the Cement and Glory of this
ancient Fraternity, avoiding all wrangling and Quarrelling, all Slander and
Backbiting, nor permitting others to slander any honest Brother, but
defending his Character, and doing him all good Offices, as far as is
confident with your Honour and Safety, and no farther. And if any of them
do you Injury, you must apply to your own or his lodge; and from thence
you may appeal to the GRAND LODGE at the Quarterly Communications
and from thence to the annual GRAND LODGE, as has been the ancient
laudable Conduct of our forefathers in every Nation; never taking a legal
Course but when the Case cannot be otherwise decided, and patiently
listening to the honest and friendly Advice of Master and Fellows, when
they would prevent your going to Law with Strangers, or would excite you
to put a speedy Period to all Law-Suits, that so you may mind the Affair of
MASONRY with the more Alacrity and Success; but with respect to
Brother or Fellows at Law, the Master and Brethren should kindly offer
their Mediation, which ought to be thankfully submitted to by the
contending Brethren; and if that Submission is impracticable, they must
however carry on their Process, or Law-Suit, without Wrath and Rancor
(not in the common way) saying or doing nothing which may hinder
Brotherly Love, and good Offices to be renew'd and continu'd; that all may
see the benign Influence of MASONRY, as all true Masons have done
from the Beginning of the World, and will do to the End of Time.
Amen so mote it be

They were not long, it appears, in becoming qualified, or at least the

doubts of their qualification were soon dispelled, for we find that on the
22d of November, 1725, less than three years after its appearance in the
Book of Constitutions, the Regulation was rescinded, and it was ordered
by the Grand Lodge that "the Master of a lodge, with his Wardens and a
competent number of the lodge assembled in due form, can make
Masters and Fellows at discretion." (1)

It might be argued that although the words "Master Mason" may be an

interpolation, the rule regulating the conferring of the Second degree
might well have formed a part of the original "Regulations," seeing that
they were not compiled until after the invention of the Second degree.

But the argument founded on the incongruity of subjects and the awkward
interruption of their continuity in the paragraph occasioned by the
insertion of the suspected words, is applicable to the whole passage. If
the internal evidence advanced is effective against a single word of the
passage on these grounds, it is effective against all.

But Bro. Lyon, in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, (2) has supplied
us with an authentic document, which presents the strongest presumptive
evidence of three facts. 1. That the Second degree had been invented
before the year 1721, and at that time constituted a part of the new
Speculative system. 2. That in the English lodges there was no positive
law forbidding the conferring of it by them, but only a recognized usage.
3. That in the year 1721 the Third degree had not been invented.

In the year 1721 Dr. Desaguliers paid a visit to Edinburgh and placed
himself in communication with the Freemasons of that city.

A record of the most important Masonic event that occurred during that
visit is preserved in the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh for the 24th
and 25th of August, 1721. This record has been published by Bro. Lyon in
his history of that lodge. It is in the following words:

"Att Maries chapped the 24 of August, 1721 years, James Wattson,

present deacon of the Masons of Edinbr., Preses. The which day Doctor
John Theophilus Desaguliers, fellow of the Royall Societie, and chaplain
in Ordinary to his Grace, James, Duke of Chandois. late Generall Master
of the Mason Lodges in England,

(1) Anderson's "Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 161.

(2) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 151.

being in town and desirous to have a conference with the Deacon,

Warden, and Master Masons of Edinbr., which was accordingly granted,
and finding him duly qualified in all points of Masonry, they received him
as a Brother into their Societie."

"Likeas, upon the 25th day of the sd. moneth the Deacon, Wardens,
Masters, and several other members of the Societie, together with the sd.
Doctor Desaguliers, haveing mett att Maries Chapell, there was a
supplication presented to them by John Campbell, Esqr., Lord Provost of
Edinbr., George Preston and Hugh Hathorn, Baillies; James Nimo, the
asurer; William Livingston, Deacon-convener of the Trades thereof, and
George Irving, Clerk to the Dean of Guild Court, and humbly craving to be
admitted members of the sd. Societie; which being considered by them,
they granted the desire thereof, and the saids honourable persons were
admitted and receaved Entered Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts
accordingly."

"And sicklike upon the 28th day of the said moneth there was another
petition given in by Sr. Duncan Campbell of Lochnell, Barronet; Robert
Wightman, Esqr., present Dean of Gild of Edr.; George Drummond, Esq.,
late Theasurer thereof; Archibald M'Aulay, late Bailly there; and Patrick
Lindsay, merchant there, craveing the like benefit, which was also
granted, and they were receaved as members of the societie as the other
persons above mentioned. The same day James Key and Thomas
Aikman, servants to James Wattson, deacon of the masons, were
admitted and receaved entered apprentices, and payed to James Mack,
Warden, the ordinary dues as such. Ro. Alison, Clerk."

I agree with Bro. Lyon that "there can be but one opinion as to the nature
and object of Dr. Desaguliers's visit to the Lodge of Edinburgh." And that
was the introduction into Scotland of the new system of Masonry recently
fabricated by himself for the lodges of London. That he conferred only the
First and Second degrees is to me satisfactory proof that the Third had
not been arranged.

Lyon says "it is more than probable that on both occasions (the two
meetings of the Lodge recorded above) the ceremony of entering and
passing would, as far as the circumstances of the lodges would permit, be
conducted by Desaguliers himself in accordance with the ritual he xvas
anxious to introduce." (1)

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 153.

This is undoubtedly true; but why did he not complete the instruction by
conferring the Third degree ? Bro. Lyon's explanation here is wholly
untenable:

"It was not," he says, "till 1722-23 that the English regulation restricting
the conferring of the Third Degree to Grand Lodge was repealed. This
may account for the Doctor confining himself to the two lesser degrees."

Bro. Lyon, usually so accurate, has here unaccountably fallen into two
important errors.

First, the regulation alluded to was not repealed in 1723 but was only
promulgated in that year. The repeal took place in 1725.

His next error is that the restriction was confined to the Third degree,
while in fact, if we accept the passage in the "General Regulations" as
genuine, it restricted, as we have seen, the conferring of both the Second
and Third degrees to the Grand Lodge.

Therefore, if Desaguliers had considered himself as governed by this

regulation (which, however, was impossible, seeing that it had not been
enacted until after his visit to Edinburgh), he would have been restrained
from conferring the Second as well as the Third degree.
That he conferred the Second degree in a lodge of Edinburgh,
notwithstanding the usage in London of conferring it only in the Grand
Lodge, may be accounted for on the very reasonable supposition that he
did not consider that the English usage was binding on Scottish Masons.

Besides, there was, at that time, no Grand Lodge in Scotland, and if he

had not conferred the degree in a lodge, the object of his visit would have
been frustrated, and that was to introduce into the sister kingdom the new
system of Speculative Freemasonry which he had invented and which had
been just adopted in England or rather in London.

But that he should have taken a long and arduous journey to Edinburgh (a
journey far more arduous than it is in the present day of railroads) for the
purpose of introducing into the Scotch lodges the ritual invented by him
for English Freemasonry, and yet have left the task uncompleted by
omitting to communicate the most important part of the degree which was
at the summit, is incomprehensible, unless we suppose that the Third
degree had not, at that time, been invented.

For if the language of the "General Regulations" receives the only

interpretation of which they are capable, it is evident that in the beginning
of the year 1723, when they were published in the Book of Constitutions,
the degree of Fellow-Craft was the highest degree known to the
Freemasons of London.

It is the belief of all Masonic scholars, except a few who still cling with
more or less tenacity to the old legends and traditions, that the Third
degree can not be historically traced to a period earlier than the second
decade of the 18th century. It has not, however, been hitherto attempted
by anyone, so far as I am aware, to indicate the precise time of its
invention.

The general opinion seems to have been that it was first introduced into
the ritual of Speculative Freemasonry a very short time after the
organization of the Grand Lodge in London, in the year 1717. But I think
that I have conclusively and satisfactorily proved that the actual period of
its introduction as a working degree was not until six years afterward,
namely, in the year 1723, and after the publication of the first edition of
the Book of Constitutions, and that the only passage referring to it in that
work or in the "General Regulations" appended to it, was surreptitiously
inserted in anticipation of its intended introduction.

The first writer who questioned the antiquity of the Third degree as
conferred under the Grand Lodge was Laurence Dermott, the Grand
Secretary, and afterward the Deputy Grand Master of that body of
Freemasons which, in the year 1753, seceded from the legal Grand
Lodge of England and constituted what is known in Masonic history as the
"Grand Lodge of Ancients," the members thus distinguishing themselves
from the constitutional Grand Lodge, which they stigmatized as
"Moderns." In the second edition of the Ahiman Rezon, published in 1764,
he has, in the part called "A Philacteria," the following statement in
reference to the Third degree: (1)

"About the year 1717 some joyous companions who had passed the
degree of a craft (though very rusty) resolved to form a lodge for
themselves, in order (by conversation) to recollect what had been
formerly dictated to them, or, if that should be found impracticable, to
substitute something new, which might for the future
(1) This statement is not contained in the 1st edition, published in 1756.

pass for Masonry amongst themselves. At this meeting the question was
asked, whether any person in the assembly knew the Master's part, and
being answered in the negative, it was resolved nem. con. that the
deficiency should be made up with a new composition, and what
fragments of the old order found amongst them, should be immediately
reformed and made more pliable to the humours of the people."

I should be unwilling to cite the unsupported testimony of Dermott for

anything in reference to the "Modern" because of his excessive partisan
spirit. But the extract just given may be considered simply as confirming
all the evidence heretofore produced, that after the year 1717 a "Master's
part" or Third degree had been fabricated. Dermott's details, which were
intended as a sneer upon the Constitution Grand Lodge, should pass for
nothing.

As for Dermott's assertion that the true Master's degree, as it existed

before the Revival, was in the possession of the Grand Lodge of the
Ancients, as it was called, it is not only false, but absolutely absurd, for if
the Ancients were in possession of a Third degree which had been in
existence before the year 1717, and the Moderns were not, where did the
former get it, since they sprang out of the latter and carried with them only
the knowledge which they possessed as a part of that Grand Lodge ?

Dr. Oliver, notwithstanding his excessive credulity in respect to the myths

and legends of Freemasonry, has from time to time in his various writings
expressed his doubts as to "the extreme antiquity of the present
arrangement of the three degrees." (1) In one of his latest works (2) he
admits that Desaguliers and Anderson were accused of the fabrication of
the Hiramic legend and of the manufacture of the degree by their
seceding contemporaries, which accusation, he says, they did not deny.
(3)

Findel says: "Originally, it seems, there was but one degree ot initiation in
the year 1717. . . . The introduction of the degrees of Fellow-Craft and
Master Mason took place in so imperceptible

(1) State of Freemasonry in the 18th Century. Introduction to his edition of

Hutchinson.
(2) "The Freemason's Treasury," Spencer, 1863.
(3) This is an example of the carelessness with which Masonic writers
were accustomed to make their statements. The "seceding
contemporaries" of Oliver consisted simply of Laurence Dermott, who first
made the accusation, and when he made it, both Desaguliers and
Anderson were dead.

a manner, that we do not know the accurate date. No mention is made of

them before 1720, even not yet in the Book of Constitutions of 1722. (1)

I do not, however, concur with this learned German writer in his

hypothesis that the Third degree originated as a reward for Masonic
merits, especially to be conferred on all the brethren who had passed the
chair from 1717 to 1720. Doubtless, as soon as it was invented it was
conferred on all who were or had been Masters of lodges, but Findel
places too low an estimate on the design of the degree. I think rather that
it was intended by Desaguliers to develop the religious and philosophic
sentiment in Speculative Freemasonry which it was his intention to
establish. It is probable that the "eloquent Oration about Masons and
Masonry," which Anderson tells us he delivered before the Grand Lodge
in 1721, but which is unfortunately lost, contained a foreshadowing of hls
views on this subject.

Bro. Hughan, who is of the very highest authority on all points of the
documentary history of English Masonry, settles the question in the
following remarks: (2)

"The sublime degree of a Master Mason, alias the 'Third degree,' may be
very ancient, but, so far, the evidence respecting its history goes no
farther back than the early part of the last century. Few writers on the
subject appear to base their observations on facts, but prefer the
'traditions' (so called) derived from old Masons. We, however, give the
preference to the minutes and bylaws of lodges, as all of which we have
either seen, traced, or obtained copies of, unequivocally prove the degree
of Master Mason to be an early introduction of the Revivalists of A.D.
1717. No record prior to the second decade of the last century ever
mentions Masonic degrees, and all the MSS. preserved decidedly confirm
us in the belief that in the mere Operative (although partly speculative)
career of Freemasonry the ceremony of reception was of a most
unpretentious and simple character, mainly for the communication of
certain lyrics and secrets, and for the conservation of ancient customs of
the craft."

Hughan cites a MS. (No. 23,202) in the British Museum showing that the
rules of a Musical and Architectural Society formed in

(1) "History of Freemasonry," Lyon's Translation, p. 150.

(2) See Voice of Masonry for August, 1873.

February, 1724, in London, required its members to be Master Masons.

This might be, and yet the degree not have been fabricated until January,
1723.

He also cites the minutes of a lodge held at Lincoln (England). From

these minutes it appears that in December, 1734, the body of the lodge
consisted of Fellow-Crafts; and when the "two new Wardens, as well as
several other Brothers of the lodge, well qualified and worthy of the
degree of Master had not been called thereto," the Master directed a
lodge of Masters to be held for the purpose of admitting these candidates
to the Third degree.

Hence, as Bro. Hughan says, the lodge at that time worked the degree
only at intervals. And he concludes, I think, correctly, that as there was a
rule prescribing the fee when a "Brother made in another lodge shall be
passed Master in this," that "all lodges had not authority or did not work
the degree in question." I suppose they had the authority but not the
ability.

All this shows that the Third degree in 1734 was yet in its infancy.

The provision contained in the "General Regulations," which restricted the

conferring of the Second and Third degrees to the Grand Lodge was
rescinded on November 22, 1725, and yet we see that nine years
afterward the Third degree was not conferred in all the lodges.
It is a singular circumstance that in 1731, when the Duke of Lorraine was
made a Mason in a special lodge held at the Hague, notwithstanding that
Desaguliers presided over it, he received only the First and Second
degrees, and came afterward to England to have the Third conferred
upon him.

The first evidence of the Third degree being conferred in Scotland is in

the minutes of Canongate Kilwinning Lodge in a minute dated March 31,
1735. (1)

The degree is first referred to in the minutes of St. Mary's Chapel Lodge
under the date of November 1, 1738, when George Drummond, Esq., an
Entered Apprentice, "was past a Fellow-Craft and also raised as a Master
Mason in due form." (2)

According to Bro. Lyon, possession of the Third degree was not at this
period a necessary qualification to a seat in the Grand

(1) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 213.

(2) Ibid., p. 212.

Lodge of Scotland. For thirty years after its introduction into Mary's
Chapel it conferred no rights in the management of the lodge that were
not possessed by Fellow-Crafts.

It was not, in fact, until the year 1765 that Master Masons alone were
qualified to hold office.

Continental Speculative Masonry having derived its organized existence

from the Grand Lodge of England, must necessarily have borrowed its
forms and ceremonies and ritual from the same source, and consequently
received the Third degree at a still later period.

From all that has been said, I think that we are fairly entitled to deduce
the following conclusions:

1. When the four old Lodges of London met on June 24, 1717, at the
"Goose and Gridiron Tavern" and organized the Grand Lodge of England,
there was but one degree known to the Craft, to the esoteric instructions
of which all Freemasons were entitled.

2. Between 1717 and 1720, in which latter year the "Charges" and
probably the "General Regulations" were compiled by Grand Master
Payne, a severance of this primitive degree into two parts was effected,
and the Second or Fellow-Craft's degree was fabricated, the necessary
result being that what was left of the primitive degree, with doubtless
some modifications and even additions, was constituted as the Entered
Apprentice's degree.

3. A Third degree, called that of the Master Mason, was subsequently

fabricated so as to complete the series of three degrees of Speculative
Masonry as it now exists.

4. The Third degree, as an accomplished fact, was not fabricated before

the close of the year 1722, and was not made known to the Craft, or
worked as a degree of the new system, until the beginning of 1723.

5. The inventor or fabricator of this series of degrees was Dr. John

Theophilus Desaguliers, assisted by Anderson and probably a few other
collaborators, among whom I certainly would not omit the learned
antiquary, George Payne, who had twice been Grand Master.

In coming to these conclusions I omit all reference to the Legend of the

Third Degree as to the time or place when it was concocted, and whether
it was derived by Desaguliers, as has been asserted, from certain Jewish
rabbinical writers, or whether its earliest form is to be found in certain
traditions of the mediaeval Stonemasons.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE DEATH OF OPERATIVE AND THE BIRTH OF SPECULATIVE

FREEMASONRY

GROWTH, says Dr. South, "is progress, and all progress designs, and
tends to the acquisition of something, which the growing thing or person is
not yet possessed of."

This apothegm of the learned divine is peculiarly applicable to the history

of that system of Speculative Freemasonry which, springing into existence
at the "Apple Tree tavern," in London, at the close of the second decade
of the 18th century, made such progress in the acquisition of new
knowledge as to completely change its character soon after the beginning
of the third decade.

We have seen that it was derived from an older institution whose objects
were altogether practical, and whose members were always engaged in
the building of public edifices. But there were other members of the guild
who were not Operative Masons, but who had been admitted to the
privileges of membership for the sake of the prestige and influence which
the Fraternity expected to obtain from their learning, their wealth, or their
rank.

These unprofessional brethren, who were at first called Theoretic Masons

or Honorary members, but who afterward assumed the title of Speculative
Freemasons, began even in the very outset of what they were pleased,
most inaccurately, to call a Revival, to exercise an unexpected and
detrimental influence on the Operative Guild.

This influence was so exerted that Operative Freemasonry was gradually

extruded from the important place which it had so long occupied, and
finally, in and after the year 1723, ceased entirely to exist.

The gradual transformation from Operative to Speculative Free masonry

is one of the most interesting points in the history of the institution, and is
well worth our careful consideration.

Hardly more wonderful is the change from the insignificant acorn to the
majestic oak, than was this expansion of a guild of workingmen, limited in
their design and their numbers, into a Fraternity of moralists and
philosophers, whose object was the elevation of their fellow-men, and
whose influence has extended into every quarter of the civilized world.

Operative Freemasonry, which flourished in the Middle Ages and long

after as an association of skillful builders who were in the possession of
architectural secrets unknown to the ruder workmen of the same craft,
and who were bound to each other by a fraternal tie, no longer exists.
Like the massive cathedrals which it constructed, it has crumbled into
decay.

But Speculative Freemasonry, erected on its ruins, lives and will always
live, a perpetual memorial in its symbols and its technical language of the
source whence it sprang.

Let us inquire how the one died and how the other was born.

When on the 24th day of June in the year 1717 certain Freemasons of
London met at the "Goose and Gridiron Tavern" and carried into effect the
arrangement made in the previous February, by organizing a Grand
Lodge, it is not to be presumed that any other idea had at that time
entered their minds than that of consolidating the four Operative Lodges
of which they were members into one body. The motives that actuated
them were to produce a stronger union among the Craft than had
previously existed, each lodge having hitherto been independent and
isolated, and also to enlarge their numbers and to increase their
influence, by throwing the door more widely open to the admission of
gentlemen who were not otherwise connected with the Craft.

The fact is that the fashion then prevailed to a remarkable extent in

London for men of like sentiments or of the same occupation to form
themselves into clubs. The Freemasons, both Operative and Theoretic, in
thus uniting, were doing nothing else than following the fashion, and were
really instituting a club of a more elevated character and under a different
name.

Hence the consolidation of the four Lodges was called a Grand Lodge, a
title and an organization which had previously been unknown to English
Freemasonry. (1)

(1) It is not worth while to repeat the argument so often advanced, and by
which Masonic scholars have satisfied themselves that no Grand Lodge
ever existed in England before the year 1717.

There was no thought, at that early period, by those who were engaged in
the organization, of changing to any greater extent the character of the
society. It was still to be a Guild of Operative Freemasons, but consisting
more largely in proportion than ever before of members who were not
professional workmen.

"At the revival in 1717," says Dr. Oliver, "the philosophy of the Order was
seldom considered, and our facetious brethren did not think it worth their
while to raise any question respecting the validity of our legends; nor did
they concern themselves much about the truth of our traditions. Their
principal object was pass a pleasant hour in company with a select
assemblage of brethren; and that purpose being attained, they waived all
inquiry into the truth or probability of either the one or the other." (1)

The scanty records of the transaction, which Dr. Anderson, our only
authority, has supplied, make no mention of those distinguished persons
who afterward took a prominent part in affecting the transmutation of
Operative into Speculative Freemasonry, and who were indeed the
founders of the latter system.
It is said, though I know not on what authentic authority, that Dr.
Desaguliers, the corypheus of the band of reformers, had been admitted
five years before into the honorary membership of the Lodge which met at
the sign of the "Rummer and Grapes," and which was one of the four that
united in the formation of a Grand Lodge.

If this be true, and there are good reasons for believing it, it can not be
doubted that he was present at the organization of the Grand Lodge, and
that he took an active part in the proceedings of the meetings both in
February and in June, 1717.

Neither the names of Payne nor of Anderson, who subsequently became

the collaborators of Desaguliers in the formation of Speculative
Freemasonry, are mentioned in the brief records of those meetings. If
they were present or connected with the organization, the fact is not
recorded. Payne first appears in June, 1718, when he was elected Grand
Master; Desaguliers in 1719, when he was elected to the same office.
This would tend to show that both had been for some years in the
Fraternity, since new-comers would hardly have been chosen for those
positions.

(1) "Discrepancies of Freemasonry," p. 13.

It is not so certain that Anderson was a Freemason in 1717. It is not

improbable that he was soon afterward admitted, for in September, 1721,
he acquired such a reputation in the society as to have been selected by
the Duke of Montagu, who was then the Grand Master, to digest the old
Gothic Constitutions, a task of great importance.

Of one thing, however, there can be no doubt, that no one of these three
persons, who were afterward so distinguished for their services in
Speculative Freemasonry, had in 1717 been prominently placed before
the Craft. In the selection of an officer to preside over the newly
established Grand Lodge, the choice fell, not on one of them, but on a
comparatively insignificant person, Mr. Anthony Sayer. Of his subsequent
Masonic career, we only know that he was appointed by Desaguliers one
of the Grand Wardens. He is also recorded as having been the Senior
Warden at one of the four original Lodges after he had passed the Grand
Mastership. He afterward fell into financial difficulties, and having
received relief from the Grand Lodge, we hear no more of him in the
history of Freemasonry.

It is to Desaguliers, to Payne, and to Anderson that we are to attribute the

creation of that change in the organization of the system of English
Freemasonry which gradually led to the dissolution of the Operative
element, and the substitution in its place of one that was purely
Speculative. The three were members of the same lodge, were men of
education, (1) were interested in the institution, as is shown by their
regular attendance on the meetings of the Grand Lodge until near the
middle of the century, and were all zealously engaged in the investigation
of the old records of the institution, so as to fit them for the prosecution of
the peaceful revolution which they were seeking to accomplish.

Among the multitudinous books contributed by Dr. Oliver to the literature

of Freemasonry, is one entitled The Reversions of

(1) John Robison, a professor of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh, wrote

and published in 1797 an anti-masonic work entitled "Proofs of a
Conspiracy against all the Religions and Government in Europe," etc., the
falsehoods in which, unfortunately for the author's reputation, were
extended by French and Dutch translations. In this book he says of
Anderson and Desaguliers that they were "two persons of little education
and of low manners, who had aimed at little more than making a pretext,
not altogether contemptible, for a convivial meeting." (P. 71.) This is a fair
specimen of Robison's knowledge and judgment.

a Square, which contains much information concerning the condition of

the ritual and the progress of the institution during the early period now
under consideration. Unfortunately, there is such a blending of truth and
fiction in this work that it is difficult, on many occasions, to separate the
one from the other.

It is but fair, however, to admit the author's claim that his statements are
not to be accounted fabulous and without authority because its contents
are communicated through an imaginary medium," for, as he avers, he is
in possession of authentic vouchers for every transaction.

These vouchers consisted principally of the contents of a masonic diary

kept by his father, who had been initiated in 1784, and was acquainted
with a distinguished Freemason who had been a contemporary of
Desaguliers. With this brother the elder Oliver had held many
conversations, as well as with others of the 18th century. The substance
of these conversations he had committed to his diary, and this came into
the possession of his son, and is the basis on which he composed his
Revelations of a Square.

If Dr. Oliver had given in marginal notes or otherwise special references

to the diary and to other sources which he used as authorities for his
statements, I do not hesitate to say that The Revelations of a Square
would, by these proofs of authenticity, be the most valuable of all his
historical works.

Still, I am disposed to accept generally the statements of the work as

authentic, and if there be sometimes an appearance of the fabulous, it
can not be doubted that beneath the fiction there is always a considerable
substratum of truth.

According to Oliver, Desaguliers had at that early period determined to

renovate the Order, which was falling into decay, and had enlisted several
active and zealous brethren in the support of his plans. Among these
were Sayer and Payne, the firsf and second Grand Masters, and Elliott
and Lamball, the first two Wardens, with several others whose names
have not elsewhere been transmitted to posterity. (1)

There is nothing unreasonable nor improbable in this statement. It is very

likely that Desaguliers and a few of his friends had seen and deplored the
decaying condition of the four lodges in London.

(1) "Revelations of a Square," ch. i., p. 5.

It is also likely that their first thought was that a greater degree of success
and prosperity might be secured if the lodges would abandon to some
extent the independence and isolation of their condition, and would
establish a bond of union by their consolidation under a common head.
Whatever views might have been secretly entertained by Desaguliers and
a few friends in his confidence, he could not have openly expressed to the
Craft any intention to dissolve the Operative guild and to establish a
Speculative society in its place. Had such an intention been even
suspected by the purely Operative Freemasons who composed part of the
membership of the four lodges, it can not well be doubted that they would
have declined to support a scheme which looked eventually to the
destruction of their Craft, and consequently the organization of a Grand
Lodge would never have been attempted.

But I am not willing to charge Desaguliers with such duplicity. He was

honest in his desire to renovate the institution of Operative freemasonry,
and he believed that the first step toward that renovation would be the
consolidation of the lodges. He expected that an imperfect code of laws
would be improved, and perhaps that a rude and unpolished ritual might
be expanded and refined.

Farther, he was not, it may be supposed, prepared at that time to go.

Whatever modifications he subsequently made by the invention of
degrees which at once established a new system were the results of
afterthoughts suggested to his mind by a sequence of circumstances.

That the change from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry was of

gradual growth, we know from the authentic records that are before us.

In the year 1717 we find an Operative guild presenting itself in cold

simplicity of organization as a body of practical workmen to whom were
joined some honorary members, who were not Craftsmen; with an
imperfect and almost obsolete system of by-laws; with but one form of
admission; with secrets common to all classes, and which were of little or
no importance, for the architectural and geometrical secrets of the
medieval Craft had been lost; and finally with an insignificant and
unpolished ritual, a mere catechism for wandering brethren to test their
right to the privileges and the hospitality of the Fraternity.

Six years after, in 1723, this association of workmen has disappeared,

and in its place we find a new society which has been erected on the
foundations of that edifice which has crumbled into ruins; a society that
has repudiated all necessary knowledge of the art of building; to which
workmen may be admitted, not because they are workmen, but because
they are men of good character and of exemplary conduct; with a well-
framed code of laws for its government; with three degrees, with three
forms of initiation, and with secrets exclusively appropriated to each; and
with rituals which, produced by cultured minds, present the germs of a
science of symbolism.

Operative Freemasonry no longer wields the scepter; it has descended

from its throne into its grave, and Speculative Freemasonry, as a living
form, has assumed the vacant seat.

That the transmutation was gradually accomplished we know, for six

years were occupied in its accomplishment, and the records of that
period, brief and scanty as they are, unerringly indicate the steps of its
gentle progress.

From June, 1717, to June, 1718, under the administration of Anthony

Sayer, Gentleman, as Grand Master, there are no signs of a
contemplated change. He was not, if negative evidence may be accepted
as the index of his character, the man to inaugurate so bold an enterprise.
His efforts seem to have been directed solely to the strengthening and
confirming of the union of the Operative lodges by consulting at stated
periods with their officers.

From June, 1718, to June, 1719, George Payne presided over the Craft.
Now we discover the first traces of a sentiment tending toward the
improvement of the institution. Old manuscripts and records were
anxiously sought for that the ancient usages of the Craft might be learned.
In preparing for the future it was expedient to know something of the past.

The result of this collation of old documents was the compilation of the
"Charges of a Freemason," appended to the first edition of the Book of
Constitutions. The composition of this code is generally attributed to
Anderson. Without positive testimony on this point, I am inclined to assign
the authorship to Payne. He was a noted antiquary, and well fitted by the
turn of his mind to labors of that kind.

Desaguliers was Grand Master from June, 1719, to June, 1720, His
administration is made memorable by the first great change in the system.

An examination of the old manuscripts which had been collected by

Payne must have shown that the body of the Craft had always been
divided into two classes, Apprentices and Fellows, who were
distinguished by the possession of certain privileges as workmen peculiar
to each.

In the lodge they assembled together and partook equally of its counsels.
But the prominence of the Fellows in rank as a class of workmen and in
numbers as constituting the principal membership of the four old Lodges,
very probably suggested to the mind of Desaguliers the advantages that
would result from a more distinct separation of the Fellows from the
Apprentices, not by a recognition of the higher rank of the former as
workmen, because if a Speculative system was to be established, a
qualification derived from skill in the practical labors of the Craft would
cease to be of avail; but a separation by granting to each class a peculiar
form of initiation, with its accompanying secrets.

The fact, also, that in some of the old manuscripts, which were then called
the "Gothic Constitutions," copies of which had been produced as the
result of the call of Grand Master Payne, there were two distinct sets of
"Charges," one for the Masters and Fellows and one for the Apprentices,
would have strengthened the notion that there should be a positive and
distinct separation of the two classes as the first preparatory step toward
the development of the new system.

This step was taken by Desaguliers soon after his installation as Grand
Master. Accordingly, in 1719, he modified the one degree or form of
initiation or admission which had been hitherto common to all ranks of
Craftsmen.

One part of the degree (but the word is not precisely correct) he confined
to the Apprentices, and made it the working degree of the lodge. Another
part he enlarged and improved, transferred to it the most important secret,
the MASON WORD, and made it a degree to be conferred only on
Fellow-Crafts in the Grand Lodge; while the degree of the Apprentices
thus modified continued as of old to be conferred on new candidates in
the lodge.

Thus it was that in the year 1719 the first alteration in the old Operative
system took place, and two degrees, the First and Second, were created.
The Entered Apprentice now ceased to be a youth bound for a certain
number of years to a Master for the purpose of learning the mysteries of
the trade. The term henceforth denoted one who had been initiated into
the secrets of the First degree of Speculative Freemasonry, a meaning
which it has ever since retained.

In former times, under the purely Operative system, the Masters of the
Work, those appointed to rule over the migratory lodges and to
superintend the Craftsmen in their hours of labor, were necessarily
selected from the Fellows, because of their greater skill, acquired from
experience and their freedom from servitude.

But when the Theoretic Freemasons, the Honorary members, began to be

the dominant party, in consequence of their increased number, their
higher social position, and their superior education, it was plainly seen
that any claim to privileges which was derived from greater skill in the
practical art of building, from the expiration of indentures and from the
acquisition of independence and the right to go and come at will, would
soon be abolished.

The Operative members only could maintain a distinction between

themselves founded on such claims. The Theoretic members were, so far
as regarded skill in building or freedom from the servitude of indentures,
on an equal footing, everyone with all the others.

But Desaguliers and his collaborators were anxious to retain as many as

they could of the old usages of the Craft. They were not prepared nor
willing to obliterate all marks of identity between the old and the new
system. Nor could they afford, in the infancy of their enterprise, to excite
the opposition of the Operative members by an open attack on the ancient
customs of the Craft.

Hence they determined to retain the distinction which had always existed
between Fellows and Apprentices, but to found that distinction, not on the
possession of superior skill in the art of building, but in the possession of
peculiar secrets.

The Second degree having been thus established, it became necessary

to secure the privileges of the Fellows. These in the old system had
inured to them by usage and the natural workings of the trade; they were
now to be perpetuated and maintained in the new system by positive law.

Accordingly, in the following year, Payne made that compilation or code of

laws for the government of the new society which is known as the
"General Regulations," and which having been approved by the Grand
Lodge, was inserted in the Book of Constitutions.

It has been already abundantly shown that the whole tenor of these
"Regulations" was to make the Fellow-Crafts the possessors of the
highest degree then known, and to constitute them the sole legislators of
the society (except in the alteration of the "Regulations") and the body
from which its officers were to be chosen.

Thus the first step in the separation of Speculative from Operative

Freemasonry was accomplished by the establishment of two degrees of
initiation instead of one, and by making the Fellow-Crafts distinct from
and superior to the Apprentices, not by a higher skill in an Operative art,
but by their attainment to greater knowledge in a Speculative science.
For four years this new system prevailed, and Speculative Freemasonry
in England was divided into two degrees. The system, in fact, existed up
to the very day of the final approval, in January, 1723, of the Book of
Constitutions.

The First degree was appropriated to the initiation of candidates in the

particular, or, as we now call them, the subordinate lodges.

The Second degree conferred in the Grand Lodge was given to those few
who felt the aspiration for higher knowledge, or who had been elected as
Masters of lodges or as officers in the Grand Lodge.

The Operative members submitted to the change, and continued to take

an interest in the new society, receiving in proportion to their numbers a
fair share of the offices in the Grand Lodge.

But the progress of change and innovation was not to cease at this point.
The inventive genius of Desaguliers was not at rest, and urged onward,
not only by his ritualistic taste and his desire to elevate the institution into
a higher plane than would result by the force of surrounding
circumstances, he contemplated a further advance.

"Circumstances," says Goethe, in his Wilhelm Meister, "move backward

and forward before us and ceaselessly finish the web, which we ourselves
have in part spun and put upon the loom."

Desaguliers, with the co-operation of other Theoretic Freemasons. had

united the four Operative Lodges into a Grand Lodge, a body until then
unknown to the Craft; he had established a form of government with which
they were equally unfamiliar; he had abolished the old degree, and
inventedtwo new ones; and yet it appears that he did not consider the
system perfect.

He contemplated a further development of the ritual by the addition of

another degree. In this design he was probably, to some extent,
controlled by surrounding circumstances.

The Fellow-Crafts had been invested with important privileges not granted
to the Entered Apprentices, and the possession of these privileges was
accompanied by the acquisition of a higher esoteric knowledge.

Among the privileges which had been acquired by the Fellow Crafts were
those of election to office in the Grand Lodge and of Mastership in a
subordinate lodge.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the Fellows who had been elevated
to these positions in consequence of their possession of a new degree
were desirous, especially the Master of the lodges, to be farther
distinguished from both the Apprentices and the Fellowv Crafts by the
acquisition of a still higher grade.

Besides this motive, the existence of which, though not attested by any
positive authority, is nevertheless very presumable, another and a more
philosophic one must have actuated Desaguliers in the further
development of his system of degrees.

He had seen that the old Operative Craft was divided into three classes or
ranks of workmen. To the first and secede of these classes he had
appropriated a degree peculiar to each. But the third and highest class
was still without one. Thus was his system made incongruous and
incomplete.

To give it perfection it was necessary that a Third degree should be

invented, to be the property of the third class, or the Masters.

It is possible that Desaguliers had, in his original plan, contemplated the

composition of three degrees, or it may have been that the willing
acceptance of the First and Second by the Craft had suggested the
invention of a Third degree.

Be this as it may, for it is all a matter of mere surmise and not of great
importance, it is very certain that the invention and composition of the
ritual of so philosophic a degree could not have been the labor of a day or
a week or any brief period of time.

It involved much thought, and months must have beer occupied in the
mental labor of completing it. It could not have been finished before the
close of the year 1722. If it had, it would have been presented to the
Grand Lodge before the final approval of the Book of Constitutions, and
would then have received that prominent place in Speculative
Freemasonry which in that book and in the "General Regulations" is
assigned to the degree of Fellow-Craft.

But at that time the degree was so far completed as to make it certain that
it would be ready for presentation to the Grand Lodge and to the Craft in
the course of the following year.

But as the Book of Constitutions was finally approved in January, 1723,

and immediately afterward printed and published, Desaguliers being
desirous of keeping the new degree under his own control for a brief
period, until its ritual should be well understood and properly worked,
anticipated the enactment of a law on the subject, and interpolated the
passage in the "General Regulations" which required the Second and
Third degrees to be conferred in the Grand Lodge only.

Logical inferences and documentary evidence bring us unavoidably to the

conclusion that the following was the sequence of events which led to the
establishment of the present ritual of three degrees.

In 1717 the Grand Lodge, at its organization, received the one

comprehensive degree or ritual which had been common to all classes of
the Operative Freemasons.

This they continued to use, with no modification, for the space of two
years.

In 1719 the ritual of this degree was disintegrated and divided into two
parts. One part was appropriated to the Entered Apprentices; the other,
with some augmentations, to the Fellow-Craft.

From that time until the year 1723 the system of Speculative
Freemasonry, which was practiced by the Grand Lodge, consisted of two
degrees. That of Fellow-Craft was deemed the summit of Freemasonry,
and there was nothing esoteric beyond it.

On this system of two degrees the Book of Constitutions, the "General

Regulations," and the "Manner of Constituting a new Lodge" were framed.
When these were published the Craft knew nothing of a Third degree.

In the year 1723 Dr. Desaguliers perfected the system by presenting the
Grand Lodge with the Third degree, which he had recently invented.

This degree was accepted by the Grand Lodge, and being introduced into
the ritual, from that time forth Ancient Craft Masonry, as it has since been
called, has consisted of these three degrees. (1)

There can be little doubt that this radical change from the old system was
not pleasing to the purely Operative Freemasons who were members of
the Grand Lodge. Innovation has always been repugnant to the Masonic
mind. Then, as now, changes in the ritual and the introduction of new
degrees must have met with much opposition from those who were
attached traditionally to former usages and were unwilling to abandon the
old paths.

From 1717 to 1722 we find, by Anderson's records, that the Operatives

must have taken an active part in the transactions of the Grand Lodge, for
during that period they received a fair proportion of the offices. No one of
them, however, had been elected to the chief post of Grand Master, which
was always bestowed upon a Speculative.

But from the year 1723, when, as it has been shown, the Speculative
system had been perfected, we lose all sight of the Operatives in any
further proceedings of the society. It is impossible to determine whether
this was the result of their voluntary withdrawal or whether the
Speculatives no longer desired their co-operation. But the evidence is
ample that from the year 1723 Speculative Freemasonry has become the
dominant, and, indeed, the only feature of the Grand Lodge.

Bro. Robert Freeke Gould, who has written an elaborate sketch of the
history of those times, makes on this point the following remark, which
sustains the present views:

"In 1723, however, a struggle for supremacy, between the Operatives and
the Speculatives, had set in, and the former, from that time, could justly
complain of their total supercession in the offices of the Society." (2)

It is, then, in the year 1723 that we must place the birth of Speculative
Freemasonry. Operative Masonry, the mere art of building, that which was
practiced by the "Rough Layers" of England and the wall builders or
Murer of Germany, still remains and will always remain as one of the
useful arts.

(1) The dismemberment of the Third degree, which is said to have

subsequently taken place to form a fourth degree, has nothing to do with
this discussion.
(2) "History of the Four Old Lodges," p. 34.

But Operative Freemasonry, the descendant and the representative of the

mediaeval guilds, ceased then and forever to exist.

It died, but it left its sign in the implements of the Craft which were still
preserved in the new system, but applied to spiritual uses; in the technical
terms of the art which gave rise to a symbolic language; and in the
ineffaceable memorials which show that the new association of
Speculative Freemasonry has been erected on the foundations of a
purely Operative Society.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
INTRODUCTION OF SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY INTO FRANCE

SPECULATIVE Freemasonry having been firmly established in London

and its environs (for it did not immediately extend into the other parts of
England), it will now be proper to direct our attention to its progress in
other countries, and in the first place into the neighboring kingdom of
France.

The unauthentic and unconfirmed statements of Masonic scholars, until a

very recent period, had thrown a cloud of uncertainty over the early
history of Freemasonry in France, which entirely obscured the true era of
its introduction into that country.

Moreover, the accounts of the origin of Freemasonry in France made by

different writers are of so conflicting a nature that it is utterly impossible to
reconcile them with historical accuracy. The web of confusion thus
constructed has only been recently disentangled by the investigations of
some English writers, conspicuous among whom is Bro. William James
Hughan.

Before proceeding to avail ourselves of the result of these inquiries into

the time of the constitution of the first lodge in France, it will be interesting
to present the views of the various authors who had previously written on
the subject.

In the year 1745 a pamphlet, purporting to be an exposition of

Freemasonry, was published in Paris, entitled Le Sceau Rompu, ou la
Loge ouverte aux profanes. In this work it is stated that the earliest
introduction of Freemasonry into France is to be traced to the year 1718.
This work is, however, of no authority, and it is only quoted to show the
recklessness with which statements of Masonic history are too frequently
made.

The Abbe Robin, who in 1776 published his Researches on the Ancient
and Modern Initiations, (1) says that at the time of his writing

(1) "Recherches sur les initiations anciennes et modernes," par l'Abbe

Rxxx. The work, though printed anonymously, was openly attributed to
Robin, by the publisher.

no memorial of the origin of Freemasonry in France remained, and that all

that has been found does not go farther back than the year 1720, when it
seems to have come from England. But of the date thus ascribed he gives
no authentic evidence. It is with him but a surmise.

Thory, in 1815, in his Acta Latomorum, gives the story as follows, (1)
having borrowed it from Lalande, the great astronomer, who had
previously published it in 1786, in his article on Freemasonry in that
immense work, the Encyclopedie Methodique.

"The year 1725 is indicated as the epoch of the introduction of

Freemasonry into Paris. Lord Derwentwater, the Chevalier Maskelyne, M.
d'Henquelty, and some other Englishmen, established a lodge at the
house of Hure, the keeper of an ordinary in the Rue des Boucheries. This
lodge acquired a great reputation, and attracted five or six hundred
brethren to Masonry in the space of ten years. It worked under the
auspices and according to the usages of the Grand Lodge at London.

"It has left no historical monument of its existence, a fact which throws
much confusion over the first labors of Freemasonry in Paris."

In his record of the year 1736, he says that "four lodges then existed at
Paris, which united and elected the Earl of Harnouester, who thus
succeeded Lord Derwentwater, whom the brethren had chosen at the
epoch of the introduction of Freemasonry into Paris. At this meeting the
Chevalier Ramsay acted as Orator." (2)

T. B. Clavel, in his Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Maconnerie, (3) says

that according to certain English and German historians, among others
Robison and the aulic counsellor Bode, Freemasonry was introduced into
France by the Irish followers of King James II., after the English revolution
in 1688, and the first lodge was established at the Chateau de Saint
Germain, the residence of the dethroned monarch, whence the Masonic
association was propagated in the rest of the kingdom, in Germany and
Italy.

Clavel acknowledges that he does not know on what documentary

evidence these writers support this opinion; he does not, however, think it
altogether destitute of probability.

(1) "Acta Latomorum, ou chronologie de l'Histoire de la Franc-Masonnerie

Francaise et Etrangire," p. 21.
(2) Ibid., p 51
(3) Chapter III., p. 107.

Robison, to whom Clavel has referred, says that when King James, with
many of his most zealous adherents, had fled into France, "they took
Freemasonry with them to the continent, where it was immediately
received by the French, and was cultivated with great zeal, and in a
manner suited to the tastes and habits of that highly polished people." (1)

Leaving this wholly apocryphal statement without discussion, I proceed to

give Clavel's account, which he claims to be historical, of the introduction
of Freemasonry from England into France.

The first lodge, he says, whose establishment in France is historically

proved, is the one which the Grand Lodge of England instituted at Dunkirk
in the year 1721, under the title of Amitie et Fraternite. The second, the
name of which has not been preserved, was founded at Paris in 1725 by
Lord Derwentwater, the Chevalier Maskelyne, Brother d'Heguerty, and
some other followers of the Pretender. It met at the house of Hure, an
English tavern-keeper or restaurateur in the Rue des Boucheries in the
Faubourg Saint Germain. A brother Gaustand, an English lapidary, about
the same time created a third lodge at Paris. A fourth one was established
in 1726, under the name of St. Thomas. The Grand Lodge of England
constituted two others in 1729; the name of the first was Au Louis
d'Argent, and a brother Lebreton was its Master; the other was called A
Sainte Marguerite; of this lodge we know nothing but its name, which was
reported in the Registry of the year 1765. Finally there was a fourth lodge
formed in Paris in the year 1732, at the house of Laudelle, a tavern-
keeper in the Rue de Bussy. At first it took its name from that of the street
in which it was situated, afterward it was called the Lodge d'Aumont,
because the Duke of Aumont had been initiated in it. (2)

Ragon, in his Orthodoxie Maconnique, asserts that Freemasonry made its

first appearance in France in 1721, when on October 13th the Lodge
l'Amidie et Fraternite was instituted at Dunkirk. It appeared in Paris in
1725; in Bordeaux in 1732, by the establishment of the Lodge l'Anolaise
No. 204; and on January

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

(2) A review of the Report made in 1838 and 1839 to the Grand Orient of
France by a Committee, which is contained in the French journal La
Globe (tome I., p. 324), states that "cette loge fut regulierment constituee
par la Grande Loge d'Angleterre, le 7 Mas, 1729, sous le titre distinctif de
Saint-Thomas au Louis d'Argent."

1, 1732, the Lodge of la Parfaits Union was instituted at Valenciennes. (1)

Two other French authorities, not, however, Masonic, have given similar
but briefer statements.

In the Dictionnaire de la conversation et de Za Lecture it is said that

Freemasonry was introduced into France in 1720 by Lord Derwentwater
and the English. The Grand Masters who succeeded him were Lord
d'Arnold-Esler and the Duc d'Autin, the Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre and
the Duc d'Orleans. In 1736 there were still only four lodges in Paris; in
1742 there were twenty-two, and two hundred in the provinces. (2)

Larousse, in his Grand Universal Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century, (3)

simply repeats this statement as to dates, simply stating that the first
lodge in France was founded at Dunkirk in 1721, and the second at Paris
in 1725, by Lord Derwentwater.

Rebold has written, in his Histoire des Trois Grandes Loges, a more
detailed statement of the events connected with the introduction of
Freemasonry into France. His narrative is as follows:

"It was not until 1725 that a lodge was for the first time founded at Paris
by Lord Derwentwater and two other Englishmen, under the title of St.
Thomas. It was constituted by them in the name of the Grand Lodge of
London, on the 12th of June, 1720. Its members, to the number of five or
six hundred, met at the house of Hure, a tavern-keeper in the Rue des
Boucheries-Saint Germain. Through the exertions of the same English
gentlemen a second lodge was established on the 7th of June, 1729,
under the name of Louis d'Argent. Its members met at the tavern of the
same name, kept by one Lebreton. On the 11th of December of the same
year a third lodge was instituted, under the title of Arts Sainte Marguerite.
Its meetings were held at the house of an Englishman named Gaustand.
Finally, on the 29th of November, 1732, a fourth lodge was founded,
which was called Buci, (4) from the name of the tavern in which it held its
meetings, which was situated in the Rue de Buci, and was kept by one
Laudelle. This lodge, after

(1) "Orthodoxie Maconnique," p. 35.

(2) "Dictionnaire de la Conversation," art. Franc-Maconnerie, vol. xxviii.,
p. 136.
(3) "Grand Dictionnaire Universal du XlXme Siecle," par M. Pierre
Larousse. Paris, 1872.
(4) This is evidently a mistake of Rebold for Bussy.

having initiated the Duke d'Aumont, took the name of the Lodge
d'Aumont.

"Lord Deroventwater, who, in 1725, had received from the Grand Lodge of
London plenary powers to constitute lodges in France, was, in 1735,
invested by the same Grand Lodge with the functions of Provincial Grand
Master. When he left France (in 1745) to return to England, where he
soon after perished on the scaffold, a victim to his attachment for the
House of Stuart, he transferred the full powers which he possessed to his
friend Lord Harnouester, who was empowered to represent him as
Provincial Grand Master during his absence.

"The four lodges then existing at Paris resolved to found a Provisional

Grand Lodge of England, to which the lodges to be thereafter constituted
in France might directly address themselves as the representative of the
Grand Lodge at London. This resolution was put into effect after the
departure of Lord Derwentwater. This Grand Lodge was regularly and
legally constituted in 1736 under the Grand Mastership of Lord
Harnouester." (1)

Such is the story of the introduction of Speculative Freemasonry into

France, which, first published by the astronomer Lalande, has been since
repeated and believed by all French Masonic historians. That a portion of
this story is true is without doubt; but it is equally doubtless that a portion
of it is false. It will be a task of some difficulty, but an absolutely
necessary one, to unravel the web and to distinguish and separate what
is true from what is false.

The names of three of the four founders of the first lodge in Paris present
a hitherto insurmountable obstacle in the way of any identification of them
with historical personages of that period. The unfortunate propensity of
French writers and printers to distort English names in spelling them,
makes it impossible to trace the names of Lord Harnouester and M.
Hugety to any probable source. I have made the most diligent researches
on the subject, and have been unable to find either of them in any works
relating to the events of the beginning of the 18th century, which have
been within my reach.

Lord Derwent-Waters, as the title is printed, was undoubtedly Charles

Radcliffe, the brother of James, the third Earl of Derwentwater

(1) "Histoire des Trois Grandes Loges," par Em. Rebold, p. 44.

who had been beheaded in 1715 for his connection with the rebellion in
that year, excited by the Old Pretender, or, as he styled himself, James III.
Charles Radcliffe had also been convicted of complicity in the rebellion
and sentenced to be beheaded. He, however, made his escape and fled
to the continent. At first he repaired to Rome, where the Pretender then
held his court, but afterward removed to France, where he married the
widow of Lord Newburghe and remained in that city until the year 1733.
He then went for a short time to England, where he appeared openly, but
afterward returned to Paris and continued there until 1745. In that year
the Young Pretender landed in Scotland and invaded England in the
attempt, as Regent, to recover the throne of his ancestors and to place
his father upon it.

Charles Radcliffe, who had assumed the title of the Earl of Derwentwater
on the demise of his nephew, who died in 1731, sailed on November 21,
1745, for Montrose in Scotland, in the French privateer Soleil, for the
purpose of joining the Pretender. He was accompanied by a large number
of Irish, Scotch, and French offiers and men. On the passage the
privateer was captured by the English ship-of-war Sheerness, and
carried, with its crew and passengers, to England.

On December 8th in the following year Radcliffe was beheaded, in

pursuance of his former sentence, which had been suspended for thirty
years.

Of Lord Harnouester, who is said by the French writers to have

succeeded the titular Earl of Derwentwater as the second Grand Master, I
have been unable to find a trace in any of the genealogical, heraldic, or
historical works which I have consulted. The name is undoubtedly spelled
wrongly, and might have been Arnester, Harnester, or Harnevester. The
change made by the Dictionnaire de la Conversation, which converts it
into "d'Arnold-Esler," only adds more confusion to that which was already
abundantly confounded.

Maskelyne is an English name. It was that of a family in Wiltshire, from

which Nevil Maskelyne, the distinguished Astronomer Royal, born in
1734, was descended. But I am unable to identify the Chevalier
Maskelyne, of the French writers, with any person of distinction or of
notoriety at that period.

I am equally at a loss as to M. Hugetty, a name which has been variously

spelt as Heguetty and Heguelly. The name does not, in either of these
forms, indicate the nationality of the owner, and the probable
transformation from the original forbids the hope of a successful
investigation.

One fact alone appears to be certain, and fortunately that is of some

importance in determining the genuineness of the history.

The titular Earl of Derwentwater was a Jacobite, devoted to the interests

of the fallen family of Stuart, and the English, Irish, and Scotch residents
of Paris, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, must have been
Jacobites or adherents of the Stuarts also. The political jealousy of the
British Government at that time made it unpleasantly suspicious for any
loyal subject to maintain intimate relations with the Jacobites who were
living in exile at Paris and elsewhere.

This fact will be an important element in determining the genuineness of

the authority claimed to have been given to Lord Derwentwater by the
Grand Lodge at London.

The German historians have generally borrowed their authority from the
French writers, and on this occasion have not shown their usual
thoroughness of investigation.

Lenning simply states that the first lodge of France was founded at Paris
in 1725, and that it was soon followed by others. (1)

Gadicke had previously said that Freemasonry was introduced into

France from England and Scotland in the year 1660, but while it
flourished in England it soon almost entirely disappeared in France.
Afterwards in the year 1725, England again planted it in France, for in that
year three Englishmen founded a lodge in Paris which was called the
English Grand Lodge of France. (2)

Findel is a little more particular in his details, but affords us nothing new.
He says that "it is impossible to determine with any certainty the period of
the introduction of Freemasonry into France, as the accounts handed
down to us are very contradictory, varying from the years 1721, 1725,
1727, to 1732. In an historical notice of the Grand Lodge of France,
addressed to her subordinate lodges, there is a statement specifying that
Lord Derwentwater, Squire Maskelyne, a lord of Heguerty and some other
English noblemen, established a lodge in Paris in 1725, at Hure's Tavern.
Lord Derwentwater

(1) "Encyclopadie der Freimaurerei."

(2) "Freimaurer-Lexicon."

is supposed to have been the first who received a Warrant from the
Grand Lodge of England. It is recorded that other lodges were
established by these same authorities, and amongst others the Lodge
d'Aumont (au Louis d'Argent) in 1729, in la Rue Bussy at Laudelle's
tavern, the documents bearing the date of 1732 as that of their
foundation." (1)

Kloss, who has written a special work on the history of Freemasonry in

France, supported as he says by reliable documents, (2) adopts the
statements made originally by Lalande in the Encyclopedie Methodique,
and which were repeated by successive French writers.

So, on the whole, we get nothing more from the German historians than
what we already had from the French.

We come next to the English writers, whose information must have been
better than that of either the French or German, as they possessed a
written history of the contemporary events of that period. Therefore it is
that on them we are compelled to lean in any attempt to solve the riddle
involved in the introduction of the Speculative institution into the
neighboring kingdom. Still we are not to receive as incontestable all that
has been said on this subject by the earlier English writers on
Freemasonry. Their wonted remissness here, as well as elsewhere in
respect to dates and authorities, leaves us, at last, to depend for a great
part on rational conjecture and logical inferences.

Dr. Oliver, the most recent author to whom I shall refer, accepts the
French narrative of the institution of a lodge at Paris in 1725, and adds
that it existed "under the sanction of the Grand Lodge of England by
virtue of a charter granted to Lord Derwentwater, Maskelyne, Higuetty and
some other Englishmen." (3)

Elsewhere he asserts that the Freemasonry which was practiced in

France between 1700 and 1725 was only by some English residents,
without a charter or any formal warrant. (4) In this opinion he is sustained
by the Committee of the Grand Orient already alluded to, in whose report
it is stated that "most impartial historians assert

(1) "Geschichte der Freimaurerei," Lyon's Translation, p. 200.

(2) "Geschichte der Freimaurerei in Frankreich, aus achten Urkunden
dargestellt," von Georg Kloss. Darmstadt, 1852.
(3) "Historical Landmarks," vol. ii., p. 32.
(4) "Origin of the Royal Arch," p. 27.

that from 1720 to 1725 Freemasonry was clandestinely introduced into

France by some English Masons."

The author of an article in the London Freemasons' Quarterly Review, (1)

under the title of "Freemasonry in Europe During the Past Century," says
that "the settlement in France of the abdicated king of England, James II.,
in the Jesuitical Convent of Clermont, seems to have been the
introduction of Freemasonry into Paris, and here it was (as far as we can
trace) the first lodge in France was formed, anno 1725." The writer
evidently connects in his mind the establishment of Freemasonry in
France with the Jacobites or party of the Pretender who were then in exile
in that kingdom, a supposed connection which will, hereafter, be worth
our consideration.

Laurie (or rather Sir David Brewster, who wrote the book for him) has, in
his History of Freemasonry, when referring to this subject, indulged in that
spirit of romantic speculation which distinct guishes the earlier portion of
the work and makes it an extravagant admixture of history and fable.

He makes no allusion to the events of the year 1725, or to the lodge said
to have been created by the titular Earl of Derwentwater, but thinks "it is
almost certain that the French borrowed from the Scots the idea of their
Masonic tribunal, as well as Freemasonry itself." (2) And he places the
time of its introduction at "about the middle of the 16th century, during the
minority of Queen Mary." (3)

After all that has hitherto been said about the origin of Speculative
Freemasonry, it will not be necessary to waste time in the refutation of
this untenable theory or of the fallacious argument by which it is sought to
support it. It is enough to say that the author entirely confounds Operative
and Speculative Freemasonry, and that he supposes that the French
soldiers who were sent to the assistance of Scotland were initiated into
the Scotch lodges of Operative Masons, and then brought the system
back with them to France.

Preston passes the subject with but few words. He says that in 1732 Lord
Montagu, who was then Grand Master, granted a deputation for
constituting a lodge at Valenciennes in French Flanders, and another for
opening a new lodge at the Hotel de Bussy, in Paris." (4)

(1) New Series, anno 1844, p. 156.

(2) "History of Freemasonry " p. x 10.
(3) Ibid., p. 109.
(4) "Illustrations," Jones's edition, p. 212.

The word "new" might be supposed to intimate that there was already an
older lodge in Paris. But Preston nowhere makes any reference to the
Derwentwater lodge of 1725, or to any other, except this of 1732. We
learn nothing more of the origin of Freemasonry in France from this
generally reliable author.

We now approach an earlier class of authorities, which, however, consists

only of Dr. Anderson and the contemporary records of the Grand Lodge at
London.

In 1738 Dr. Anderson published the second edition of the Book of

Constitutions. In the body of the work, which contains a record, frequently
very brief, of the proceedings of the Grand Lodge from 1717 to June,
1738, there is no mention of the constitution of a lodge at Paris, or in any
other part of France.

In a "List of the lodges in and about London and Westminster," appended

to the work, (1) he records that there was a "French lodge," which met at
the "Swan Tavern" in Long Acre, and which received its warrant June 12,
1723. In the list its number is 18.

This fact is only important as showing that Frenchmen were at that early
period taking an interest in the new society, and it may or may not be
connected with the appearance, not long afterward, of a lodge at Paris.

In the list of "Deputations sent beyond Sea" (2) it is recorded that in 1732
Viscount Montagu, Grand Master, granted a Deputation for constituting a
lodge at Valenciennes, in France, and another for constituting a lodge at
the Hotel de Bussy, in Paris.

According to the same authority, Lord Weymouth, Grand Master in 1735,

granted a Deputation to the Duke of Richmond "to hold a lodge at his
castle d'Aubigny, in France." (3) He adds, referring to these and to other
lodges instituted in different countries, that "all these foreign lodges are
under the patronage of our Grand Master of England." (4)

This is all that Anderson says about the introduction of Freemasonry into
France. It will be remarked that he makes no mention of a lodge
constituted at Dunkirk in 1721, nor of the lodge in Paris instituted in 1725.
His silence is significant.

Entick, who succeeded Anderson as editor of the Book of Constitutions,

(1) "Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 186.

(2) Ibid., p. 194.
(3) Ibid., p. 195
(4) Ibid., p. 196.

the third edition of which he published in 1756, says no more than his
predecessor, of Freemasonry in France. In fact, he says less, for in his
lists of "Deputations for Provincial Grand Masters,'' (1) he omits those
granted by Lords Montagu and Weymouth. But in a "List of Regular
Lodges, according to their Seniority and Constitution, by order of the
Grand Master," (2) he inserts a lodge held at La Ville de Tonnerre, Rue
des Boucheries, at Paris, constituted April 3, 1732, another at
Valenciennes, in French Flanders, constituted in 1733, and a third at the
Castle of Aubigny in France, constituted August 12, 1735. He thus
confirms what Anderson had previously stated, but, like him, Entick is
altogether silent in respect to the Dunkirk lodge of 1721, or that of Paris in
1725.

Northouck, who edited the fourth edition of the Book of Constitutions,

appears to have been as ignorant as his predecessors of the existence of
any lodge in France before the year 1732. From him, however, we gather
two facts. The first of these is that in the year 1768 letters were received
from the Grand Lodge of France expressing a desire to open a
correspondence with the Grand Lodge of England. The overture was
accepted, and a Book of Constitutions, a list of lodges, and a form of
deputation were presented to the Grand Lodge of France.

The second fact is somewhat singular. Notwithstanding the recognized

existence of a Grand Lodge of France it seems that in that very year there
were lodges in that country which the Grand Lodge of England claimed as
constituents, owing it their allegiance; for Northouck tells us that in 1768
two lodges in France, "having ceased to meet or neglected to conform to
the laws of this society, were erazed out of the list."

It may be that these were among the lodges which, in former times, had
been created in France by the Grand Lodge of England, and that they had
transferred their allegiance to the Grand Lodge of their own country, but
had omitted to give due notice of the act to the Grand Lodge which had
originally created them.

Our next source of information must be the engraved lists of lodges

published, from 1723 to 1778, by authority of the Grand

(1) "Constitutions," by Entick, p. 333.

(2) Ibid., p. 335. This list bears some resemblance to Cole's engraved list
for 1756, but the two are not identical.

Lodge of England. Their history will be hereafter given. It is enough now

to say, that being official documents, and taken for the most part from the
Minute Book of the Grand Lodge, they are invested with historical
authority.

The earliest of the engraved lists, that for 1723, contains the designations
(1) of fifty-one lodges. All of them were situated in London and
Westminster. There is no reference to any lodge in France.

The list for 1725 contains the titles of sixty-four lodges. The Society was
extending in the kingdom, and the cities of Bath, Bristol, Norwich,
Chichester, and Chester are recorded as places where lodges had been
constituted. But no lodge is recorded as having been created in France.

In the list of lodges returned in 1730 (in number one hundred and two),
which is contained in the Minute Book of the Grand Lodge, (2) a lodge is
recorded as being at Madrid in Spain, the number 50 being attached, and
the place of meeting the "French Arms," which would seem almost to
imply, but not certainly, that most of its members were Frenchmen. (3)
Lodge No. 90 is said to be held at the "King's Head, Paris." This is the
first mention in any of the lists of a lodge in Paris. The name of the tavern
at which it was held is singular for a French city. But as it is said by Bro.
Gould to be copied from "the Minute Book of the Grand Lodge," it must be
considered as authoritative.

We next find an historical record of the institution of lodges in France by

the Grand Lodge of England in Pine's engraved list for 1734. (4) Bro.
Hughan has said that the first historical constitution

(1) At that time lodges were not distinguished by names, but by the signs
of the taverns at which they met, as the "King's Arms," the "Bull and
Gate," etc.
(2) The list is given in Bro. Gould’s "Four Old Lodges," p. 50.
(3) This lodge met on Sunday, a custom still practiced by many French
lodges, though never, as far as I know, by English or American lodges. Le
Candeur, an old lodge of French members, in Charleston, S. C., which
had its warrant originally from the brand Orient of France, always met on
Sunday, nor did it change the custom after uniting with the Grand Lodge
of South Carolina.
(4) A transcript of Pine's list for 1734, copied by Bro. Newton of Bolton
from the original owned by Bro Tunnen, Provincial Grand Secretary of
East Lancashire. This transcript was presented by Bro. Newton to Bro.
W.J. Hughan, who published it in the "Masonic Magazine for November,
1876. He also republished it in pamphlet form, and to his kindness I am
indebted for a copy. This list had been long missing from the archives of
the Grand Lodge.

of a lodge at Paris is that referred to in Pine's list of 1734; but the lodge No.
90 at the "King's Head," recorded as has just been shown in the Grand
Lodge list of 1730, seems to have escaped his attention.

Pine's list for 1734 contains the names of two lodges in France: No. 90 at the
Louis d'Argent, in the Rue des Boucheries, at Paris, which was constituted on
April 3, 1732, and No. 127 at Valenciennes in French Flanders, the date of
whose Warrant of Constitution is not given.

In Pine's list for 1736 these lodges are again inserted, with a change as to
the first, which still numbers as 90, is said to meet at the "Hotel de Bussy,
Rue de Bussy." The sameness of the number and of the date of Constitution
identify this lodge with the one named ln the list for 1734, which met at the
Louis d'Argent, in the Rue des Boucheries.

The list for 1736 contains a third lodge in France, recorded as No. 133,
which met at "Castle Aubigny," and was constituted August 22, 1735.

In Pine's list for 1740 the three lodges in France are again recorded as
before, one in Paris, one at Valenciennes, and one at Castle d'Aubigny, (1)
but the first of them, formerly No. 90, is now said to meet as No. 78, at the
Ville de Tonnerre, in the same Rue des Boucheries. This was apparently a
change of name and number and not of locality. It was the same lodge that
had been first described as meeting as No. 90 at the Louis d'Argent.

In Benjamin Cole's list for 1756 the lodge's number is changed from 78 to 49,
but under the same old warrant of April 3, 1732, it continues to meet at "la
Ville de Tonnerre," in the Rue des Boucheries.

It is unnecessary to extend this investigation to subsequent lists or to those to

be found in various works which have been mainly copied from the engraved
lists of Pine and Cole. Enough has been cited to exhibit incontestable
evidence of certain facts respecting the origin of Speculative Freemasonry in
France. This evidence is incontestable, because it is derived from and based
on the official records of the Grand Lodge of England.

(1) The date of the Constitution of this lodge in the list for 1736 is August
22d. In the present and in subsequent lists the date is August 12th. The
former date is undoubtedly a typographical error,

It was the custom of the Grand Lodge to issue annually an engraved list of
the lodges under its jurisdiction. The first was printed by Eman Bowen in
1723; afterward the engraver was John Pine, who printed them from 1725 to
1741, and perhaps to 1743, as the lists for that and the preceding year are
missing. The list for 1744 was printed by Eman Bowen; from 1745 to 1766
Benjamin Cole was the printer, who was followed by William Cole, until 1788,
which is the date of the latest engraved list.

“The engraved lists," says Gould, “were renewed annually, certainly from
1738, and probably from the commencement of the series. Latterly, indeed,
frequent editions were issued in a single year, which are not always found to
harmonize with one another." (1)

The want of harmony consisted principally in the change of numbers and in

the omission of lodges. This arose from the erasures made in consequence
of the discontinuance of lodges, or their failure to make returns. It is not to be
supposed that in an official document, published by authority and for the
information of the Craft, the name of any lodge would be inserted which did
not exist at the time, or which had not existed at some previous time.

We can not, therefore, unless we might reject the authority of these official
lists as authoritative documents, and thus cast a slur on the honesty of the
Grand Lodge which issued them, refuse to accept them as giving a truthful
statement of what lodges there were, at the time of their publication, in
France, acting under warrants from the Grand Lodge at London.

Bro. Hughan asserts that the first historical record of the Constitution of a
lodge at Paris is to be referred to the one mentioned in Pine's list for 1734, as
having been held au Louis d'Argent in the Rue des Boucheries, and the date
of whose Constitution is April 3, 1732.

It is true that Anderson's first mention of a deputation to constitute a lodge in

Paris is that granted in 1732 by Viscount Montagu as Grand Master, and I
presume that there is no earlier record in the Minutes of the Grand Lodge, for
if there were, I am very sure that Bro. Hughan would have stated it.

But how are we to reconcile this view with the fact that in the list of lodges for
1730 a lodge is said to be in existence in that year

(1) "Four Old Lodges," p. 16.

in Paris? This list, as printed by Bro. Gould in his interesting work on the
Four Old Lodges, (1) is now lying before me. It is taken from the earliest
Minute Book of the Grand Lodge, and is thus headed, "List of the names
of the Members of all the lodges as they were returned in the year 1730."

Now if this heading were absolutely correct, one could not avoid the
inference that there was a "regular lodge " in Paris in the year 1730, two
years before the Constitution of the lodge recorded in Pine's list for 1734,
for among the lodges named in this 1730 list is "90. King's Head at Paris."

For a Parisian hotel, the name is unusual and therefore suspicious. But
the list is authentic and authoritative, and the number agrees with that of
the lodge referred to in the 1734 list as meeting at the Louis d'Argent, in
the Rue des Boucheries.

Indeed, there can be no doubt that the lodge recorded in the list for 1730
is the same as that recorded in the list for 1734. The number is sufficient
for identification.

Bro. Gould relieves us from the tangled maze into which this difference of
dates had led us. He says of the list, which in his book is No. 11, and
which he calls “List of lodges, 1730 - 32," that this List seems to have
been continued from 1730 to 1732."

The list comprises 102 lodges; the lodge No. 90, at the "King's Head,
Paris," is the fifteenth from the end, and was, as we may fairly conclude,
inserted in and upon the original list in 1732, after the lodge at the Rue
des Boucheries had been constituted.

So that, notwithstanding the apparent statement that there was a regular

lodge, that is, a lodge duly warranted by the London Grand Lodge in
1730, it is evident that Bro. Hughan is right in the conclusion at which he
has arrived that the first lodge constituted by the Grand Lodge of England
in Paris, was that known as No. 90, and which at the time of its
constitution, on April 3, 1732, met at the Tavern called Louis d'Argent, in
the Rue des Boucheries. Its number was subsequently changed to 78,
and then to 49. It and the lodge at Valenciennes are both omitted in the
list for 1770, and these were probably the two lodges in France recorded
by Northouck as having been erased from the roll of the Grand Lodge of
England in 1768. With their erasure passed away all jurisdiction

(1) Page 50.

of the English Grand Lodge over any of the lodges in France. In the same
year it entered into fraternal relations with the Grand Lodge of France. The
lodge at Castle d'Aubigny is also omitted from the list of 1770, and if not
erased, had probably voluntarily surrendered its warrant.

Thus we date the legal introduction of lodges into France at the year 1732.
But it does not necessarily follow that Speculative Freemasonry on the
English plan had not made its appearance there at an earlier period.

The history of the origin of Freemasonry in France, according to all French

historians, from the astronomer Lalande to the most recent writers, is very
different from that which it has been contended is the genuine one, according
to the English records.

It has been shown, in a preceding part of this chapter, that the Abbe Robin
said that Freemasonry had been traced in France as far back as 1720, and
that it appeared to have been brought from England.

Rebold has been more definite in his account. His statement in substance is
as follows, and although it has been already quoted I repeat it here, for the
purpose of comment.

Speaking of the transformation of Freemasonry from a corporation of

Operatives to a purely philosophic institution, which took place in London in
1717, he proceeds to say, that the first cities on the Continent where this
changed system had been carried from London were Dunkirk and Mons, both
in Flanders, but then forming a part of the kingdom of France. The lodge at
Mons does not seem to have attracted the attention of subsequent writers,
but Rebold says of it that a it was constituted by the Grand Lodge of England
on June 4, 1721, under the name of Parfaite Union. It was, at a later period,
erected into the English Grand Lodge of the Austrian Netherlands, and from
1730 constituted lodges of its own.” (1)

This narrative must be rejected as being unsupported by the English records.

There may have been, as I shall presently show, an irregular lodge at Mons,
organized in 1721, but there is no proof that it had any legal connection with
the Grand Lodge of England.

Of the lodge at Dunkirk, Rebold says that it assumed the name

(1) See "Histoire des Trois Grandes Loges," p. 43.

of Amitie et Fraternite, and that in 1756 it was reconstituted by the Grand

Lodge of France. Of the constitution of this lodge by the Grand Lodge at
London, in 1721, we have no more proof than we have of the Constitution
of that at Mons, and yet it has been accepted as a fact by Dr. Oliver and
some other English authors. Rebold, however, is the only French historian
who positively recognizes its existence.

He then tells us the story as it has been quoted on a preceding page of

the foundation of the lodge of St. Thomas in 1725 at Paris by Lord
Derwentwater and two other Englishmen, and of its constitution by the
Grand Lodge at London on June 12, 1726.

Now the fact is, that while we are compelled to reject the statement that
the Grand Lodge at London had constituted this lodge in the Rue des
Boucheries in 1726, because we have distinct testimony in the records of
the Grand Lodge that it was not constituted until 1732, yet we find it
equally difficult to repudiate the concurrent authority of all the French
historians that there was in 1725 a lodge in the city of Paris, established
by Englishmen, who were all apparently Jacobites or adherents of the
exiled family of Stuart.

Paris at that time was the favorite resort of English subjects who were
disloyal to the Hanoverian dynasty, which was then reigning, as they
believed, by usurpation in their native country.

Clavel tells us that one Hurre or Hure was an English tavernkeeper, and
that his tavern was situated in the Rue des Boucheries. It is natural to
suppose that his house was the resort of his exiled countrymen. That
Charles Radcliffe and his friends were among his guests would be a
strong indication that he was also a Jacobite.

Radcliffe, himself, could not have been initiated into the new system of
Speculative Freemasonry in London, because he had made his escape
from England two years before the organization of the Grand Lodge. But
there might have been, among the frequenters of Hure's tavern, certain
Freemasons who had been Theoretic members of some of the old
Operative lodges, or even taken a share in the organization of the new
Speculative system.

There was nothing to prevent these Theoretic Freemasons from opening

a lodge according to the old system, which did not require a Warrant of
Constitution. The Grand Lodge which had been organized in 1717 did not
claim any jurisdiction beyond London and its precincts, and there were at
that time and long afterward many lodges in England which paid no
allegiance to the Grand Lodge and continued to work under the old
Operative regulations.

It can not be denied that the Grand Lodge which was established in 1717
did not expect to extend its jurisdiction or to enforce its regulations
beyond the city of London and its suburbs. This is evident from a statute
enacted November 25, 1723, when it was “agreed that no new lodge in or
near London, without it be regularly constituted, be countenanced by the
Grand Lodge nor the Master or Wardens admitted to Grand Lodge." (1)

Gould, who quotes this passage, says: "It admits of little doubt, that in its
inception, the Grand Lodge of England was intended merely as a
governing body for the Masons of the Metropolis.” (2) Even as late as
1735 complaint was made of the existence of irregular lodges not working
by the authority or dispensation of the Grand Master. (3)

What was there then to prevent the creation of such a lodge in Paris by
English Freemasons who had left their country? A lodge would not only
be, as Anderson has called it, "a safe and pleasant relaxation from
intense study or the hurry of business," but it would be to these exiles for
a common cause a center of union. Politics and party, which were
forbidden topics in an English lodge at home, would here constitute
important factors in the first selection of members.

It was in fact a lodge of Jacobites. These men paid no respect to acts of

attainder, and to them Charles Radcliffe, as the heir presumptive to the
title of Earl of Derwentwater, was a prominent personage, and he was,
therefore, chosen as the head of the new lodge. (4)

The tavern in which they met was kept by Hure or Hurre, or some name
like it, who, according to the statement of Clavel and others, was an
Englishman. His house very naturally became the resort of his
countrymen in Paris. As it was also the Locate of the Jacobite lodge, it
may be safely presumed that Hure was himself a

(1) From the Grand Lodge Minutes.

(2) "The Four Old Lodges," p. 19.
(3) See New Regulations in Anderson, 2d edition, p. 156.
(4) The French writers and the English who have followed them are all
wrong in saying that Lord Derwentwater was Master of the lodge in 1725.
At that time Lord Derwentwater, the only son of the decapitated Earl, was
a youth. On his death in 1731, without issue, his uncle, Charles Radcliffe,
as next heir assumed the title, though, of course, it was not recognized by
the English law.

Jacobite. Thus it came to pass that to signify that his hostelry was an English
one, he adopted an English sign, and to show that he was friendly to the
cause of the Stuarts he made that sign the "King's Head," meaning, of
course, not the head of George I., who in 1725 was the lawful King of
England, but of James III., whom the Jacobites claimed to be the rightful king,
and who had been recognized as such by the French monarch and the
French people.

Thus it happens that we find, in the engraved list for 1730, the record that
Lodge No. 90 was held at the " King's Head, in Paris."

It may be said that all this is mere inference. But it must be remembered that
the carelessness or reticence of our early Masonic historians compels us, in
a large number of instances, to infer certain facts which they have not
recorded from others which they have. And if we pursue the true logical
method, and show the absolutely necessary and consequent connection of
the one with the other, our deduction will fall very little short of a
demonstration.

Thus, we know, from documentary evidence, that in a list of “regular lodges"

begun in 1730, and apparently continued until 1732, there was a lodge held
in Paris at a tavern whose sign was the “King's Head," and whose number
was 90. We know from the same kind of evidence that in 1732 there was a
lodge bearing the same number and held in the Rue des Boucheries.

All the French historians tell us that a lodge was instituted in that street in
1725, at a tavern kept by an Englishman, the founders of which were
Englishmen. The leader we know was a Jacobite, and we may fairly conclude
that his companions were of the same political complexion.

Now we need not accept as true all the incidents connected with this lodge
which are stated by the French writers, such as the statement of Rebold that
it was constituted by the Grand Lodge of England in 1726. But unless we are
ready to charge all of these historians, from Lalande in 1786 onward to the
present day, with historical falsehood, we are compelled to admit the naked
fact, that there was an English lodge in Paris in 1725. There is no evidence
that this lodge was at that date or very soon afterward constituted by the
Grand Lodge at London, and, therefore, I conclude, as a just inference, that it
was established as all lodges previous to the year 1717 had been
established in London, and for many years afterward in other places by the
spontaneous action of its founders. It derived its authority to meet and
"make Masons," as did the four primitive Lodges which united in forming
the Grand Lodge at London in 1717, from the “immemorial usage" of the
Craft.

As to the two lodges which are said to have been established in 1721 at
Dunkirk and at Mons, the French generally concur in the assertion of their
existence. Ragon alone, by his silence, seems to refuse or to withhold his
assent.

There is, however, nothing of impossibility in the fact, if we suppose that

these two lodges had been formed, like that of Paris, by Freemasons
coming from England, who had availed themselves of the ancient
privilege, and formed their lodges without a warrant and according to
“immemorial usage."

What has been said of the original institution of the Paris lodge is equally
applicable to these two.

It would appear that a Masonic spirit had arisen in French Flanders,

where both these lodges were situated, which was not readily
extinguished, but which led in 1733 to the Constitution by the English
Grand Lodge of a lodge at Valenciennes, a middle point between the two,
in the same part of France, and distant not more than thirty miles from
Mons and about double that distance from Dunkirk.

Rebold says that the lodge at Dunkirk was re-constituted by the Grand
Lodge of France in 1756, and he speaks as if he were leaning upon
documentary authority. He also asserts that the lodge at Mons was, in
1730, erected into a Grand Lodge of the Australian Netherlands. He does
not support this statement by any evidence, beyond his own assertion,
and in the absence of proofs, we need not, when treating of the origin of
Freemasonry in France, discuss the question of the organization of a
Grand Lodge in another country.

Before closing this discussion, a few words may be necessary respecting

the connection of the titular Earl of Derwentwater with the English lodge.
A writer in the London Freemason of February 17, 1877, has said, when
referring to the statement that the lodge at Hure's Tavern had received in
the year 1726 a warrant from the Grand Lodge at London, "of this
statement no evidence exists, and owing to the political questions of the
day much doubt is thrown upon it, especially as to whether the English
Grand Lodge would have given a Warrant to no Jacobites and to a
person who was not Lord Derwentwater, according to English law."

But there was no political reason in 1726, certainly not in 1732, why a
Warrant should not have been granted by the English Grand Lodge for a
Lodge in Paris of which a leading Jacobite should be a member or even
the head.

Toward Charles Radcliffe, who, when he was quite young, had been led
into complicity with the rebellion of 1715 by the influence of his elder
brother, the Earl of Derwentwater, and who had been sentenced to be
beheaded therefor, the government was not vindictive.

It is even said by contemporary writers that if he had not prematurely

made his escape from prison, he would have been pardoned After his
retirement to France, he remained at least inactive, married the widow of
a loyal English nobleman, and in 1833, two years after he had assumed,
when his nephew died without issue, the title of Earl of Derwentwater, he
visited London and remained there for some time unmolested by the
government. It was not until 1745 that he became obnoxious by taking a
part in the ill-advised and unsuccessful invasion of England by the Young
Pretender, and for this Radcliffe paid the penalty of his life.

The Grand Lodge at London had abjured all questions of partisan politics
or of sectarian religion; some of its own members are supposed to have
secretly entertained proclivities toward the exiled family of Stuarts, and
there does not seem to be really any serious reason why a Warrant
should not have been granted to a lodge in Paris, though many of its
members may have been Jacobites.

I do not, however, believe that a warrant of constitution was granted by

the Grand Lodge of England to the lodge at Paris in 1726. The French
historians have only mistaken the date, and confounded the year 1726
with the year 1732. Both Thory and Ragon tell us that the lodge has left
no historical monument of its existence, and that thus much obscurity has
been cast over the earliest labors of Freemasonry in Paris. (1)

One more point in this history requires a notice and an explanation.

Rebold says that in the year 1732 there were four lodges at Paris: 1. The
lodge of St. Thomas, founded in 1725 by Lord Derwentwater and held at
Hure's Tavern. 2, A lodge established

(1) Thory, in the "Histoire de la Fondation de Grand Orient of France” p.

20, and Rayon in the "Acta Latomorum," p. 22.

in May, 1729, by the same Englishmen who had founded the first, and
which met at the Louis d'Argent, a tavern kept by one Lebreton. 3. A lodge
constituted in December of the same year under the name of Arts-Sainte
Marguerite. (1) Its meetings were held at the house of one Gaustand, an
Englishman. 4. A lodge established in November, 1732, called de Buci,
from the name of the tavern kept by one Laudelle in the Rue de Buci. This
lodge afterward took the name of the Lodge d 'Aumont, when the Duke of
Aumont had been initiated in it.

It will not be difficult to reduce these four lodges to two by the assistance
of the English lists. The first lodge, which was founded by Radcliffe,
improperly called Lord Derwentwater, is undoubtedly the same as that
mentioned in the 1730 list under the designation of No. 90 at the "King's
Head." Rebold, Clavel, and the other French authorities tell us that it was
held in the Rue des Boucheries

Now the list for 1734 gives us the same No. 90, as designating a lodge
which met in the same street but at the sign of the Louis d'Argent. This
was undoubtedly the same lodge which had formerly met at the "King's
Head." The tavern may have been changed, but I think it more likely that
the change was only in the sign, made by the new proprietor, for Hure, it
seems, had given way to Lebreton, who might have been less of a
Jacobite than his predecessor, or no Jacobite at all, and might have
therefore discarded the head of the putative king, James. The first and
second in this list of Rebold's were evidently to be applied to the same
lodge.

The fourth lodge was held at the Hotel de Buci. Here, again, Rebold is
wrong in his orthography. He should have spelt it Bussy. There was then
a lodge held in the year 1732 at the Hotel de Bussy. Now Anderson tells
us, in his second edition, that Viscount Montagu granted a deputation "for
constituting a lodge at the Hotel de Bussy in Paris." But the lists for 1732,
1734, 1740, and 1756 give only one Parisian lodge which was constituted
on April 3, 1732, and they always assign the same locality in the Rue des
Boucheries, but change the number, making, however, the change from
90 to 78, and then to 49, and change also the sign, from the "King's
Head" in 1732 to the Louis d 'Argent in 1734, and to the Ville de Tonnerre
in 1740 and 1746.

(1) Clavel ("Histoire Pittoresque," p. 108) calls it A Sainte Marguerite,

which is probably the correct name. The Arts in Rebold may be viewed as
a typographical error.

But it is important to remark that while the Engraved List for 1734 says that
No. 90 met at the Louis d'Argent in the Rue de Boucheries, the list for 1736
says that No. 90 met at the Hotel de Bussy, in the Rue de Bussy, and each of
these lists gives the same date of constitution, namely, April 3, 1732.

I am constrained, therefore, to believe that the lodge at the Hotel de Bussy

was the same as the one held first at Hure's Tavern in 1725 as an
independent lodge and which, in 1732, was legally constituted by the Grand
Lodge of England, and which afterward met either at the same tavern with a
change of sign or at three different taverns.

The first, second, and fourth lodges mentioned by Rebold, therefore, are
resolved into one lodge, the only one which the English records say was
legally constituted by the deputation granted in 1732 by Lord Montagu.

As to the third lodge on Rebold's list, which he calls Arts-Sainte Marguerite,

but which Clavel more correctly styles A Sainte Marguerite, there is no
reference to it, either in the English engraved lists or in the Book of
Constitutions. It is said to have been founded at the close of the year 1729
and to have held its meetings at the house or tavern of an Englishman
named Gaustand.

I can not deny its existence in the face of the positive assertions of the
French historians. I prefer to believe that it was an offshoot of the lodge
instituted in 1725 at Hure's, that that lodge had so increased in numbers as
to well afford to send off a colony, and that, like its predecessor, the lodge A
Saints Marguerite had been formed independently and under the sanction of
"immemorial usage."

Hence, I think it is demonstrated that between the years 1725 and 1732
there were but two lodges in Paris and not four, as some of the French
writers have asserted. Bro. Hughan is inclined to hold the same opinion, and
the writer in the London Freemason, who has previously been referred to,
says that he thinks it "just possible." The possibility is, I imagine, now
resolved into something more than a probability.

Having thus reconciled, as I trust I have, the doubts and contradictions which
have hitherto given so fabulous a character to the history of the introduction
of Speculative Freemasonry into France, I venture to present the following
narrative as a consistent and truthful account of the introduction of the
English system of Speculative Freemasonry into France. It is divested of
every feature of romance and is rendered authentic, partly by official
documents of unquestionable character and partly by strictly logical
conclusions, which can not fairly be refuted.

It was not very long after the foundation of purely Speculative

Freemasonry in London by the disseverance of the Theoretic Masons
from their Operative associates and the establishment of a Grand Lodge,
that a similar system was attempted to be introduced into the neighboring
kingdom of France.

Freemasons coming from England, either members of some of the old

Operative lodges or who had taken a part in the organization of the
London Grand Lodge, having passed over into France. founded in the
year 1721 two independent lodges which adopted the characteristics of
the new Speculative system, so far as it had then been completed, but
claimed the right, according to the ancient usage of Operative
Freemasons, to form lodges spontaneously without the authority of a
Warrant of Constitution.

These lodges were situated respectively at Dunkirk and at Mons, two

cities in French Flanders, and which were at that time within the territory
of the French Empire.

Four years after, namely, in 1725, a similar lodge was founded in Paris, at
the sign of the "King's Head," a tavern which was kept in the Rue des
Boucheries by an Englishman named Hure or Turret or some other name
approximating nearly to it. French historians inform us that the name of
the lodge was St. Thomas, but this name is not recognized in any of the
English engraved lists. Then and for some time afterward English lodges
were known only by the name or sign of the tavern where their meetings
were held. But there is no reason for disbelieving the assertion of the
French writers. The number and the place of meeting were the only
necessary designations to be inserted in the Warrant when it was
granted. Of the one hundred and twenty-eight lodges recorded in Pine's
list for 1734, not one is otherwise designated than by its number and the
sign of the tavern. So that the fact that the lodge is not marked in the
English lists as "the Lodge of St. Thomas," is no proof whatever that its
founders did not bestow upon it that title.

The founders of this lodge were Charles Radcliffe, the younger brother of
the former Earl of Derwentwater, Whose title he six years afterward
assumed, and three other Englishmen, of whose previous or subsequent
history we know nothing, but who are said by the French writers to have
been Lord Harnouester, the Chevalier Maskelyne, and Mr. Heguetty.
These men were, it is supposed, Jacobites or adherents, passively at
least, of the exiled family of Stuarts, represented at that time by the son of
the late James II., and who was known in France and by his followers as
James III. From this fact, and from the character of the tavern where they
met, which was indicated by its sign, it is presumed that the lodge was
originally formed as a resort for persons of those peculiar political
sentiments.

If so, it did not long retain that feature in its composition. The institution of
Speculative Freemasonry became in Paris, as it had previously become in
London, extremely popular. In a short time the lodge received from
French and English residents of Paris an accession of members which
amounted to several hundreds.

In December, 1729, another independent lodge was formed under the

name of A Sainte Marguerite, which was held at the tavern of an
Englishman named Gaustand. It was probably formed by members of the
other lodge whose number had, from the popularity of the institution,
become unwieldy. Of the subsequent career of this lodge we have no
information. The records do not show that it was ever legally constituted
by the Grand Lodge of England.

In 1732 Lord Montagu, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge at London,
granted a deputation for the Constitution of the original lodge in Paris,
which was then holding its meetings at the Hotel de Bussy, in the Rue de
Bussy. It was accordingly constituted on April 3, 1732. But at the time of
the Constitution it appears to have returned to its old locality, as it is
recorded in the first part of the lists in which it is mentioned as meeting in
the Rue des Boucheries at the " King's Head Tavern," and in the second
list at the Louis d'Argent, which, as I have already said, I take to be the
same house with a change of sign.

Thus the fact is established that the new system of Speculative

Freemasonry was introduced into France from England, but not by
authority of the English Grand Lodge, in the year 1721 by the founding of
two independent lodges in French Flanders, and into Paris by the
founding of a similar lodge in 1725.

In 1732 the Grand Lodge of London extended its jurisdiction over the
French territory and issued two deputations, one for the constitution of the
lodge in Paris, and the other for the constitution of a lodge in French
Flanders at the city of Valenciennes.

The former was constituted in 1732, in the month of April, and the latter in
the following year.

The further action of the English Grand Lodge in the constitution of other
lodges, and the future history of the institution which resulted in the
formation of a Grand Lodge in France, must be reserved for consideration
in a future chapter.