\\\THE TEMPLE AND THE LODGE
MICHAEL BAIGENT AND RICHARD LEIGH
THREE
The Origins of Freemasonry
12
The Development of Grand
Lodge
It is difficult to say precisely how much Freemasonry, as it evolved in Scotland, owed to the old Templar heritage and Templar traditions. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, whatever link there may have been between them was long lost, and no new link had yet been forged. Freemasonry had not yet publicly attempted to claim a Templar pedigree for itself . And while Claverhouse and his brother are extremely likely to have been Freemasons, no documentation survives to confirm that they were. If a Templar cross was indeed passed from Claverhouse to his brother and thence to the Abbé Calmet, this may attest some species of Templar survival, but it constitutes no direct connection with Freemasonry. When the Templar mystique surfaced again, it was to do so primarily, as we shall see, in France. Freemasonry, in the mean time, had come to play a much more central role in English affairs.
Under William and Mary, Protestantism regained its supremacy in England. By an act of Parliament which obtains to the present day, all Catholics were precluded from the throne, as was anyone married to a Catholic. Thus a repetition of the circumstances which had precipitated the 1688 revolution was effectively forestalled.
In 1702, eight years after his wife, William of Orange died. He was succeeded by Queen Anne, his sister - in- law and James II’s younger daughter . She, in turn, was succeeded in 1714 by George I, grandson of Elizabeth Stuart and Friedrich, Count Palatine of the Rhine. When George died in 1727, the throne passed to his son, George II, who reigned until 1760. For sixty years f ollowing William’s accession in 1688, the exiled Stuarts clung tenaciously to their dream of regaining the kingdom they had lost. The deposed James II died in 1701, to be succeeded by his son, James III, the so- called ‘ Old Pretender ’ . He in turn was succeeded as claimant by his son, the ‘ Young Pretender ’ , Charles Edward, ‘ Bonnie Prince Charlie’ . Under these three monarchs- in- exile, Jacobite circles on the Continent were to remain hotbeds of conspiracy and political intr igue. Nor were they inef f ectual. In 1708, a projected Stuart invasion of Scotland was mounted, supported by French troops and transported by French ships. England, with most of her troops committed to the War of the Spanish Succession, was ill- equipped to counter this threat, and the invasion would very likely have proved successful but for a combination of bad luck, Jacobite dithering and French apathy. In the event, the whole project foundered, but seven years later , in 1715, Scotland rose in a full- scale revolt under the Earl of Mar — who, as we have seen, was alleged to have succeeded Claverhouse as Grand Master of the latterday Templars. Also joining in the rebellion was Lord George Seton, Earl of Winton, whose title was for feited as a result and the earldom allowed to lapse, while he himself was condemned to death. In 1716, however , he escaped from the Tower of London and joined the exiled Stuart pretenders in France. He remained active in Jacobite affairs for the rest of his life, and in 1736 he became Master of an important Jacobite Masonic lodge in Rome. The revolt was put down, but only at considerable cost, and the exiled Stuarts were to remain a threat for another thirty years. Only after the invasion and full- scale military operations of 1745—6 was this threat at last to recede.
The 1688 revolution had introduced a number of modern, muchneeded reforms, including, and not least, a Bill of Rights. At the same time, however , British society had been grievously split. Nor was it simply a matter of those who supported the Stuarts fleeing the country en masse and leaving it entirely to their rivals. On the contrary, Stuart interests continued to be well represented in English affairs. Not all Stuart adherents were prepared to sanction force. Not all were prepared to defy Parliament. Many, despite their loyalties, were to prove conscientious civil servants under William and Mary, under Anne, under the Hanoverians. Such was the case, for example, with Sir Isaac Newton. But if William and Mary, and Anne, were reasonably popular monarchs, the Hanoverians were not; and there were many in England who publicly, unabashedly, without actually slipping into official treason, inveighed against the detested German sovereigns and agitated for a return of the Stuarts, whom they regarded as the country’s r ightful dynasty.
It was among these Stuart sympathisers that the modern- day Tory Party originated and came of age. The early eighteenth- century Tories had ar isen in the late 1670s out of the old, pre- Civil War cavalier class. Most were High Church Anglican or Anglo- Catholic. Most were landowners and sought to concentrate power in the hands of landed gentry. Virtually all of them esteemed the crown above Parliament and insisted on the Stuar ts’ hereditary r ight to the throne.
Their opponents, nicknamed Whigs, had also risen to prominence during the 1670s. The Whigs consisted mostly of the newly consolidated mercantile and professional classes, and were active in commerce, in industry, in finance and banking, in the army. They encouraged religious diversity and included many dissenters and free- thinkers. They extolled the power of Parliament over that of the crown. And, as Swift says, they ‘ preferred . . . the monied interest before the landed’ . 2 Subscribing, implicitly or explicitly, to the ‘ Puritan work ethic’ , they represented the triumphantly emergent middle class, whose leadership, first in the Commercial, then in the Industrial Revolution, was to determine the course of British history and establish money as supreme arbiter . They had no particular affection for the Hanoverians, but were prepared to tolerate the German rulers as a price of their own burgeoning success.
The fissures in British society were to be reflected in Freemasonry itself . According to extant records, Freemasonry, after the 1688 revolution, continued ostensibly as bef ore. Lodges continued not just to meet, but also to proliferate. It is likely that many older lodges, or the senior members of newer lodges, were pro- Stuart or Tory, but there is no evidence to suggest that Freemasonry, at this point, actually served as a vehicle for Jacobite espionage, conspiracy or propaganda. So far as possible, most lodges in England seem to have remained — or tried to remain — studiously aloof from politics. And inevitably, as more and more Whigs rose to prominence and assumed important positions in the country’s social and commercial affairs, they found their way into the lodge system, putting their own pro- Hanoverian stamp on to Freemasonry.
As we have seen, however , Freemasonry, from its very inception, had been inextricably linked with the Stuarts. Freemasons, during the seventeenth century, were not only required to ‘ be true to the Kinge’ , but also, and actively, to root out and inform against conspirators — thus becoming, in effect, part of the Stuarts’ administrative apparatus and machinery. Such allegiances ran deep. It is not surprising, therefore, that the main thrust of Freemasonry should have remained attached to the Stuart line, should have followed that line into exile and, from abroad, worked to further its interests in England. During the first third or so of the eighteenth century, Freemasonic lodges might be either Whig or Tory, Hanoverian or Jacobite; but it was the Tories in England and the Jacobites abroad who possessed more of the institution’s history and heritage. They constituted the mainstream, while other developments were but tributaries.
In England, prominent Freemasons like the Duke of Wharton were also professed Jacobites. Abroad, most of the Jacobite leaders – General James Keith, for example, the Earl of Winton (Alexander Seton), and the Earls of Derwentwater (first James, then his younger brother Charles, Radclyffe) — were not only Freemasons, but also instrumental in the dissemination of Freemasonry throughout Europe. After the suppression of the 1745 rebellion, a number of illustrious Freemasons were to be sentenced to death for their service to the Jacobite cause — Derwentwater , who had formerly been Grand Master of French Freemasonry, and the Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromarty, who had been Grand Masters of Scottish Freemasonry. Only the latter escaped execution at the Tower .
According to one histor ian:
There is no question but that the Jacobites had a crucial influence on the development of Freemasonry — to such an extent, indeed, that later witnesses went so far as to describe Freemasonry as a gigantic Jacobite conspiracy.
We would argue that the Jacobites did not just have ‘ a crucial influence on the development of Freemasonry’ . We would argue that they were, at least initially, its chief custodians and propagators. And when Grand Lodge — subsequently to become the primary repository of English Freemasonry — was created in 1717, it was created in large part as a Whig or Hanoverian attempt to break what had hither to been a virtual Jacobite monopoly.
The Centralisation of English Freemasonry
Grand Lodge of England was created on 24 June 1717 — St John’ s Day, the day formerly held sacred by the Templars. There were, initially, four London lodges which, in a manifest thrust towards centralisation, chose to amalgamate into one organisation and elect a Grand Lodge as a governing body. They quickly drew more lodges into their fold, and by 1723 the original four lodges had increased in number to fifty- two.
The usual explanation for the coalescence of Grand Lodge is astonishingly bland — or disingenuous. According to one writer , it ‘ came into being for the frankly social purpose of providing an occasion at which the members of a few London lodges could meet’ . One is also told that the period was one of general enthusiasm for clubs and societies, and that the dissemination and proliferation of English Freemasonry was a consequence of this enthusiasm. And yet there is no comparable movement towards centralisation among the various dining and drinking clubs of the time, or the burgeoning antiquarian, bibliographical and scientific societies. It is specifically in Freemasonry that the emphasis is not just on proliferation, but, even more crucially, on centralisation. Thus, for example, of the fifty- two lodges comprising Grand Lodge in 1723, at least twenty- six appear to have pre - date d Grand Lodge’ s foundation in 1717. Their entry into the historical record, in other words, results not from their proliferation, but from their preparedness to centralise.
According to J. R. Clarke, a Freemasonic historian writing in 1967, ‘ I think that in 1717 there was a much more serious reason f or the cooperation: it was made necessary by the political state of the country.’ Clarke goes on to stress the effusive demonstrations of pro- Hanoverian allegiance at the inaugural meeting of Grand Lodge — the drinking of loyal toasts to King George, the singing of loyal songs. And he rightly concludes that such an exaggerated display of patriotic fervour must be seen as an attempt to prove that Freemasons were not Jacobites — a display which would hardly have been necessary were there not some reason to suspect that they were.
Historians today tend to think of the Scottish rebellion of 1715 and the foundation of Grand Lodge in 1717 as two distinct events, separated by a full two years. In fact, however , the 1715 rebellion was not finally and completely suppressed until the execution of Lords Kenmuir and James Derwentwater in February 1716, and the plans for the amalgamation which formed Grand Lodge were made well before the event — during the previous summer or autumn of 1716. The Scottish rebellion and the foundation of Grand Lodge were not therefore separated by two years, but by a mere six to eight months. And there would appear , quite patently, to have been a causal connection between the two. It is as if the pro- Hanoverian establishment, envious of the network which Freemasonry provided for its Jacobite rivals, deliberately sought to foster a parallel network of its own — as if it sought to compete, very much in the enterprising free-market spirit of early Georgian England. Nor was Grand Lodge above co- opting material from its rivals in order to augment its appeal.
This is apparent in the vexed, complicated and controversial issue of Freemasonic ‘ degrees’ , or what might be called stages of initiation. Freemasonry today is divided into three ‘ Craft’ degrees and a number of ‘ optional’ ‘ higher degrees’ . The three ‘ Craft’ degrees — Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason — come under the jurisdiction of United Grand Lodge of England. The ‘ higher degrees’ do not. They come under the jurisdiction of other Freemasonic bodies, such as the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Supreme Council or the Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch. Most English Freemasons today will work through the three degrees offered by Grand Lodge, then continue on to their choice among the various ‘ higher degrees’ — rather in the way that a student, graduating with a BA in English Literature from one university, might move to another university to work for a BA in French or German Literature. In the early to mid- eighteenth century, however , this was not permitted. For an English Freemason of the time, who did not want his loyalty to the crown impugned, only the degrees offered by Grand Lodge were available. The ‘ higher degrees’ , being an almost exclusively Jacobite preserve, were not; and the Freemasonic authorities offering such ‘ higher degrees’ were considered suspect at best, treasonous at worst. Argument still rages about the matter , but it is widely acknowledged today that what are now called ‘ higher degrees’ not only originated in Jacobite Freemasonry, but, in fact, had been there all along. In other words, they do not appear to have been later inventions, but to have been incorporated in a ‘ Store of Legend, Tradition and Symbolism of wide extent’ of which Grand Lodge, in 1717, selected only a portion. And, according to one Freemasonic histor ian:
. . . what our Jacobite Brethren did was to take still other portions of the same Store, adapting them in a manner which to them seemed perfectly justifiable to the service of that Cause which for them was Sacred . . . The Cause . . . has passed away, but, freed from all political associations, many of the Degrees remain.
In other words, the ‘ higher degrees’ seem to have involved aspects of Freemasonic r tual, tradition and history which were simply not known or available to Grand Lodge — or which would have been too politically volatile for Grand Lodge to accommodate, and which had therefore to be repudiated. After 1745, however , when the Stuarts had finally and definitively ceased to be a threat and the Hanoverian grip on the throne was secure, Grand Lodge, albeit grudgingly, began to recognise the ‘ higher degrees’ . And indeed, certain aspects of the ‘ higher degrees’ , purged now of any potentially controversial elements, were eventually appropriated and incorporated into extensions of Grand Lodge’ s own system. Out of this, which entailed a merger with a parallel and rival alternative Grand Lodge, there finally arose, in 1813, United Grand Lodge.
Most English Freemasonic history today has been written by scholars working under the auspices of United Grand Lodge. They present Jacobite Freemasonry and the proliferation of ‘ higher degrees’ as schismatic and heretical — deviations from the mainstream of which they themselves are representative. In fact, however , this would appear to be precisely the opposite of what actually occurred, with Jacobite Freemasonry apparently forming the original mainstream and Grand Lodge the deviation — which, by dint of historical circumstance and vicissitude, eventually became the mainstream itself . One is reminded of the origins of Christianity and the process whereby Pauline thought, originally a schism or heretical deviation from Jesus’s own teachings, supplanted those teachings and became the new or thodoxy — while Nazarean thought, the original repository of the teachings, was labelled a form of heresy.
Like Pauline thought, Grand Lodge seems to have begun as a deviation of the mainstream. Like Pauline thought, it displaced the mainstream and became the mainstream itself . But like Pauline thought, it did not always have things easy, and it continued to be suspect in the eyes of the secular authority it sought to appease. As a Masonic historian observes: ‘ to be a member of the Fraternity of Freemasons at that period was to invite the suspicion that one was also a Jacobite . . .’
The Influence of English Freemasonry
The Duke of Wharton, Grand Lodge’s Grand Master in 1722, did little to encourage either public or official confidence. Not only was he a vociferous Jacobite. Three years before, he had co- founded the f amous (or notorious) Hell Fire Club, which originally met in the Greyhound Tavern near St James. In this undertaking, he was joined by another figure soon to be prominent in Freemasonry, George Lee, Earl of Lichfield, whose father had died fighting for the Stuarts at the Boyne and whose mother , Charlotte Fitzroy, was an illegitimate daughter of Charles II. Lee himself was thus of Stuart blood and a cousin of two other illegitimate grandchildren of Charles II, James and Charles Radclyffe, successively Ear ls of Derwentwater . Not surprisingly, he, too, played an active role in Jacobite affair s. In 1716, his machinations had effected the escape of Charles Radclyffe and thirteen others from Newgate Prison, where they had been incarcerated for their part in the 1715 rebellion. James Radclyffe had already been executed.
Predictably enough, the authorities cracked down. In 1721, an edict was issued against ‘ certain scandlous clubs or societies’ . Quietly, though only temporarily, the Hell Fire Club was closed down. Aware of the suspicion it attracted, Grand Lodge f elt obliged to assure, or reassure, the government that it was ‘ safe’ . In 1722:
. . . a select Body of the Society of Free Masons waited on . . . the Lord Viscount Townsend [brother - in- law of Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister ] . . . to signify to his Lordship, that being obliged by their Constitutions, to hold a General Meeting now at Midsummer , according to annual Custom, they hoped the Administration would take no Umbrage at that Convocation, as they were all zealously affected to His Majesty’s Person and Government. His Lordship received this Intimation in a very affable Manner , telling them he believed they need not be apprehensive of any Molestation from the Government, so long as they went on doing nothing more dangerous than the ancient secrets of the society; which must be of a very harmless Nature, because, as much as Mankind love Mischief , no Body ever betray’d them.
And yet it was at this 1722 convocation – amidst charges of irregularity that Wharton managed to get himself elected Grand Master . Subsequently, he was accused of attempting to ‘ capture Freemasonry for the Jacobites’ . The f ollowing year , he was succeeded by the proHanoverian Earl of Dalkeith and left abruptly, ‘ without any ceremony’ . If there were ever any minutes for the period of his or his predecessors’ Grand Masterships, they disappeared. Officially, Grand Lodge’s minutes begin on 25 November 1723, under Dalkeith’s Grand Mastership. In September 1722, an ambitious if rather half - baked Jacobite plot was exposed – to foment a rising in London, capture the Tower and hold it until the rebels could be joined by an invasion force from France. Among the conspirators implicated in this plot was Dr John Arbuthnot, a prominent Freemason and former Royal Physician to Queen Anne. Arbuthnot’s closest friends included a number of other distinguished Freemasons, among them Pope and Swift – who, though not involved in the plan, suffered some degree of stigma by association. The September plot undid much of the credibility Grand Lodge had endeavoured to establish for itself earlier in the year and dictated the need for fresh assurances.
In 1723, as if to allay once and for all any suspicion of subversive political activity, there appeared the famous Constitutions of James Anderson. Anderson, a minister of the Scots Church in St James and chaplain to the staunchly pro- Hanoverian Earl of Buchan, was a member of the immensely influential Horn Lodge, which included such pillar s of the establishment as the Duke of Queensborough, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Paisley and, by 1725, Newton’ s associate, Joh Desaguliers. Such credentials and connections effectively placed Anderson above suspicion. In 1712, moreover , he had printed some virulent anti- Catholic sermons, extolling Queen Anne and invoking God:
. . . that he may disappoint the vain hopes of our common Adver saries by continuing the Protestant reformed Religion amongst us, and securing further the Protestant Succession to the Crown in the Line and House of Hanover . . .
Later , in 1732, Anderson was to publish another pro- Hanoverian work, Royal Genealogies. Among its subscribers were the Earl of Dalkeith, the Earl of Abercorn, Colonel (later General) Sir John Ligonier , Colonel John Pitt, Dr John Arbuthnot, John Desaguliers and Sir Robert Walpole.
Anderson’s Constitutions became, in effect, the Bible for English Freemasonry. It enunciates what were to become some of the now familiar and basic tenets of Grand Lodge. The first article, in its sheer vagueness, remains to this day a point of debate, interpretation and contention. In the past, Freemasons had been obliged to declare their allegiance to God and the Church of England, but, Anderson wr ites, ‘ tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion to which all men agree, leaving their par ticular opinions to themselves . . .’ The second article states explicitly: ‘ A Mason . . . is never to be concerned in Plots and Conspiracies against the Peace and Welfare of the Nation.’ According to the sixth article, no arguments pertaining to religion or politics are to be countenanced in the lodge.
The Constitutions did not entirely allay all suspicion. As late as 1737, a long letter appeared in two London journals, warning that Freemasonry was dangerous to English society because it was secretly serving the Stuart cause. Portentous allusions were made to certain ‘ special’ lodges which were privy to crucial information and withheld it from ordinary Freemasons. These lodges – which ‘ admit . . . even Jacobites, Nonjurors, and Papists’ – were said to be recruiting on behalf of Stuart interests. The anonymous author admitted that many Freemasons were loyal supporters of the Crown, but then asked: ‘ how can We be sure that those Persons who are known to be well- affected are let into all their mysteries?
By then, however , such paranoia had become the exception rather than the rule. With Ander son’ s Constitutions, Grand Lodge became respectable, an increasingly unimpugnable social and cultural adjunct of the Hanoveian regime which was to extend, eventually, up to the throne. In Scotland, in Ireland and on the Continent, other forms of Freemasonry, as we shall see, continued active. In England, however , Grand Lodge established something approaching a monopoly; and its political orthodoxy was never subsequently to be seriously in doubt. Indeed, so integrated had Grand Lodge become in English society that its nomenclature had already begun to permeate the language and remains with us to this day. Phrases such as ‘ standing four square’ , ‘ on the level’ , ‘ taking a man’ s measure’ , subjecting a person to ‘ the third degree’ and many others certainly derive from Freemasonry.
By the 1730s, Grand Lodge had begun to take a burgeoning interest in North America and to ‘ warrant’ lodges there—that is, to sponsor lodges as affiliates of itself . In 1732, for example, General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia and became, two years later , Master of Georgia’s first Freemasonic lodge. Oglethorpe’s own political allegiances were ambiguous. Most of his family were active Jacobites. Three of his sisters were particularly militant on behalf of the Stuart cause, as was his elder brother , exiled for seditious activity. In the 1745 rebellion, Oglethorpe himself commanded British troops in the field, and displayed such apathy in his operations that he was court-mar tialled. Although he was acquitted, there seems little doubt that he shared his family’s sympathies. Never theless, his venture in Georgia met with approval from both the Hanover ian regime and Grand Lodge. Not only did Grand Lodge warrant the lodge he had founded. It also ‘ strenuously recommended’ that its English membership take up ‘ a generous collection’ on behalf of their Georgia off shoot and affiliate.
Thus, by the third decade of the eighteenth century, English Freemasonry, under the auspices of Grand Lodge, had become a bastion of the social and cultural establishment, including, among its more illustrious brethren, Desagulier s, Pope, Swift, Hogarth and Boswell, as well as Charles de Lorraine, future husband of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. As we have seen, it had begun as a deviation from the mainstream, and then – so far at least as England was concerned – become the mainstream itself . In some respects, the Freemasonry of Grand Lodge may have been ‘ less complete’ than that of the Jacobites, less privy to ancient secrets, less heir to original traditions. And yet despite all this, or perhaps precisely because of it, the Freemasonry of Grand Lodge performed a social and cultural function that its rivals did not.
Grand Lodge suffused the whole of English society and inculcated its values into the very fabric of English thought. Insisting on a universal brotherhood which transcended national frontiers, English Freemasonry was to exert a profound influence on the great reformers of the eighteenth century – on David Hume, for example, on Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu and Rousseau in France, on their disciples in what was to become the United States. It is to Grand Lodge, and to the general philosophical climate fostered by it, that much of what is best in English history of the age can be ascribed. Under the aegis of Grand Lodge, the entire caste system in England became less rigid, more flexible, than anywhere else on the Continent. ‘ Upward mobility’ , to use the jargon of sociologists, became increasingly possible. Structures against religious and political prejudice served to encourage not just tolerance, but also the kind of egalitarian spir it that so impressed visitors from abroad: Voltaire, for example, later a Freemason himself , was so enthused by English society that he extolled it as the model to which all European civilisation should aspire. Anti- Semitism became more discredited in England than anywhere else in Europe, with Jews not only becoming Freemasons, but also gaining an access hither to denied them to social, political and public life. The burgeoning middle class was given room and latitude to manoeuvre and expand in a way that it could not elsewhere, and hence to catapult Britain to the forefront of commercial and industrial progress. Charitable works, including the often stressed solicitude for widows and orphans, disseminated a new ideal of civicresponsibility and paved the way for many subsequent welfare programmes. One might even argue that the solidarity of the lodge, together with its invocation of the medieval guilds, anticipated many of the features of later trade unionism. And finally, the process whereby masters and grand masters were elected implanted in English thinking a healthy distinction, soon to bear fruit in America, between the man and the office.
In all these respects, English Freemasonry constituted a kind of adhesive, holding together the fabric of eighteenth- century society. Among other things, it helped to provide a more temperate climate than obtained on the Continent, where grievances were eventually to culminate first in the French Revolution, then in the upheavals of 1832 and 1848. As we shall see, this climate was to extend to the British colonies in North America and to play a crucial role in the foundation of the United States. Thus, the form of Freemasonry promulgated by Grand Lodge was to supplant its own or igins. In doing so, it was to emerge as one of the most genuinely important and influential phenomena of the century – and one whose significance has all too of ten been overlooked by orthodox historians.
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