Note: This material was scanned into text files for the sole purpose of convenient electronic research. This material is NOT intended as a reproduction of the original volumes. However close the material is to becoming a reproduced work, it should ONLY be regarded as a textual reference. Scanned at Phoenixmasonry by Ralph W. Omholt, PM in June 2007.
FREEMASONS' BOOK OF THE ROYAL ARCH
BY
BERNARD E. JONES
P.A.G.D.C. P.G.ST.B. ROYAL ARCH
MEMBER OF QUATUOR CORONATI LODGE
AUTHOR OF
"FREEMASONS' GUIDE AND COMPENDIUM"
New Impression
Revised by
HARRY CARR, P.A.G.D.C., P.G.ST.B.(R.A.)
P.M. and Secretary, Quatuor Coronati Lodge
and Editor of its Transactions
and
A. R. HEWITT, P.A.G.D.C., P.G.ST.B.(R.A.)
P.M. and
Treasurer, Quatuor Coronati Lodge
Librarian and Curator of Museum,
United Grand Lodge of England
With thirty‑one plates in half‑tone and
many line illustrations in the text
GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY LTD
LONDON TORONTO WELLINGTON SYDNEY
PREFACE
THIS book, uniform in style and presentation with my earlier Freemasons' Guide and Compendium, which, in the main, dealt with Craft masonry, is an attempt to provide a simple explanation of the origin, rise, and development, and the customs, ritual, and symbolism, of Royal Arch masonry so far as present knowledge and considerations of Masonic propriety permit. I use the word ‘attempt' advisedly, for great difficulties are in the way of complete achievement in writing historically of this "elusive degree," although, let me say, in the task of coping with them I have been greatly cheered by recollections of the indulgence given me by readers of my earlier book.
The greatest obstacle in the path of the writer seeking to explain the early history of Royal Arch masonry is his comparative ignorance of the formative days of the Order ‑ the mid‑eighteenth‑century period. The facts on record are not enough to preclude different interpretations and conflicting views. Perhaps it is a slight compensation that the traditional history upon which the ceremonial of the Order is founded was clearly anticipated in published writings to an extent considerably greater than in the case of the Craft, for whereas, for example, there is hardly any recorded foreknowledge of the Third Degree Hiramic story, the Legend of the Crypt might well have been inspired by one known to have been in written form in the fourth century of the Christian era, while the sword‑and‑trowel motif, derived from the Old Testament account of the return of the Jews from exile, was the pride and glory of a Crusading Order of the early Middle Ages.
What I have tried to do in writing this book is to make available to Companions who have had little opportunity for specialized study an essentially readable account, as authentic as possible, of the history and lore of the Royal Arch, affording an insight into some matters which in the past have tended to escape the attention of all but the serious student. Not only do I hope that my readers will enjoy reading my book, but that some few of them will be able to use it as a source of material for short, simple addresses designed to arouse and foster the interest of their Companions. And most sincerely, also, do I hope that the serious student will find in it occasion for kindly, constructive criticism; indeed, I am
8
sure he will, for there are wide and unavoidable differences of opinion on some of the subjects discussed by me.
The title of this book may be thought to err by omission. Inasmuch as the Articles of Union, 1813, use the term ‘Holy Royal Arch' and the early Companions knew the Order by that name, it may be thought that the word ‘Holy' ought to be included in the title and commonly used in the text. True, there is history in the word. ‘Holy' is thought to have been derived more than two centuries ago from the ‘Antient' masons' motto, "Holiness to the Lord"; or to have been inspired by the Holy of Holies, the Inner Chamber of the Temple Sanctuary; or, again, to have reflected the religious, and even Christian, character of the primitive Royal Arch ceremonial. But it is to be noted that it is only sparingly used nowadays in the accepted rituals, and ‑ a fact that has mainly influenced me ‑ it does not form part of the titles of the Grand Chapters of England, Ireland, and Scotland.
So great a part of our knowledge of Royal Arch matters having been revealed by modern, and even quite recent, research, it follows that oldtime writings on the subject need generally to be read with caution. In no section of Masonic authorship has history been so badly served as in that of the Royal Arch, where the blending of fact and fancy so often causes the reader perplexity. I hope that my readers will do their best to approach this book with minds open and as free as possible of preconceptions.
In preparing myself for my task I have necessarily ranged over a wide variety of writings, and hope that I may fairly claim for this book what my old friend the late J. Heron Lepper so appreciatively said of my earlier one‑namely, that "it provides the man who has small leisure for extensive reading with the essence and marrow of what has been accomplished in two generations of Masonic scholarship." The List of Contents and the 16‑page Index reveal at a glance the very wide scope of my book.
My qualifications as a Royal Arch mason may be briefly stated: I was exalted in the Savage Club Chapter, No. 2190, in 1913, and was in the First Principal's Chair in 1925‑26. The writing of Masonic books comes at the end of a long and active life spent largely as an editor of technical books and periodicals. After much desultory Masonic reading and some modest lecturing I settled down in 1945 to serious work preparatory to writing my Freemasons' Guide and Compendium, which was published in 1950, since when I have applied myself more especially to the study of Royal Arch masonry, and of that study this book offers the more particular fruit.
Slight disparity between the opinions now expressed, particularly in the early sections of this book, and some in my other work may possibly
9
give occasion for comment. I confess that, with still wider reading and much further meditation, assisted by the results of recent research, I have come to regard the origin and rise of Royal Arch masonry in what I believe to be a truer perspective, allowing of my taking a more generous view of some of the questions involved. But I am very far from pretending that I am able (or that anybody ever will be able) to offer a noncontroversial account of the early history of the Order.
I am happy in acknowledging very considerable help extended to me in the course of gathering material for this book, and it is with gratitude that I mention especially one source of information to which I am under a heavy obligation: the late J. Heron Lepper, Librarian and Curator (1943‑52) of the United Grand Lodge of England, a man of great gifts and considerable achievement, wide learning, and with profound knowledge of Masonic history, built up over the course of years a most unusual file of Royal Arch information (neither now nor then normally available for reference), with possibly some idea that, given opportunity, he might one day turn it to account in the printed word. Such a book, had he been spared to write it, would have been a classic, and mine would have remained unwanted and unwritten. But his opportunity did not come, for, to the sorrow of us all, he died at Christmas 1952, at the age of seventy‑four. By unique good fortune, to which my book owes very much indeed, his successor, Ivor Grantham, courteously extended to me the privilege of working steadily through Heron Lepper's file and of taking copies of any of its contents, and for this great kindness‑just one of a great many from the same hands ‑ I shall ever be grateful.
My debt to two other sources, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (the "Transactions" of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076, the world's premier lodge of Masonic research) and Miscellanea Latomorum (let us hope only temporarily suspended), is a heavy one, for there is little on my subject in the lengthy files of these publications that I have not read in my search for enlightenment. All Masonic authors of to‑day have reason to be grateful to these two remarkable founts of knowledge.
To many of my fellow‑members of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge (all of them authors of Masonic writings) I offer thanks for many marked kindnesses ‑ as, for example, to John R. Dashwood (Secretary and Editor of the lodge "Transactions"), for many privileges, especially his help in connexion with the history of the First Grand Chapter and his kindness in finding and lending illustrations. (His publication, in the lodge "Transactions," of the actual record of the interrogation of John Coustos by the Inquisition (1743 and 1744) and of the minutes of the chapter that so quickly became the First Grand Chapter (1766), with his comments thereon, gives us two of the most notable recent contri‑
10
butions to authentic Masonic history. I have well profited by them.) Also, I would thank Harry Carr, for his painstaking revision of the section on the Ineffable Name; George S. Draffen (Grand Librarian, Grand Lodge of Scotland), for placing his manuscript The Triple Tau at my disposal in advance of publication and for permission to quote from it; Gilbert Y. Johnson, for help in connexion with the history of York Royal Arch masonry and for lending me his writings on the subject; Bruce W. Oliver, for his loan of an old MS. ritual, of which I have been able to make considerable use; Sydney Pope, for arranging for the photographing of an ancient banner preserved in the Canterbury Masonic Museum, of which he is Curator; Norman Rogers, for help in general and for the loan of his MS. on Royal Arch masonry in Lancashire; Fred L. Pick, for arranging for the loan of many photographs, some preserved in the museum of which he is Curator and others belonging to the Manchester Association of Masonic Research; John R. Rylands, for reading two early sections, the loan of his papers on Yorkshire Royal Arch masonry, and permission to use his photographs of the Wakefield jewels; William Waples, for his many notes on North‑east Royal Arch masonry and for permission to use two photographs; and Eric Ward, for providing me with copies of minutes of old military chapters.
Also, I wish to thank Ward K. St Clair, Chairman, Library and Museum Committee, Grand Lodge of New York, U.S.A., for his courtesy and for permission to quote from his MS. paper relating to the "Past Master Degree" in United States freemasonry; Norman Hackney, for the use of photograph and description of an ancient Indian metal plate carrying significant symbols; G. S. Shepherd‑Jones, for the use I have made of his explanation of the symbolism of the Royal Arch jewel; C. F. Waddington, for his help in connexion with some of the Bristol ceremonies; and the great many lodges and chapters whose records I have quoted and whose treasured possessions I have, in some cases, been able to illustrate, suitably acknowledged where possible.
I take particular pleasure in recording my great debt to members of the staff of the Library and Museum, Freemasons' Hall, London, who over a period of years have freely given me of their knowledge, and have allowed me, times out of number, to bother them in my search for information. To the Librarian and Curator, to whom I have already referred; the Assistant Librarian, Edward Newton (who has suffered much of my importunity); to H. P. Smith and T. Barlow, members of the staff to all of them I offer my warm thanks for assistance in so many, many matters; to Henry F. D. Chilton, the Assistant Curator, I record my sincere appreciation of his help in choosing from among the Museum exhibits many of the diverse subjects included in the thirty‑one photographic plates with which the Publisher has so generously adorned this book. In this connexion I wish to thank the United Grand Lodge, the Supreme Grand Chapter, and also Quatuor Coronati Lodge for their loan of a great many of the illustrations, and the first named for its particular kindness in taking the trouble on my behalf of having photographs made of a number of its Library and Museum treasures.
It will be understood, therefore, that it is with a lively sense of the help I myself have enjoyed that I now address myself to Companions everywhere in the hope that my book, in adding, as I trust, to their knowledge of Royal Arch masonry, will serve also to add to the happiness and satisfaction which they derive from membership of the Order.
B.E.J.
BOLNEY
SUSSEX
PREFACE TO THE REVISED IMPRESSION
TWELVE years have passed since this monumental work on the Royal Arch was first published, and in preparation for a new impression opportunity has been taken to make a number of important amendments in the light of modern studies in this field. The main changes occur in the sections dealing with the organization of the ‘Antients' Royal Arch. Research has shown that there never was an ‘Antients' Grand Chapter as such, so frequently mentioned in the earlier impressions; its Royal Arch activities were controlled by the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge. Similarly, it was something of a misnomer to refer to the ‘Moderns' Grand Chapter, which was, throughout its history, the premier and the only Grand Chapter in England. The requisite modifications have now been made, together with necessary corrections in the section dealing with the Ineffable Name and minor corrections of dates, captions, spellings, etc., where needed. The general scheme of the original work, and the pagination, remain unchanged.
H.C.
A.R.H.
JANUARY 1969
27 GREAT QUEEN STREET
LONDON, W.C.2
CONTENTS
SECTION PAGE
1. WHENCE CAME THE ROYAL ARCH? 19
2. HOW CRAFT CONDITIONS PREPARED THE WAY FOR THE
ROYAL ARCH 31
3. THE EARLY YEARS OF ROYAL ARCH MASONRY 36
4. THE ‘ANTIENT' MASONS AND THE ROYAL ARCH 52
5. THE ‘MODERNS' MASONS AND THE ROYAL ARCH 62
6. THE FIRST GRAND CHAPTER IN THE WORLD 68
7. THE SO‑CALLED ‘ANTIENTS' GRAND CHAPTER 93
8. YORK ROYAL ARCH MASONRY 100
9. SOME FAMILIAR TERMS 105
10. THE'UNION'‑SUPREME GRAND CHAPTER, 1817 109
11. TRADITIONAL HISTORY: THE CRYPT LEGEND 126
12. TRADITIONAL HISTORY: THE BIBLICAL BACKGROUND 138
13. THE INEFFABLE NAME 148
14. THE RITUAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 156
15. THE PRINCIPALS AND THEIR INSTALLATION 175
16. AN EARLY QUALIFYING CEREMONY: PASSING THE CHAIR 181
17. PASSING THE VEILS 195
18. SEQUENCE AND STEP DEGREES 201
19. THE IRISH ROYAL ARCH 208
20. THE SCOTTISH ROYAL ARCH 219
21. SYMBOLS: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS; THE CIRCLE 226
22. SYMBOLS: THE TAU AND THE TRIPLE TAU 233
23. SYMBOLS: THE TRIANGLE AND INTERLACED TRIANGLES 238
24. THE ALTAR STONE, LIGHTS, BANNERS 245
25. ROYAL ARCH CLOTHING 252
26. ROYAL ARCH JEWELS 258
APPENDIX: THE CHARTER OF COMPACT 272
BIBLIOGRAPHY 277
INDEX 279
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES IN HALF‑TONE
PAGE
I. THE ROYAL ARCH AS DEPICTED BY LAURENCE DERMOTT frontispiece
II. SWORD‑AND‑TROWEL EMBLEM, FROM GEOFFREY
WHITNEY'S "CHOICE OF EMBLEMES," AND TRIPLE
ARCHES FROM ROYAL ARCH CERTIFICATES 32
III. FRONTISPIECE OF SAMUEL LEE'S "ORBIS MIRACULUM,"
OR "THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON" (1659) AND
FRONTISPIECE TO "AHIMAN REZON" (1764),
INCLUDING IN ITS UPPER PART THE ARMS OF THE
‘ANCIENT' MASONS 33
IV. THE CHARTER OF COMPACT 48
V. CADWALLADER, NINTH LORD BLAYNEY (1720‑75) 49
VI. TWO DECORATIVE APRONS OF THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 64
VII. THE KIRKWALL SCROLLGS
VIII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROYAL ARCH EMBLEM AND JEWEL 80
IX. ANCIENT METAL PLATE AND THE ALL‑SEEING EYE IN
WROUGHT‑IRON ORNAMENT 81
X. THE CRYPT OF YORK MINSTER AND TWO TYPICAL
SUMMONSES, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 96
XI. SOME EARLY VARIATIONS OF THE ROYAL ARCH JEWEL 97
XII. TRACING‑BOARD OF CHURCHILL LODGE, NO. 478,
OXFORD, AND CEREMONIAL SWORD USED IN
‘ANTIENTS' GRAND LODGE AND NOW BORNE IN
SUPREME GRAND CHAPTER 112
XIII. TWO PAINTED APRONS WORKED IN APPLIQUE 113
XIV. BANNER PAINTED IN COLOURS LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 128
XV. COMBINED P.M. AND P.Z. JEWELS, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 129
XVI. CHARTER OF THE CANA CHAPTERS COLNE, NO. 116 AND
BANNER OF AN OLD LODGE) NO. 2o8, AT WIGTON, CUMBERLAND 144
XVIL TWO HANDSOME CHAIRS COMBINED CRAFT AND ROYAL ARCH 145
XVIII. APRONS OF THE 1790 PERIOD 160
XIX. TODDY RUMMER, EARLY 1820'S 161
XX. PLATE JEWELS AND HEAVY CAST JEWELS, LATE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 176
XXI. OLD PRINTS EMBLEMATIC OF TRADITIONAL HISTORY 177
XXIL FIVE SMALL JEWELS, 1780‑1825 PERIOD 192
XXIII. A SET OF PRINCIPALS' ROBES) APRONS, AND HEAD DRESSES 193
XXIV. THE UNIQUE JEWELS OF UNANIMITY CHAPTER, WAKEFIELD 208
XXV. HEAD‑DRESSES ANCIENT AND TRADITIONAL 209
XXVI. RICHLY ORNAMENTED APRONS OF THE 1800 PERIOD 224
XXVIL JUGS DECORATED WITH MASONIC TRANSFERS 225
XXVIII. THE BELZONI AND OTHER RARE JEWELS ALL SET IN BRILLIANTS 240
XXIX. A MINIATURE PEDESTAL AND THE NEWCASTLE WATERCLOCK 241
XXX. FOUR APRONS PAST AND PRESENT 256
XXXI. FIVE NOTEWORTHY AND CONTRASTING JEWELS 257
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
PAGE
THE CATENARIAN ARCH 134
SYMBOLIC CIRCLES 231
VARIATIONS OF THE CROSS 233
THE T‑OVER‑HAND THE TRIPLE TAU 233
HOW THE PLAIN CROSS DEVELOPED INTO FORMS OF THE SWASTIKA
OR FYLFOT 234
SYMBOLIC FIGURES 234
SYMBOLIC TRIANGLES 238
THE HEXALPHA SIX‑POINTED STAR AND A FEW OF ITS VARIATIONS 241
A VARIETY OF INTERLACED TRIANGLES FOUND IN MASONICPAGE ILLUSTRATION 242
MANY MASONIC DEVICES BUILT UP WITH AND WITHIN
INTER LACED TRIANGLES 243
THE PENTALPHA (FIVE‑POINTED STAR) IN SOME OF ITS VARIATIONS 244
A PIERCED JEWEL SHOWING TRIPLE ARCHES AND FIGURE OF
SOJOURNER 259
A JEWEL OF THE THREE CROWNED STARS LODGE, PRAGUE 259
TWO SIDES OF OLD JEWEL OF UNCOMMON SHAPE AND CROWDED
WITH EMBLEMS 261
A SQUARE‑AND‑SECTOR COLLAR JEWEL OF BOLD AND ATTRACTIVE
DESIGNS DATED 1812 263
OBVERSE AND REVERSE OF THE ENGLISH ROYAL ARCH JEWEL 264
OBVERSE AND REVERSE OF THE SCOTTISH ROYAL ARCH JEWEL 265
OBVERSE OF THE IRISH ROYAL ARCH JEWEL 265
A DESIGN (DATE 1630) BY THE FRENCH ENGRAVER CALLOT, A
POSSIBLE PREFIGUREMENT OF THE ROYAL ARCH JEWEL (1766) 266
TWO IRISH SILVER JEWELS, LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 267
AN EARLY IRISH JEWEL CARRYING EMBLEMS OF MANY DEGREES
AND SHOWING SOJOURNER WITH SWORD AND TROWEL 268
Section One
WHENCE CAME THE ROYAL ARCH?
THERE has been long argument on how Royal Arch masonry came into existence. Was it present in some slight form in the earliest fabric of speculative masonry or was it, frankly, just an innovation in the first half of the eighteenth century? Those accepting the first possibility believe that long before the earliest recorded dates of Craft masonry ‑ the Acception in the London Company of Freemasons in 1621 and the ‘making' of Elias Ashmole in 1646 ‑ there was a legend or a series of legends from which was developed (a) the Hiramic Degree which was working in a few lodges certainly as early as the 1720's; (b) the Royal Arch Degree known to be working by the 1740's and 1750's; and (c) some additional degrees. All three were thought to have come from one common source and, although developed on very different lines, to have running through them a recognizable thread. Students of the calibre of J. E. S. Tuckett and Count Goblet d'Alviella were prominent in advancing such a possibility. They felt that the legends relating to Hiram and to the Royal Arch were the surviving portions of a Craft lore that originally contained other and similar legends, the Count holding that freemasonry sprang from "a fruitful union between the professional Guild of Medieval Masons and a secret group of philosophical adepts." The Guild furnished the form and the philosophers the spirit.
Many students have thought that the Royal Arch was torn from the Hiramic Degree and that the 1813 Act of Union between the ‘Antients' and the ‘Moderns’1 did scant justice in pronouncing "that pure Ancient Masonry consists of Three Degrees and no more, namely those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft and the Master Mason including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch." We know that the Hiramic Degree was developing into a practicable ritual in the years following 1717, in which year the Premier Grand Lodge was founded, and that the Royal Arch Degree was going through a similar experience two or three decades later; this sequence in time is held to favour the idea that from the store of tradition came first the Hiramic story of the First Temple and secondly the Sojourner story of the Second Temple.
1 For explanation of these terms see the author's Freemasons' Guide and Compendium, chapter 12.
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Although Count Goblet d'Alviella suggests a union between medieval masons and the philosophers, most students (the present writer among them) cannot see even a slight possibility that the Royal Arch has developed from operative masonry. The Count probably had in mind the association between the slight speculative masonry of the seventeenth century possibly centred in the London Company of Freemasons and the learned mystics practising Rosicrucian and alchemical arts. Many of the learned men who came into masonry in those early days were scholars well acquainted with classical and medieval literature, who brought with them a curious and special knowledge and, so far as can be judged, grafted some of that knowledge upon the short and simple ceremonies which then constituted speculative masonry. There is a good case for assuming that much of the symbolism of masonry was brought in by those mystics, and there can be no doubt whatsoever that some of the best‑known symbols of Royal Arch masonry bear a close resemblance to those of alchemy; this point will be developed later; for the moment we must accept the likelihood that Royal Arch masonry borrowed directly from the alchemical store of symbolism. But this or any similar statement does not imply that Craft and Royal Arch masonry came from one common source, for while, on the one hand, there are suggestions in Biblical and medieval literature on which a sort of Hiramic Degree could be based and, on the other hand, traditions which almost certainly supplied the basis of the Royal Arch story, we do not know of any traditions containing fundamentals common to both‑an ignorance on our part that is far from proof that such a source never existed! With this slight introduction let us now inquire more closely into the problems that arise.
Did the Royal Arch develop from the Hiramic Degree?
At times it has been strongly and widely held that the original Third Degree of the Craft was ‘mutilated' to provide material for the Royal Arch ceremonial. Dr Mackey, the well‑known American writer, stated that, "until the year 1740, the essential element of the R.A. constituted a part of the Master's degree and was, of course, its concluding portion." Both the Rev. A. F. A. Woodford and the Rev. Dr Oliver asserted that the Royal Arch was the second part of the Old Master's Degree; Dr Oliver maintained that "the difference between the ‘Antient' and the ‘Modern' systems consisted solely in the mutilation of the Third Degree," and that "the R.A. was concocted by the ‘Antients' to widen the breach and make the line of distinction between them and the Premier Grand Lodge broader and more indelible." It has been said that the 'Moderns, resenting taunts on their having transposed the words and signs of the First and
21
Second Degrees, were merely retaliating when they accused the ‘Antients' of mutilating the Third Degree.
It so happens that the reverend gentlemen, A. F. A. Woodford and George Oliver, are seldom reliable when dealing with any matter relating to the great division in eighteenth‑century masonry (a division which is explained in the author's earlier book'). Both of them, forming their opinions somewhat lightly, wrote in a day lacking the new information which research has brought us in this matter. Dr Oliver professed to have a Third Degree ritual of 1740 in which some of the esoteric knowledge now associated with the R.A. is mixed up with similar knowledge now associated with the Third Degree, but it is doubtful if such a document exists. The modern student would require to see the document and give close attention to its provenance ‑ that is, its origin and true date.
W. Redfern Kelly believed that a Mason Word, recognized under the ancient operative system and included in the First and Second Degrees round about IM, was transferred to the Third Degree in the 1750's (apparently by the Premier Grand Lodge), and that later, perhaps about the year 1739, the Third Degree was seriously mutilated to provide a fourth degree, it being an easy matter, once again, to transfer both the Word and some of the legendary matter to the new creation. But, frankly, few students nowadays accept these beliefs or look kindly upon the term ‘ mutilation' when used to describe the process by which the Third Degree is assumed to have yielded to the R.A. some of its choice content. To the present writer ‘mutilation' seems to be quite beside the mark.
Who is supposed to have been responsible for this process, whatever it was? The ‘Moderns' are alleged to have taunted the ‘Antients' with being the offenders, but the suggestion is ridiculous ‑ and for the very good reason that the R.A. was being worked as a separate degree before the ‘Antients' got into their stride! How could there be any obvious ‘mutilation' in view of the fact that the Craft ceremonies as worked by the ‘Antients' more or less agreed with those worked by the Irish and Scottish masons? It is certain that the Irish and the Scottish Grand Lodges, which were in the closest association with the ‘Antients,' did not mutilate the Third Degree to provide a Royal Arch Degree, nor did they countenance others doing so, for, officially, they were just as hostile to the Royal Arch as the ‘Moderns' were, and took a long, long time to modify their attitude. At a particular date, it is known, says Hughan, that there was no essential difference between the first three degrees in the French working and those in the English, proof that no violent alterations had been made in the Third Degree for the sake of an English Royal Arch rite. If the ‘Antients' did not ‘mutilate' the Craft degrees it is inconceivable that the ' Freemasons' Guide and Compendium (Harrap, 1950).
22
‘Moderns' did so; it would be quite ridiculous to suggest that officially they ‘mutilated' a Craft degree to produce something which they then repudiated or treated with frigid indifference. This point will be returned to.
No; it can be taken for granted that the most enlightened students agree that there was no extraction from or transfer of any large part of the Third Degree. There does not seem to be any evidence to support the statement that the Royal Arch was originally a part of any Craft degree.
A point of real importance is that the Hiramic Degree itself had only been more or less generally worked in England from some time late in the 1720's, and that if the argument that it was ‘mutilated' has anything in it we should have to believe that a newly worked degree was itself pulled to bits to provide another one. Douglas Knoop, a professional historian of marked ability, stated definitely that there is no evidence that our Third Degree legend and our R.A. legend were ever combined in one ceremony.
But let it be freely admitted that, while, on the available evidence, there were no ‘mutilations,' it is likely ‑ indeed, certain ‑ that there were borrowings. We know, for example, that mention of any stone‑turning in the Craft ritual of the 1730's known to John Coustos (see p. 44) did not remain in the Craft working, but that the motif, amplified and drastically developed, does find a place in the R.A. working. Certain French tracingboards of the 1740’s depict ideas which are not now in the Third Degree but are present in the R.A., but tracing‑boards are seldom convincing evidence in such a matter as this, because in the early days Craft and Royal Arch ceremonies were worked in the same lodges, and inevitably an artist introduced into a tracing‑board emblems from all the degrees known to him. Similarly, early jewels commonly depict both Craft and Royal Arch emblems, but by the time such jewels became popular the lines of the then early Royal Arch ceremony had been fairly well defined. These early jewels often include the emblems not only of the Craft and Royal Arch, but of one or two or more added degrees.
A lodge that would be working Craft degrees on one Wednesday, let us say, and the Royal Arch the next Wednesday, in the same inn room and to a large extent with the same Brethren present, would be likely, given time enough, to arrive at some admixture of detail; all the more likely would this be in the absence of printed rituals and any close control from superior authority. Given time enough, it is not difficult to see that in such conditions a feature could pass from one degree to another without causing much disturbance. This process of borrowing, in a day in which communication was slow, may have led to some of the variation in working occurring between one district and another. Hughan thought that a particular test given in one of the sections of the Third Degree had found
23
its way into a prominent position in the Royal Arch Degree; the "test" he had in mind is apparently the Word, and the statement is made that this word is still recognized in some Master Masons' lodges on the Continent. Hughan's allusion is probably to a Craft ritual given in an irregular print of the year 1725: "Yet for all this I want the primitive Word. I answer it was God in six terminations, to wit I am and Jehovah is the answer to it." A telling argument against the suggestion that the Royal Arch was a ceremony largely taken from the Third Degree has already been referred to. It arises from the question: If such ‘mutilation' took place, how could the official ‘Moderns' have denied the authenticity of the Royal Arch? They would obviously have known the treatment to which the Third Degree had been subjected; they would have been aware that a new ceremony had been made by partly unmaking another one, but they could hardly have questioned its essentials if originally these had been part of their own rite! Still more obviously, how vastly different the Third Degree of the ‘Moderns' would have been from that of the ‘Antients'! We know, of course, that there were detail differences between them, but the two ceremonies were recognizably and essentially the same. Until proof is produced that the ‘Moderns' practised a Third Degree vastly different from that of the ‘Antients' ‑ a degree retaining cardinal features which the other side knew only in the Royal Arch ‑ until then we have no option but to conclude that the Third Degree certainly was not ‘mutilated' to provide a separate degree.
A strange version of the ‘mutilation' idea put forward by W. Redfern Kelly is that, to assist in bringing about the complete reconciliation of the two rival bodies at the Craft Union of 1813, some section of the Third Degree may have been transferred to the Royal Arch! Surely the idea is quite hopeless! Where, in the rituals of the 1850's, which are reasonably well known to us, should we look for the transposed "section"? Officially, the ‘Antients' would not have allowed any serious alteration of a degree which to them was certainly "more august, sublime and important than those [degrees] which precede it and is the summit and perfection of Antient Masonry" (Laws and Regulations, 1807). The ‘Moderns' would certainly not have robbed a Craft ceremony for the purpose of strengthening a rite whose status as a fourth degree they were trying (officially) to belittle and disparage.
Was the Royal Arch ‘devised' or ‘invented'?
We cannot hide the fact that there is a considerable body of opinion in favour of the theory that Royal Arch masonry was a creation, a ‘fabrication,' of French origin, brought to England round about 1730. The French had taken their freemasonry from England, and in their eyes it
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must have lacked the qualities of colour and drama, or so we must conclude from the fact that the ceremonies that came back from France had become dramatically effective. The sword had found a place in the Initiation ceremony, as one example. Something different from the original rather colourless English rite had been brought into existence, and in the light of this innovation many students have come to regard the Royal Arch as a degree deliberately contrived by the imaginative Frenchman to appeal to the English Master Mason, to whom it might have been presented quite naturally as a fourth degree.
Chevalier Ramsay (to whom we return on a later page) has often been credited with having brought a number of new degrees from France to England, among them the Royal Arch. The Rev. Dr Oliver, already mentioned, was quite definite in his statements to this effect, but there is not a scrap of real evidence in support of an idea which seems to depend solely upon a few words in an address by Ramsay composed in the year 1737 (see p. 42). But, if not Ramsay, it is possible that some other Continental (almost certainly French) framer of degrees might have evolved the Royal Arch ceremonial with a foreseeing eye on what he thought to be the needs of the English mason. Such an innovation might, in the process of time, have been amplified and embellished and ultimately become moulded into the degree that is now such an important part of the Masonic system. W. Redfern Kelly thought that the R.A. was created in or about the year 1738 or 1739, and might have been taken by an English reviser from a newly fabricated Continental degree. Indeed, the general idea among those who believe that the Royal Arch was an innovation is that an English editor in the late 1730's availed himself of a framework provided by one of the new French degrees. Through so many of these ran the idea of the secret vault and the Ineffable Name. These are the selfsame degrees that some students believe to have provided the basis for the Rite of Perfection of twenty‑five degrees, later absorbed in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of thirty‑three degrees more particularly developed early in the 1800's.
But it is certainly worth noting that Royal Arch masonry has never at any time flourished in France and, further, that the statement that there were Irish Royal Arch chapters in France in 1730, which, if true, would have greatly strengthened the suggestion of a French origin, is simply and finally repudiated by Hughan as a mere typographical error. There were not Royal Arch lodges in France at that early date, and very few at any later date, either.
Students who support the theory that the Royal Arch came from the same stock of lore as the Hiramic Degree argue against the suggestion of a Continental origin by pointing out that the historical setting of the English
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R.A. is not to be found in any Continental setting. Against this, however, we must admit the possibility that a clever deviser ‑ assuming for a moment that the R.A. was an innovation ‑ might, in drawing his foundation story from ancient classic legends, have done his best to produce his new degree not for Continental consumption, but for export to England, where, let it never be forgotten, speculative masonry had its birth and its richest development. Then, too, as already suggested, the R.A. idea might have been French, although the development was English.
There are those who hold that, as the Royal Arch is believed to have first gained popularity with the ‘Antients,' who must have regarded it as having time‑immemorial sanction, it follows that it was much more likely to have grown from an original Masonic lore than to be a mere innovation. But what is the argument worth? While the ‘Antients' glibly dubbed their opponents ‘innovators,' they themselves were more often the real innovators, for by the time their Grand Lodge was established, at about the middle of the eighteenth century, they had been led to introduce or adopt more than one ceremony which certainly had no place in the Masonic rite when the first Grand Lodge was formed.
A Compromise Theory probably the Truest
We may fairly be expected to offer a statement of our own belief in these matters. We do not believe that the Royal Arch developed from the same source as the Hiramic Degree, and we have found no trace of any connexion with operative masonry. But neither do we believe that the Royal Arch Degree was an out‑and‑out fabrication. We feel that some masons and some lodges were early acquainted with element now associated with the Royal Arch ceremonial, in which respect we have been greatly influenced by the reference to stone‑turning and the finding of the Sacred Name made by John Coustos in his evidence when in the hands of the Inquisition (see p. 44). And we cannot disregard Gould's suggestion that the much‑talked‑of and little‑known Scots degrees, worked in the early eighteenth century, were cryptic in character and might well have provided ideas that developed on the Royal Arch pattern. We cannot ignore certain of the early allusions to the Royal Arch idea or motif given in the next section of this book, and we are realizing that such words as ‘created' and ‘fabricated' do not apply in their acknowledged and accepted meanings to the manner in which the Royal Arch was brought into the world of Masonic observance. The arranger or editor might well have been French, but could as easily have been English; there is not a scrap of evidence on the point.
In the main the theme of the Royal Arch story is provided by versions
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of an ancient crypt legend with which many learned men would have been quite familiar. The arranger might first have gone to one or more of these versions (as in our opinion he undoubtedly did) and then incorporated an idea or ideas present in the Craft ceremonials in use by some few lodges. The arranger ‑ with the material of the old crypt legends, the references in the Craft ritual, and the Old Testament story of the Jewish exile ‑ was able to erect what was actually a new degree or rite containing the features of the vault, the discoveries and the reiterated belief in the ‘Word.' The restoration of the Christian content and of the ‘true secrets,' together with a story attractive and even dramatic in itself, assured the popularity of the new degree. The essential elements known to us to‑day were in the early ceremonies‑the essential elements ‑ but, as the ritual took half a century to develop and was heavily revised and rearranged in the 1830’s, it is quite obvious that the early ceremony was little more than the primitive form of to‑day's.
With the opinion as above expressed in this difficult and controversial matter J. Heron Lepper, whose knowledge of Royal Arch history, both English and Irish, was unrivalled, might well be held as being in agreement. In an address (1933) to Supreme Grand Chapter (unfortunately not suitable for extensive quotation in this place) he takes certain of Dassigny's statements (see p. 45), relates them to significant references to a tripartite word in an irregular print of the year 1725 (see p. 38), and concludes that "various essential portions of the degree of R.A. were known to our forerunners in England as early as the Craft Degrees themselves. .... Definite traces of the stepping‑stones from the Craft to the R.A. still exist in our ritual." He feels that such proof of the real antiquity of the degree justifies "the traditions and good‑faith of our predecessors of 1813" (the Brethren who, in recognizing the Union, declared that pure Ancient Masonry consisted of three degrees, including the Royal Arch). Well, it is said that the heart makes the theologian. Perhaps it sometimes makes the historian also. Heron Lepper's was a kind heart, and in it a great love for the Royal Arch, and maybe this took him farther along the road leading back through the centuries than many far lesser students, the present author among them, would care to go. But it is good to know that such a scholar as Heron Lepper believed the Royal Arch to be far from the mere innovation that many a critic has lightly dubbed it.
A 'Completion Degree'
The reflection that the Royal Arch provides something that is missing from the Third Degree provokes a few comments. Although there may possibly be those who agree with Alexander Lawrie, who in his History
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Of Freemasonry (1859) held that the Craft degrees were complete in themselves and that the "lost word" can only be found "behind the veil of time," the great majority of masons feel that the Third Degree is not complete and may not have been intended to be. Dr W. J. Chetwode Crawley, a learned student, was firmly convinced that the Royal Arch Degree was the completing part of the Masonic legend, and that if it fell into desuetude the cope‑stone of freemasonry would be removed and the building left obviously incomplete. But the full import of this belief carries with it the implication that both the Hiramic and the Royal Arch Degrees had but one single origin, and were simply the developments of the first and second parts of one and the same legend ‑ all very simple and satisfying to those who can accept it; but few students can. There is small doubt, though, that this is the way in which the ‘Antients' regarded the matter. To them the R.A. ‘completed' the Hiramic Degree; in it was regained something which in the Third Degree was declared to be lost; to them the two degrees were parts of the same time‑immemorial fabric of Masonic tradition and legend. And the ‘Moderns' also were quick to accept all this unofficially, but on the part of their Grand Lodge there was a frigid lack of recognition which continued to the end of the eighteenth century, all the more baffling because quite a large proportion of the ‘Moderns' Grand Lodge officers became in the normal course R.A. masons.
The Christian Character of the Early Ritual
It may come as a surprise to many masons to learn that the Royal Arch at its inception and for half a century or more had a decidedly Christian character. There is difficulty in offering any satisfactory explanation of the way in which a dramatized rendering of certain Old Testament incidents came to include distinctly New Testament teaching, a teaching that remained in the ritual until well into the nineteenth century and echoes or reflections of which persist to this day ‑ some of them where least suspected by the uninformed. But it may help if we consider two points: The Old Manuscript Charges known to operative masonry from the fourteenth century bequeathed to symbolic masonry a strongly Christian feeling, which in general prevailed through the eighteenth century in spite of what may be called the official de‑Christianizing of the Craft ritual by the first Constitutions. In perhaps a majority of the Craft lodges in which the R.A. was nurtured the ritual had Christian characteristics. That must be an important consideration; perhaps a more pertinent one is that the crypt legend so skillfully woven into the Old Testament story of the Jewish return from exile came originally from the writings of the early Church fathers, who tended to interpret everything
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from an exclusively Christian standpoint. Thus the R.A. story is a blend of two stories, one wholly Jewish and dating back to some centuries before Christ, and the other largely Christian and recorded some few centuries after Christ.
The Christian content of early symbolic masonry is a subject upon which much has been written. Anderson's Constitutions of 1723 and 1738 did in effect de‑Christianize the Craft ritual by insisting that masons should "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." Whereas, as already explained, the Old Charges had a decidedly Christian character, the new Constitutions no longer insisted that freemasons should be loyal to Holy Church or look upon Christ as the Saviour of mankind: "'Tis now thought more expedient only to oblige [Members of the Order] to that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their peculiar opinions to themselves." Not that Anderson, a Presbyterian minister, regarded with favour "the stupid atheist" or the "irreligious libertine" or men of no religion or men to whom one religion is as good as another. It has been suggested that he may have intended to represent the triune of deities having the one Godhead ‑ a distinctly Christian idea ‑ but such an intention, if it existed, could rarely if ever have been recognized in the lodges, and to most masons his words offered a system of teaching in which God the Father had a high place and the Sonship none. And this official elimination of the Christian element, even though ignored by many of the lodges, undoubtedly left for many masons a blank of which they were acutely conscious and which the introduction of the Royal Arch as a Christian degree helped to fill and make good.
A Canadian writer, R. E.A. Land, has suggested that Chevalier Ramsay's oration (a famous piece of Royal Arch evidence referred to on later pages) was inspired by the Pope with the object of winning over the English Craft to the new system of masonry (the Royal Arch) and incidentally to the Jacobite cause; masons, he thought, were invited to substitute for their theistic creed an acknowledgment of "a descent from the knightly orders and a specifically Christian teaching," but this attempt to bring masons "back under the wing" of the Catholic Church was at once seen to be a failure, and the wording of the first Charge in Anderson's second Constitutions (approved January 1738) was no accident, but the deliberate reply of the Grand Lodge of England; this was resented by the Pope, who therefore promulgated his Bull (April 24, 1738) condemning masonry. This, of course, is just a writer's conjecture, and it is extremely doubtful whether there is anything in it (the closeness of the two dates mentioned
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does not make for confidence), but it is quoted here to show that the teaching of the early R.A. was reputed to be definitely Christian. Throughout the eighteenth century the ritual continued to include Christian characteristics, the more obvious of which disappeared in the revision of the early nineteenth century, but there still remain phrases, allusions, and symbols having a Christian origin. Not only in the Royal Arch, but in Craft masonry also, there continued in many parts of England and other countries throughout the eighteenth century, and in spite of the Constitutions, a markedly Christian atmosphere, and from one ritual (date 1760) we learn that the prayer over the Craft Initiate contained this invocation: "Let Grace and Peace be multiplied unto him, through the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." There are two passages in the Bible opening with the words "In the beginning" ‑ namely, the first verse of the Book of Genesis and the first verse of St John's Gospel. Even to this day in certain Royal Arch chapters of antiquity it is the opening verse of the Gospel according to St John, and not the three opening verses of Genesis, with which the Candidate is confronted when he opens the scroll. There is good reason to believe that, in general, until the revision of the ritual in the 1830's, the scroll carried the quotation from the New Testament and not that from the Old.
Dr Oliver, who professed to have a genuine manuscript copy of Dunckerley's version of the R.A. ritual (we cannot answer for the accuracy of his claim), quoted from it as follows The foundation‑stone was a block of pure white marble, without speck or stain, and it alluded to the chief corner‑stone on which the Christian Church is built, and which, though rejected by the builders, afterwards became the head of the corner. And when Jesus Christ, the grand and living representative of this stone, came in the flesh to conquer sin, death and hell, he proved himself the sublime and immaculate corner‑stone of man's immortality.
From a Dublin ritual, published later in the same century, we take the following questions and answers:
Q. Why should eleven make a Lodge, Brother?
A. There were eleven Patriarchs, when Joseph was sold in Egypt, and supposed to be lost.
Q. The second reason, Brother?
A. There were but eleven Apostles when Judas betrayed Christ.
Right at the end of the eighteenth century John Browne produced a Master Key, in which Masonic ceremonies are presented in cipher. The structure of some of these ceremonies is definitely Christian, the Craft lodge, for instance, being dedicated to St John the Baptist, the "Harbinger
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or Forerunner of the Saviour." While many obvious Christian references were eliminated when the Craft ritual was revised at the time of the Union, there still remains "the bright and morning star," a phrase familiar to every Master Mason, to remind us of the text in Revelation xxii, 16: "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."
A Craft certificate issued to a Brother in a lodge of the Eighth Garrison Battalion (in the city of Cork, 1809) includes these words: "Now I command you, Brethren, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he receiveth of us." An R.A. ritual of the early nineteenth century (it might belong to a chapter in the Scots Lowlands) invokes "the Grace of the Divine Saviour": "That shining light which the Pilgrims saw when searching the Arches where the Blessed Inspired Books were found under the Key‑stone." And in a ritual, roughly of the 1820's, of a decidedly R.A. flavour occurs the phrase "the three peculiar initials of the Redeemer of Mankind."
An irregular print of the 1824‑26 period shows that the Craft ritual then contained many Christian allusions. It spoke of the lodge as being of the Holy St John; of free Grace; of our Holy Secret; and said that the twelve lights were the' Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Sun, Moon, Master, and so on. Then, too, the Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript of a century earlier contains many references to "our Lord Jesus Christ," the "Doctrine of Christ," "Christ as the door of life," "ye Glory of our High Priest Jesus Christ," "the unity of ye humanitie of Christ," "ye bread signifies Christ," "ye bread of life." And the Bible formerly in use in a now extinct Ballygowan (Ireland) lodge and preserved in the provincial museum of Down affords visual evidence that the Obligation was taken on the first chapter of St John's Gospel, for the book falls open naturally at that place, revealing two pages that have become discoloured with use. The Coustos evidence under the Inquisition (see p. 44) leaves no doubt that one or two London lodges in the 1730's followed the same custom.
Enough has been said to make it clear that many rituals, both Craft and R.A., up to the early nineteenth century were definitely of a Christian character, and it can be asserted with confidence that between the lines of to‑day's R.A. ritual may still be discerned traces of the old Trinitarian influence.
Section Two
HOW CRAFT CONDITIONS PREPARED THE WAY
FOR THE ROYAL ARCH
WHEN trying to picture the condition of English freemasonry at the introduction of the R.A. it is necessary to remember that speculative masonry ‑ recorded speculative masonry ‑ was then about a hundred years old. The present writer's Freemasons' Guide and Compendium sets the scene at some length, and all that need now be done is to give the reader enough background for him to understand how the conditions of Craft masonry in the early eighteenth century allowed of the grafting on of such an extremely important addition as the Royal Arch.
English Craft masonry had apparently developed many years prior to 1621, possibly from operative lodges, but if its true origin was in those lodges, then the path to speculative masonry led from them to and through the London Company of Freemasons. In the middle of the seventeenth century there were many operative lodges in Scotland, and some of these in the next century played their part in the founding of the Scottish Grand Lodge, although apparently their speculative masonry had largely, and perhaps almost wholly, reached them from England. Conditions in the two countries were vastly different, but it is safe to say that recorded history does not certainly reveal any story of natural development between any operative lodges whatsoever and speculative freemasonry. In the early seventeenth century there must have been quite a few English speculative Craft lodges, and by the end of that century there were probably many, but we know hardly anything of their ceremonies, although we have reason to assume that these were simple, probably bare, and contained little ‑ but definitely, an important something‑of an esoteric nature; whatever it was, it attracted the attention of a few learned, classically educated men ‑ many of an alchemical turn of mind ‑ who undoubtedly left their impress upon the ritual. So, at any rate, it seems to the writer, who, the more he learns of the symbolism of the old alchemists, realizes increasingly that much of the classical allusion and symbolism which entered freemasonry by the middle of the eighteenth century must have been contributed by men who, in professing to study the method of transmuting base metals into gold, were actually speculatives of a high order men of fine character and mostly of profound religious conviction.
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Before 1717 we have only the sketchy records of lodges at that time in existence, but in that year four time‑immemorial lodges came together to form the Premier Grand Lodge, the first Grand Lodge in the world. These four lodges "thought fit to cement under a Grand Master as the Center of Union and Harmony," but much more than that may have been in the minds of the founders. This first Grand Lodge created a Masonic centre with a Grand Master, Quarterly Communications, Annual Assembly and Feast, and provided Constitutions that would replace the Old Charges. The first‑known of these Old Charges, going back to about 1380, had been designed for "different days, different men and wholly different conditions." The first Constitutions, 1723, written and compiled by a Scot, Dr James Anderson, were issued "with a certain measure of Grand Lodge authority." The title came probably from the practice of the London Masons Company (a gild), who gave the name to their copies of the Old Charges. It is believed that Anderson had the help of John Theophilus Desaguliers, the third Grand Master, and, possibly because of this, Grand Lodge, which was critical of Anderson's first effort, eventually permitted the publication of the rewritten manuscript, which was in print by January 1723. These Constitutions, apart from being the original laws governing the Masonic Order, are of particular interest to Royal Arch masons, inasmuch as they include the charge "Concerning God and Religion," already discussed, which was at marked variance with much of the contents of the Old Charges. "The next thing that I shall remember you of is to avoid Politics and Religion," says Anderson. It is highly likely that general experience had already shown the desirability of uniting freemasons on "a platform that would divide them the least." "Our religion," says Anderson, "is the law of Nature and to love God above all things and our Neighbour as ourself; this is the true, primitive, catholic and universal Religion agreed to be so in all Times and Ages." There is much point in quoting Anderson in this place; he could not know that the Christian element which he, with the approval of Grand Lodge, was trying (far from successfully) to eliminate would surely be restored by a later generation, not to the First and Second Degrees - probably the only Masonic ceremonies known to him ‑ not to a Third Degree then developing in a few lodges, but to what the freemasons of the second half of the century would call a "fourth" degree the Royal Arch ‑ that would arise within a few decades.
The new Grand Lodge, by assuming authority and publishing its Constitutions, was not necessarily assuring itself of the allegiance of the whole Masonic body. While it is difficult to get at the facts, it has become obvious that many lodges and many freemasons remained outside its
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jurisdiction, a point easy to understand when the comparative lack of communication and transport is borne in mind. There must have been country lodges that did not even hear‑or, at any rate, hear much‑of the new Grand Lodge for many years, and there must have been others that were resentful and critical of any Masonic body presuming to affect superiority and the right to issue orders and instructions to others. This is a most significant fact, and in it may be part of the explanation of much of the opposition to which the new Grand Lodge was subjected, and which, only a generation later, was a factor leading to the founding of a rival Grand Lodge. We know that in some quarters the Premier Grand Lodge was "not only laughed at" but brought under suspicion, and it is said (we must admit the absence of any definite proof of the statement) that only sixteen years elapsed between the issue of the first Constitutions and the beginning of a movement that ultimately blossomed into the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge. Sixteen years was none too long a period in those days of poor communications for even a consistently wise Grand Lodge to have placated its opponents. But the first Grand Lodge had its share of failings, and there can be no doubt that its own actions contributed to the serious trouble that was to assail it by the middle of the century.
The Hiramic Degree paves the Tray for the Royal Arch
The complex question of the division of the early degrees will not be entered into here. It will be simply assumed that until the 1720’s there was probably but one degree or two degrees combined as one; that in a few lodges the Hiramic Degree began to be worked in the late 1720's; and that by about the middle of the century the English lodges were, in general, working a system of three degrees, of which almost invariably the first and second were conferred on the one occasion. This statement, we know, can be debated, but in general it represents the likely truth, always remembering, however, the considerable differences in custom and ceremonial among the early lodges. There is evidence that by 1750 or thereabouts the three‑degree system was established in England, though in most of the lodges under the Premier Grand Lodge the Fellow Craft was still qualified to undertake any office whatsoever, and that it was not every Fellow Craft who took the trouble to proceed to the Third Degree. The rise in 1739‑51 of the rival Grand Lodge‑the ‘Antients' ‑ whose ceremonies were closely watched and sometimes adopted by their opponents, helped to bring about a condition in which the "skilled" and qualified mason was never less than the third‑degree mason ‑ the Master Mason.
The general adoption of the Hiramic Degree throughout English freemasonry by the middle of the eighteenth century should be emphasized
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because it means much to the R.A. mason. Failing its introduction, the R.A. might never have become a part of the Masonic Order. Let it be remembered that the mason of the early lodges was in general a religious and relatively simple soul. The story unfolded by the Hiramic legend prepared his mind for yet another story, this one serving to make good two things that were absent from the earlier degrees. The three‑degree system, ending in what may appear to be disappointment and anticlimax, prepared the way for the introduction of a degree which, new or otherwise, was accepted particularly by the opponents of the Premier Grand Lodge as part of an ancient system. It is a point of the greatest significance that it was these opponents that adopted and developed not only the R.A. ceremonial but also the Craft Installation ceremony which, in its sequel, became a bridge from the Craft lodge to the chapter, and still serves in that way in some jurisdictions overseas.
The author's earlier work mentions the considerable public interest aroused by freemasonry in the 1720's. This, in particular, led to the publication of irregular prints, the so‑called ‘exposures,' notably Prichard's Masonry Dissected (1730), which purported to give the ritual and secrets of freemasonry and had a most amazing sale in England and in all English speaking countries, being reprinted many scores of times during the eighteenth century. Prichard's book had a lasting effect and a very complex one. It was freely bought by masons, and must have influenced lodge ceremonial in a day when the ritual was handed down by word of mouth without the help of printed aides‑memoire; thus it played into the hands of impostors who could set themselves up to ‘initiate' credulous people on payment of a few shillings. There is no doubt that its publication frightened the Grand Lodge into making a grave and unfortunate decision (the transposition of the means of recognition in the First and Second Degrees), a decision which brought about serious trouble. In the course of that trouble arose the rival Grand Lodge ‑ the ‘Antients' ‑ a development which was the greatest of all factors in the introduction and rise of the Royal Arch.
How did the Royal Arch come to be Accepted?
Whether the ‘new' degree was entirely an innovation or whether it was an amplification of time‑immemorial elements, however and wherever it arose, some explanation is needed of how it came to be so enthusiastically adopted by the ‘Antients,' who prided themselves on working a truly ancient ritual, and who were quite convinced that the innovators were their opponents.
How came these conservatively minded Brethren to accept a degree which, however it was presented, must, one would suppose, come as at
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least partly an innovation? Of course, the degree could not possibly have been presented to them as merely an attractive ceremonial. It could have come only in the guise of a truly ancient ceremony, which they accepted as a true part of the Masonic scheme. Those ‘Moderns' too who unofficially welcomed it must have regarded it in the same light.
As the author sees it, only one course was possible. In the days between 1717 and the rise of the Committee that ultimately flowered into the 'Antients' Grand Lodge there must have been, as already said, quite a number of lodges that did not recognize the Premier Grand Lodge, lodges possibly several days' journey by horse or coach from London, lodges which in some unknown way had arisen here and there and which, while probably conforming in essentials one with another, almost certainly practised many variations of ceremonial. Such lodges could and did please themselves. If to them were introduced an addition, a detail, a ceremony, that struck them as having merit and in which they saw (rightly or wrongly) evidence of what they would regard as the original pattern of freemasonry, then those additions, details, and ceremonies they would adopt. There was nobody either to criticize or obstruct their intention.
We can easily picture the attractive ceremony of the R.A. coming to these lodges. It would offer itself as a hitherto neglected rite; it would follow in the Christian tradition to which its members were well accustomed; and it would bring to them that which they had learned had been lost. Many of the lodges which ultimately found themselves under the ‘Antients' banner must have been lodges of that order‑more or less detached, independent or semi‑independent, and composed of simpleminded, religious men none too critical of their ritual so long as it gave the impression of time‑immemorial usage. One lodge would learn from another, and very quickly, too, because there was something about the Royal Arch that rapidly assured its popularity, and by the time the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge was founded there would be, all ready for general adoption, a ceremony, even a fully fledged degree, highly attractive to the mason of that day. And if, as we may well conclude, any correspondence between the Third Degree and the Royal Arch was in places far closer than now is the case, all the better in the eyes of the Brethren of the day.
Section Three
THE EARLY YEARS OF ROYAL ARCH MASONRY
BY drawing together many early allusions and references this section will attempt to tell the story of the formative days of the Royal Arch up to 1766, the year that saw the founding of the first Grand Chapter and so became a milestone in the history of the Order.
Deferring any account of the traditional history to Sections ii and is and coming down to the late Middle Ages, we find that there are in manuscript and print many allusions and references which may be interpreted as relating to the main idea or dominant motif of the Royal Arch. Perhaps the earliest was an endorsement (now lost) on one of the Old Charges, one known as the Grand Lodge No. 1 MS., bearing the date December 25, 1583. The handwriting does not suggest the sixteenth century, but the endorsement, for what it is worth, is here given: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." (St John, i, 1.) In another of the Old Charges ‑ the Dumfries No. 4 MS., of the year 1710 ‑ are two references to the "Royal secret," the actual phrase being: "No lodge or corum of masons shall give the Royal secret to any suddenly but upon great deliberation." It has been suggested that the significance of the word "Royal" is the same as that in the Royal Arch. (In the Graham MS. Of 1726 or earlier a secret is described as "holy.")
Some Allusions and References of the 1720's
The Constitutions of 1723 mention an "Annual Grand Assembly wherein ... the Royal Art" may be "duly cultivated, and the Cement of the Brotherhood preserv'd; so that the whole Body resembles a well built Arch." While it might be easy to give the word "Arch" a special significance, frankly it is not thought that the phrase alludes to the Royal Arch, but is rather a figure of speech suggesting that the Masonic Order forms one strong, solid structure.
The term "Royal Art" occurs twenty‑three times in the Constitutions, the initial letters being printed in capitals or the words themselves in italics. But there seems no reason to invest this usage with particular
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significance, and it is easy to be misled by the similarity in sound between "Royal Art" and "Royal Arch." It is important to remember that Anderson's words are concerned with architecture, an art supported and encouraged by kings, hence a Royal Art. When the term is used to‑day it connotes a mystical conception of freemasonry ‑ an art by which is built the "spiritual house," the invisible temple. (By the way, Jonathan Swift said in 1728 that "mathematics resemble a well built arch; logic, a castle; and romances, castles in the air," but here again, although Swift was possibly a freemason, it is unwise to read special significance into his words.) The Constitutions of 1723 give, in Regulation II, the Master of a lodge
The Right and Authority of congregating the Members of his Lodge into a Chapter at pleasure, upon any Emergency or Occurrence.
Further, Regulation X says:
The Majority of every particular Lodge, when congregated, shall have the privilege of giving Instructions to their Master and hardens, before the assembling of the Grand Chapter, or Lodge, at the three Quarterly Communications hereafter mention'd, and of the Annual Grand Lodge too; because their Master and hardens are their Representatives, and are supposed to speak their Mind.
But is the term "Grand Chapter" in this quotation anything more than a rather fine term for an assembly, congregation, or convocation, particularly bearing in mind that the word ‘chapter' had been in general use for hundreds of years? The monks in medieval days met in an assembly, a chapter, presided over by the head of their house. We admit the possibility that a few lodges might have found the word ‘chapter' attractive because of its religious associations ‑ for example, only a few years later the minutes of Old King's Arms Lodge, No. 18, referred in 1733 to "the last chapter" of this lodge, and other instances might be given, but we are far from supposing that this usage implies any knowledge of the Royal Arch. We first learn definitely of Royal Arch chapters in the 1750's: Much has been made of the following reference in a manuscript catechism of 1723 ‑ quite an early date:
If a Master Mason you would be
Observe you well the Rule of Three.
And three years later appeared an advertisement mentioning "the necessity there is for a Master to well understand the Rule of Three." The possibility that "the Rule of Three" refers to a well‑known feature of the Royal Arch ritual has, of course, been raised, but the phrase had more than one Craft implication.
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More to the point is a passage in The Whole Institutions of Free‑Masons Opened (Dublin, 1725):
Yet for all this I want the primitive Word, I answer it was God in six Terminations, to wit I am, and Johova is the answer to it,... or else Excellent and Excellent, Excellency is the Answer to it, . . . for proof read the first of the first of St John.
Here we have a clear reference to words and ideas with which the Royal Arch mason is familiar. The word "Excellent" has been in use in Royal Arch ritual and custom for more than two centuries, and we shall later meet pointed examples of the word occurring in the 1740's and in the following decades. We find the words "the excellency of excellencies" occurring in another irregular print only one year later. A newspaper skit entitled "Antediluvian Masonry" (date about 1726), intended to throw ridicule upon freemasonry, mentions "moveable letters" and sends our thoughts forward to the Imperial George Lodge, which in a minute of 1805 recalls that a "set of movable letters was bought." An irregular print of 1725 mentions "a Compound Word" consisting of three (unintelligible) syllables, while a pamphlet of the year 1724, possibly written by Jonathan Swift, itself a skit on an alleged exposure of masonry that had recently appeared, says that freemasons attach great importance to "three pairs of Hebrew letters ... by which they mean that they are united as one in Interest, Secrecy and Affection." From other irregular prints of the 1720’s come these questions and answers:
Q. Whence is an Arch derived?
A. From architecture.
Q. Whence comes the pattern of an arch?
A. From the rainbow.
Probably the allusion in the second question is to a phrase in Genesis in which the rainbow is given as the token of God's covenant with man (there are other significant Biblical texts), and, jumping a few decades, it may be mentioned that a cavern and a rainbow are among the symbols illustrating a French rite of the 1760 period.
In the Graham MS. (1726 or earlier) already mentioned is a number of references to the "trible voice," and two of them, especially, may be quoted:
Bezalliell ... knew by inspiration that the secret titles and primitive pallies of the God head was preservativ and ... agreed conditionally they were not to discover it without another to themselves to make a trible voice.
... now after [Bezalliell's] death the inhabitance there about did think that the
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secrets of masonry had been totally Lost because they were no more heard of for none knew the secrets thereof. Save these two princes and they were so sworn at their entering not to discover it without another to make a trible voice.
The above quotations might well imply association with the Royal Arch motif, and cannot be lightly brushed aside. Neither can a reference in a lecture on December 27, 1726, delivered to the Grand Lodge of ALL England, at York, in the presence of the Grand Master, Charles Bathhurst. This reference was to Josiah and repairs to the Temple, including the rebuilding of the Temple by "Zerubbabel and Herod."
The More Definite References of the 1730’s
Stress has sometimes been laid on the fact that the earliest seal in use by the Premier Grand Lodge in the 1730‑33 period bore in Greek the words taken from St John i, 1: "In the beginning," etc. The seal itself has not survived, but its impress is seen upon the deputations to constitute various lodges in 1732 and 1733. In weighing this evidence we must bear in mind that the Premier Grand Lodge was hostile to the Royal Arch until the early nineteenth century, and it is therefore almost unbelievable that, assuming for one moment the Royal Arch to have been at work in the 1730 period, Grand Lodge would have chosen a motto known to be representative of a degree whose status it steadily refused to recognize. No, the adoption of the motto is most unlikely to be evidence of the existence of the Royal Arch at that date, but it certainly does suggest that the Craft degrees then included a mention of "the Word," a mention that in a brief score or so of years was to be considerably amplified.
‘Scotch' or ‘Scots' Masonry
There is a strong case for assuming that at the time when the Hiramic Degree had only recently found its way into Masonic working, and but few lodges were capable of conferring it, some of the Fellow Crafts who aspired to be Master Masons went to Masters' Lodges. These came into existence in the 1730's, and are believed to have devoted themselves to working the Hiramic Degree, although they might also, perhaps in later years, have been working degrees that were not of a truly Craft nature. Nothing is known for certain, but it is a point of particular interest that the earliest recorded Masters' Lodge (No. 115, meeting at the Devil Tavern, Temple Bar, London) is described in the Engraved List (at that time the only approved list of lodges) as "a Scotch Masons Lodge." This description is thought to mean not that its members were Scots, but rather that
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the ritual or ceremony worked was known as "Scotch masonry," which may possibly (not probably) have been originated in France by Jacobites, political refugees from Scotland. According to the historian Gould (who appears to have known something of the ritual), Scotch masonry had as its motif the discovery in a vault by Scottish Crusaders of the long‑lost and IneffableWord. So if the lodge at theDevil Tavern was actually working a degree of French origin, then obviously a strong likelihood exists that some primitive form of the Royal Arch rite was actually being worked as early as 1733. The many rituals known, says Gould, exhibit much diversity, but running through them all is the main idea of the discovery of a long‑lost word, while in the search leading to that discovery the Crusaders had to work with the sword in the one hand and the trowel in the other. That the discovery is made in the Middle Ages by Crusaders and not in pre‑Christian days by the Jews returned from exile need not unduly concern us, for we must be prepared for considerable differences between any prototype Royal Arch ceremonies and those which were later developed.
The Scots Master claimed to be "superior to the Master Mason; to be possessed of the true history, secret and design of Freemasonry; and to hold various privileges ... he wore distinctive clothing, remained covered in a Master's Lodge, and in any lodge, even as a visitor, ranked before the W.M." He claimed that at any time or place he could personally impart, either with or without a ceremony, the secrets of the three Craft degrees, and if, as a member of a lodge, his conduct came into question, only fellow Scots masons could adjudicate upon it. This is more or less the case which Gould presents, but it is not fully acceptable. So much depends upon the dare when the Scots mason was making his exaggerated claims, and it is by no means clear that when Gould was speaking of the Crusaders' ceremonies he had in mind any that were worked as early as 1733, the year in which the first Scots Masters' Lodge is known to have been meeting in London. Frankly we do not really know that the Scots lodge was at that time working the Crusaders' ritual, and we suspect that Gould is talking of degrees that were worked at a rather later date.
It has often been advanced that the early ‘Scots' degrees contained matter which to‑day is found not only in the R.A., but in the Mark Degree. There seems little doubt that in the 1740's the Scots Degree (or degrees) was a ‘fourth' ceremony, one dealing with the rebuilding of the Temple of Zerubbabel and bringing into prominence the occasion when builders worked with sword in one hand and trowel in the other. But then, by that time, the R.A. itself was known to be working in England, and it cannot be said with certainty whether the Royal Arch had learned from the Scots degrees (which is the way the evidence points) or vice versa. The possibility that English freemasonry was subjected to Jacobite
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influence in the period following 1717 has often been raised. The broad suggestion is that Jacobites resident in France brought into existence the degrees known in England as 'Scots masonry' and in France as ‘Macon Ecossois,' ‘Maitre Ecossois,' ‘Maconnerie Ecossois,' and so on and that the English Jacobites introduced this Scots masonry into England as providing convenient, safe, and secret opportunities for their fellows and adherents. This does not strongly appeal to us, although the probability that Scots masonry was an importation from France may have to be conceded. It is not known that any rituals connected with the Royal Arch have ever contained any certain mark of Jacobite origin.
The Fifth Order
Coming now more particularly to the year 1734, we find a somewhat facetious reference to the "Fifth Order" occurring in a letter on Masonic matters, signed " Verus Commodus," and believed to be referring to Dr Desaguliers, third Grand Master. The letter says he "makes a most Illustrious Figure ... and he makes wonderful brags of being of the Fifth Order." This has been thought to allude to the Royal Arch, but no one can be sure that it does.
At the New Year, 1735, Mick Broughton, not himself a freemason and at the time a member of a house party including Dr Desaguliers and other masons staying with the Duke of Montagu at Ditton, Surrey, wrote the second Duke of Richmond a letter in which he states that
Hollis and Desaguliers have been super‑excellent in their different ways.... On Sunday Night at a Lodge in the Library St John, Albemarle and Russell [were] made chapters: and Bob [Webber] Admitted Apprentice.
To the natural inference that three individuals were made Royal Arch masons the use of the word "super‑excellent" lends particular force. While the letter is obviously written in facetious terms, certain words in it could have had special meaning for the recipient, an active mason, who had been Grand Master ten years earlier, and, by way of comment on the fact that the meeting took place on a Sunday, let it be remembered that this was a favourite day for the holding of Masters' Lodges and, much later, of Royal Arch lodges and chapters.
Chevalier Ramsay
A statement attributed to Andrew Michael Ramsay, a Scot born in Ayr, who had passed many years in France, where he had acquired the courtesy title of Chevalier, has helped to make history. Ramsay, a Roman
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Catholic, was a freemason, and is alleged to have made a speech containing certain significant words at a Paris convocation of the Grand Lodge of France on March 21, 1737. There is some doubt as to whether he ever delivered the speech, but none that he wrote it and that it was printed, probably in the same year and certainly in 1739 and later. The following literal translation of the part of the speech that particularly matters to the present reader was prepared, we believe, by Miscellanea Latomorum:
We have amongst us three classes of confreres, the Novices or Apprentices; the Companions or Professed; the Masters or the Perfected. We explain to the first the moral virtues; to the second the heroic virtues; and to the last the Christian virtues; in such sort that our Institution encloses all the Philosophy of the Sentiments and all the Theology of the heart.
This union was after the example of the Israelites, when they raised the second Temple. During this time they handled the trowel and the mortar with one hand, whilst they carried in the other the sword and buckler.
Undoubtedly Ramsay's is the most likely early allusion yet brought to light, but on it has been built rather too much. Dr Oliver, whose unreliability as a Masonic historian has already been commented on, definitely asserts that Ramsay, about 1740, came from Paris to London and brought with him the rituals of some so‑called high grades, among them being the Royal Arch; that his visit was "for the purpose of introducing his new degrees into English masonry; and his schemes being rejected by the Constitutional Grand Lodge, nothing appears more likely than that he would throw himself into the hands of the Schismatics."
The Masonic student of to‑day rejects Dr Oliver's statement, as well as his use of the word ‘Schismatics.' Altogether too little is known about Ramsay to father upon him the introduction of the R.A. into England. W. J. Hughan points out that "so much has been said about Ramsay and his ‘manufacture of Masonic degrees' that it would be quite refreshing to have proofs of his having actually arranged or permitted one particular ceremony additional to those worked prior to his initiation," and William Watson has well said that " Ramsay was not a factor in the origin [of the R.A. Degree] and Oliver's statements are misleading, unreliable, . . . practically worthless."
Associated with the name of Ramsay (but probably quite wrongly) is the Rite Ancien de Bouillon, attributed to Godfrey de Bouillon, which had a Royal Arch‑cum‑Templar complexion and may or may not have been worked in London about 1740, but was possibly known in France at a much later date. It is said to have had six grades‑Apprentice, Compagnon (Fellowcraft), Master, Scotch Master, Novice, and Chevalier du Temple (Templar). Some little inquiry into it has not proved very rewarding.
While it does seem likely that Ramsay had experience of a degree
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corresponding to the Royal Arch, the only evidence of any kind supporting the likelihood of his having introduced a degree is the fact that he wrote his oration, possibly delivered it, and that the oration itself contains a phrase that appears in almost the same form in to‑day's ritual.
John Coustos and his Sworn Evidence
We have said that Chevalier Ramsay was both freemason and Roman Catholic. In his day many Continental and other masons were Catholics. Pope Clement's first Bull against freemasonry was issued in 1738, and needed to be backed up by later Bulls, as there was a disinclination on the part of many Catholics to observe the Pope's prohibition. The hostility of the Governments in Catholic countries to freemasonry, even in modern times, is well known. In 1954, for instance, a Spanish tribunal imposed prison sentences on five men accused of practising freemasonry. (By the way, Spain was the first Continental country to have a Masonic lodge constituted in it by or on behalf of the Grand Lodge of England‑that of the Duke of Wharton, which he founded in his own apartments in Madrid in 1728 and which, as originally constituted, had a life of forty years.) Portugal, a neighbouring country, had its Masonic lodges. Just before 1738 there were two lodges, both in Lisbon, one of them Catholic, the other Protestant. A Dominican, Charles O'Kelly, Professor of Theology at the (Roman Catholic) College of Corpo‑Santo, was called upon in 1738 to reveal to the Inquisition what he knew of the Catholic lodge of which he was a member, and he made the strong point that all membersthey included three Dominican monks‑were excellent Catholics.
Later, in October 1742, John Coustos, a Protestant member and Master of a mainly Catholic Lisbon Lodge, was denounced by an informer of the Inquisition as being the chief of the "sect" called "Free Masons" that had four years before been condemned by the Pope. Coustos had learned his masonry in London. He was a Swiss by birth but naturalized an Englishman, by trade a master diamond‑cutter, by religion a Protestant, and at the time residing in Lisbon; he had been initiated apparently in a London lodge before 1732.
In the hands of the Inquisition, Coustos gave evidence under solemn oath on a number of occasions, and on April 25, 1744, was tortured on the rack in Lisbon for more "than a quarter of an hour," being afterwards sentenced to serve four years in the galleys. On the intervention of the British Minister at Lisbon he was liberated in October 1744, and reached England on December 15 of the same year. Hitherto we have had, in a book which he wrote and published in England in 1746, a not quite reliable account of his tribulations (he can be forgiven much, poor fellow!),
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but, fortunately for Masonic history, the original documents from the Archives of the Inquisition have been discovered, have been translated by a member of the Lisbon Branch of the Historical Association and reproduced by John R. Dashwood in A.Q.C. (vol. lxvi, pp. 107‑123). These documents show that Coustos made a "confession" on two days of March 1743, and in this he gave a fascinating account of the Craft masonry known to him, a tiny portion of this account being here reproduced1:
. . . when the destruction took place of the famous Temple of Solomon there was found below the First Stone a tablet of bronze upon which was engraved [a familiar Biblical word meaning] ‘God,' giving thereby to understand that that Fabric and Temple was instituted and erected in the name of the said God to whom it was dedicated, that same Lord the beginning and the end of such a magnificent work, and as in the Gospel of St John there are found the same words and doctrine they, for this reason, cause the Oath to be taken at that place.
John Coustos declared this and many other things under oath on March 26, 1743, and it will be particularly noted that the legend or ritual revealed by him, including St John's reference to the ‘Word,' must2 have been that of one or two lodges under the premier Grand Lodge during the 1730’s. As the authenticity of the quoted passage does not admit of any doubt, it is beyond question that in the 1730’s a Craft ritual ‑ that is, the ritual of one or more London lodges, not necessarily of all, by any means ‑ contained elements which now are unknown to the Craft, but which, in an elaborated form, are present in to‑day's R.A. ritual.
The Coustos documents (which, we must insist, to be read are to be believed) afford evidence that some of the bare elements of the R.A. legend were probably known to a few English lodges at an early date, within their three degrees, and this is a fact that must necessarily affect hitherto accepted views on the early history of the R.A.
It should be noted that Coustos considered himself competent to conduct the Lisbon lodge as Master, and he may well have been the actual Master of a London lodge before he left England. By the year 1732 he was a member of Lodge No. 75, at the Rainbow Coffee House, York Buildings, London (now the Britannic Lodge, No. 33), and a founder, in the year mentioned, of Lodge No. 98, at Prince Eugene's Coffee House, St Alban's Street, London (constituted 1732 and known as the Union French Lodge in 1739; ceased to exist, 1753).
The Coustos reference to something hidden below a stone has an echo in an Irish folk‑song, An Seann‑Bhean ("The Poor Old Woman"), which includes these two lines:
Or is it true that the promises were written which Moses gave to the Jews, And which King David placed timidly under the stone?
1 See also "John Coustos", in A.Q.C., vol. lxxxi, by Dr S. Vatcher and Rev. N. B. Cryer.
2 ‘must' is doubtful; Coustos may have learned this in France.
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In another version "King David" is replaced by An Da Ri ("The Two Kings"). J. Heron Lepper suggests that we have here a piece of folklore - a use of the motif of the buried book. There must be many such or similar references in the world's literature. One further example is contained in a third‑century papyrus, The Sayings of Jesus, a non‑canonical Gospel found on the site of an ancient Egyptian city, Oxyrhynchus:
Lift up the stone and there shalt thou find me;
cleve the wood and I am there.
Minutes and Printed References of the 1760’s
The first printed reference to the term ‘Royal Arch' is forthcoming in the year 1743. It is in a newspaper, Faulkner's Dublin Journal, for January 10 ‑14, 1743 ‑ 44, and occurs in an account of a Masonic procession at Youghall, County Cork, Ireland, on St John's Day in Winter (December 27), when the Master of Lodge No. 21 was preceded by "The Royall Arch carried by two Excellent Masons." We wish we could be certain that this "Arch" was not a mere piece of added ornament‑arches are not uncommon in public processions ‑ but certainly the inclusion of the term "Excellent Masons" does incline us to the inference that the procession was indeed one of R.A. masons.
On the heels of the first printed mention comes a second and most important reference to the R.A. as a degree. In 1744 was published a book by Fifield Dassigny (D'Assigny), M.D., Dublin, entitled A Serious and Impartial Enquiry into the Cause of the present Decay of Free‑Masonry in the Kingdom of Ireland. Until 1867 this book was known only through a quotation in Ahiman Rezon, but in that year one of the few surviving copies was discovered by the well‑known Masonic student W. J. Hughan, who caused it to be reprinted in facsimile in 1893; there are copies also in the G.L. and W. Yorks. Masonic Libraries. Dassigny says in a roundabout way that, a few years earlier, a Brother of probity and wisdom had been made a R.A. mason in London. Here is part of the paragraph including the significant words:
. . . a certain propagator of a false system some few years ago in this city [Dublin] who imposed upon several very worthy men under a pretence of being Master of the Royal Arch, which he asserted he had brought with him from the city of York; and that the beauties of the Craft did principally consist in the knowledge of this valuable piece of Masonry. However he carried on his scheme for several months and many of the learned and wise were his followers, till at length his fallacious art was discovered by a Brother of probity and wisdom, who had some small space before attained that excellent part of Masonry in London and plainly proved that his doctrine was false.
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The above can be very simply put by saying that somewhere about 1740, some one in Dublin, pretending to be Master of the Royal Arch, was proved to be an impostor by a Brother who had been made a member of the degree in London. Dr Dassigny's book refers to R.A. masons assembling at York in 1744 as "he was informed"; says that some of the fraternity did not like "such a secret ceremony being kept from those who had taken the usual degrees"; refers to members who had "passed the chair" and were "excellent masons"; and states that the R.A. was "an organised body of men who have passed the Chair and given undeniable proofs of their skill." Some students have sought to cast reflections upon Dassigny's reputation, and have suggested that his words should be handled with caution and reserve, but nothing is known against him. Dermott, the greatest figure in the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge, refers to him as "our Worshipful Brother, Dr Fifield D'Assigny"; among the four hundred subscribers to his book were many important people; and there seems no reason to doubt that he was speaking the truth and knew what he was talking about. He evidently was sure that the Royal Arch Degree existed. Indeed, J. Heron Lepper, who, in coming to a conclusion on the antiquity of the R.A., based himself very largely upon Dassigny's statements, held that Dassigny had had experience of it at first hand. Certainly there is a general consensus of opinion that his statement is sound evidence of an early R.A. Degree in working order, even at a date a few years earlier than 1744.
The 1740’s afford reasonable evidence that an R.A. ceremony was worked in Stirling, Scotland. There are two dates, 1743 and 1745, and it is claimed that in the earlier year the minute here given shows that two men were admitted R.A. masons:
STIRLING, July 30th, 1743.
Which day the Lodge of Stirling Kilwinning being met in the Brother Hutchison's house, and being petitioned by Mungo Nicol, shoemaker and brother James McEwan, Student of Divinity at Stirling, and being found qualified, they were admitted Royal Arch Masons of this Lodge, have paid their dues to the Treasurer, John Callendar, R.W.M.
In 1745 occurs another minute (given below), which unfortunately is almost a repetition of the earlier one. A sworn declaration that the R.A. had been worked in Stirling in 1743, based upon the original record then existing, was deposited in 1818 with the Grand Scribe E. of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland in Edinburgh, but the first minute‑book of Stirling Rock R.A. Chapter, No. a, is not available. The minutes of Lodge Ancient, No. 30, state that no such minute as that above attested is to be found in the minute‑book for 1743 and that John Callendar, signing
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as Right Worshipful Master, was not Master of the Lodge until 1745; so it may be that 1743 is an error for 1745 or, alternatively, that John Callendar, although not Master of the Lodge, may have presided in a Royal Arch lodge attached to the Craft lodge in the earlier year.
The minute of 1745 is as follows:
STERLING JuIY 30, 1745.
The Which day the Lodge of Sterling Kilwinning having meet in Brother Hickson's hous And being Petitioned by Mr. Mungo Nicholl Shoe Maker & Mr. James McEuen Student of Devenitie at Sterling & they being found qualified were accordingly Admitted as prenticess & payed the accustomed dues accordingly to the trer: - Jo. Callendar M.
Obviously, if the minute of 1743 is beyond question, it could be truthfully affirmed that the R.A. was being worked at Stirling in 1743, but W. J. Hughan did not think that Stirling's claim was either substantiated or confirmed, and other students have expressed themselves in similar manner; on the other hand, George S. Draffen, formerly Grand Librarian of the G.L. of Scotland, says that, having examined the old records of six of the twelve senior chapters on the Scottish Roll (Nos. 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 12 in the Province of Angus and Mearns), he has found the dates to conform exactly to those assigned by the Seniority Committee of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland, and he is therefore of the opinion that the date of 1743 assigned to Stirling was supported by written evidence in 1817.
Progress in the 1750’s and 1760’s
The remaining pages of this section will indicate some of the progress made in the 1750’s and the 1760’s up to a point in the second of those decades marking the foundation of the first Grand Chapter in the world, that erected by Lord Blayney, Grand Master of the ‘Moderns,' by means of his celebrated Charter of Compact.
The earliest date on which we have definite and undisputed knowledge of the Royal Arch in England is March 4, 1752 (see p. 59). The earliest existing minutes (other than in Scotland) recording what was then known as the raising of a Brother to the Royal Arch are of the period between 1752 and 1758. In Ireland the first exaltee was in 1752; in America (not yet the U.S.A.) in 1753; in Scotland in 1756 (but if the Stirling record is accepted, then in 1743 or 1745); in England in 1758; and in London in 1767. These four countries will be taken in the order above given.
Ireland. Lodge No. 123 was warranted in 1741 at Coleraine, County Derry, by the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and must very soon have been working the R.A. A list or register of members contained in a minutebook covering the years 1763‑83 shows that of twenty Brethren initiated
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between May 1741 and December 1759 sixteen were made R.A. masons, but there is no confirmation of this in the minutes themselves. John Holmes, included in the list, was exalted two weeks after his Initiation in May 1746, and reached the chair eight years later. Another, the Rev. Wm Bristow, was initiated in 1757, became Master of the Lodge in 1759, and was exalted immediately following his leaving the chair six months later. It is not known whether the other exaltees were actual Past Masters of this or any other lodge, but the inference in many of the cases is that they were not. Dated April 16, 1752, is the following Coleraine minute of historic importance, one that antedates by twenty months a minute of a lodge at Fredericksburg, Virginia (which, however, is still the oldest undisputed written record of the actual making of R.A. masons).
At this lodge, Brot Tho Blair propos'd Samson Moore a Master & Royal Arch Mason to be admitted a Member of our Lodge.
Only one other minute of the Coleraine Lodge mentions the R.A.:
1760. Jany. 14th ‑ Br Armstrong requests the favour of the Lodge to admitt him a Royal Arch Mason.
At Youghall, County Cork, there had been founded in 1734 a lodge which made no mention in its minutes until 1759 of the Royal Arch, and, curiously, for half a century after that year did not again allude to it. In that year, on July 30, 1759, occurs a minute of which the following is part:
Then proceeded to the passing of Spencer Scannaden and Samuell Gardner to the dignity of Royal Arch Masons, they being proper Officers of the Lodge, That is, Bro. Scannaden Senr Warden and Samuel Gardner Junr Deacon.
It is extremely likely that the Craft freemasonry practised in the Youghall lodge stemmed directly from the English system, the sea connexion between Bristol and many Irish ports being much closer early in the eighteenth century than the road connexion between Bristol and many inland English towns. The Royal Arch has a long and important history in Ireland, as will be seen in a later section.
America. What is still thought to be the earliest minute definitely recording a Royal Arch Exaltation is of "Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons" in Fredericksburg, Virginia, of the year 1753 (year of Masonry 5753), and to the eye of the present‑day mason must appear to be of a singular character:
Decembr 22d 5753 Which Night the Lodge being Assembled was present
Right Worshipful Simon Frazier G.M., of Royall
Do.John Neilson S. Wardn Arch
Robert Armistead Jur Wardn Lodge.
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Transactions of the night
Daniel Campell Raised to the
Robert Halkerston Degree of Royall
Alexr Wodrow Arch Mason.
Royal Arch Lodge being Shutt, Entered Apprentices Lodge opened.
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It is believed that Simon Frazier, given in the minute as "Grand Master," was a visitor, and that he became a member in the following month. The Wardens assisting him and named in the minute were the Senior Warden and the Temporary Treasurer respectively of the lodge. It is to be noted that Daniel Campbell, the first of the exaltees, was actually the Master of the Craft Lodge; the second candidate, Dr Robert Halkerston, was the actual junior Warden; and the third was the Secretary. The Craft Lodge itself was not at that date, 1753, warranted by any recognized Grand Lodge, but it received a charter from the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1758. (A statement once made that it was an Irish lodge is not substantiated.) The Lodge charter is, we believe, still preserved, and the Lodge was reported at the end of the nineteenth century as being "happily vigorous and active"; its place in history is well assured, for in it on November 4, 1753, was initiated George Washington, later to become the first President of the United States of America.
Scotland. Scotland deservedly claims a long history of the R.A., beginning with the Stirling records already dealt with. So far back as 1755 a lodge bearing the name of Royall Arch was chartered at Glasgow, apparently bearing the number 77, and was erased in 1816. Other Royal Arch lodges were at Edinburgh in 1765 and at Stirling in 1759.
One of the most important of the early Scottish dates concerns a minute of the Thistle Lodge, Dumfries (now No. 61), founded in 1754
4 March, 1757
The Briting Bieng met & opening the Lodg in deu.order Johen Patten was
past from aprents To the Care of Adoniram and John McKewn James
Marten was med Exlant & Super Exlant and Roiel Arch Men as witness.
[Three signatures]
This is the first undisputed Scottish minute recording raisings to the Royal Arch Degree. In a record of "the Royal Arch Masons and their Passing to that" at the end of the minute‑book the first name is dated November 7, 1756.
Lodge Kirkwall Kilwinning, No. 382, founded in 1736 by masons from the Lodge of Stirling and the Lodge of Dunfermline, is believed to have been working the Royal Arch in the 1754‑60 period. A minute of 1759 mentions "Royall Arch King Solomon's Lodge, Number a, New York." The Kirkwall Lodge owns a famous scroll, crudely depicting the emblems
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of various degrees, the Royal Arch prominently among them. (See Plate VII.)
A lodge at Banff has early minutes relating to the Royal Arch Degree. Hughan says that on January 7, 1765, it was agreed that "any member who wants to attain to the parts of Royal Arch and Super Excellent shall pay two shillings and sixpence to the Publick Fund for each part." On January 7, 1766, Brother William Murray, who joined the lodge, is styled "Master and Royal Arch." On January 1, 1778, seven Brethren paid two shillings and sixpence each "for that branch of Royal Arch," and three of these were charged additional half‑crowns each "for that Branch of Super Excellent."
England. Of the English definite records the oldest, either ‘Antients' or ‘Moderns,' are not earlier than the 1750’s. At a meeting of the Grand Committee of the ‘Antients' on March 4, 1752, some Brethren made formal complaints that two individuals, Phealon and Mackey, "had initiated many persons for the mean consideration of a leg of mutton," and had pretended "to have made Royal‑Archmen." (This subject will be returned to in the next section.) The complaints were received at a meeting at which Laurence Dermott acted for the first time as Secretary. Later in the ‘Antients' minutes of this same year occurs another reference:
September 2nd, the Lodge was Opened in Antient form of Grand Lodge and every part of Real Freemasonry was traced and explained; except the Royal Arch.
These matters are more particularly dealt with in a later section.
We have Thomas Dunckerley's own assertion that he was exalted in a Portsmouth lodge in 1754 (probably in his mother lodge). The ‘Antients' were, of course, at this time very busy with the Royal Arch, and we find in 1757 a minute of their Grand Lodge summoning "The Masters of the Royal Arch" to meet "in order to regulate things relative to that most valuable branch of the Craft."
The first‑known English minute recording the raising of a Brother to the R.A. is, perhaps unexpectedly, of a ‘Moderns' lodge at Bristol, in 1758, but it would be wrong to rush to the conclusion from this isolated evidence that the ‘Moderns' worked the Royal Arch earlier than the ‘Antients.' The Lodge, No. 220, was short‑lived. It was constituted in February 1757, at Lord Blakeney's Head, Temple Street, Bristol, but by the time its minute‑book was begun had already moved to the Crown in Christmas Street. Although a ‘Moderns' lodge, it yet worked an ‘Antient' ritual, being of that class of lodges which J. Heron Lepper, in a noteworthy paper published in A.Q.C., vol. lvi, described as Traditioner lodges‑that is, lodges owning allegiance to the Premier Grand Lodge,
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but in their ceremonial following closely the ‘Ancients' working. A Lodge of Emergency was held on Sunday, August 13, 1758, by desire of Brother William Gordon, who, at a regular meeting held some days earlier, had been proposed "to be raised to the degree of a Royal Arch and accepted "; at this Sunday evening meeting he and another were ‘raised' to the R.A. Degree. By May G of the next year seven R.A. meetings had been held and thirteen Brethren so ‘raised,' all of whom were taking the step quite shortly after becoming Master Masons.
Of the many R.A. records in the 1760’s the earliest, so far as is known, relating to an actual ‘raising' of a Brother to the R.A. is particularly historic. On Sunday, February 7, 1762, a Royal Arch lodge was opened at the Punch Bowl Inn, in Stonegate in York, by members of the Punch Bowl Lodge, No. zsq, founded in the preceding year (and expiring in its seventh). Four members, all of them actors and members of the York Company of Comedians, opened the Royal Arch lodge, so providing an early instance of a separate organization especially formed for the working of the Royal Arch ceremonial. Under the ‘Ancients,' and legally so, that ceremonial was worked in their Craft lodges, while under the ‘Moderns' at that time the Royal Arch Degree was irregular and, if worked, quite unofficial. But this was not a ‘Moderns' lodge I It was held under the authority of the Grand Lodge of ALL England, a Grand Lodge erected by an old City of York lodge in 1725 and holding sway actually in parts of Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire. The separate organization had a minute‑book entitled Minute Book Belonging to the Most Sublime Degree or Order of Royal Arch appertaining to the Grand Lodge of ALL England, held at the City of York, 1762. (This lodge or chapter became in the course of time a Grand Chapter.) The first minute recorded relates to the meeting of Sunday, February 7, 1762, already mentioned, and states that " Brothers Burton, Palmes, Tasker and Dodgson petition'd to be raised to the Fourth Degree of Masonry, commonly call'd the Most Sublime or Royal Arch, were accepted and accordingly made."
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Section Four
THE ‘ANTIENT' MASONS AND THE ROYAL ARCH
THE rise and development of the Royal Arch, and indeed its ultimate position in the whole Masonic Order, were immeasurably affected by the bitter quarrel between the premier Grand Lodge, founded in 1717, and another Grand Lodge the ‘Antients' ‑ thought to have been in course of formation from c. 1739, and taking its place in 1751‑53 as a Grand Lodge with all powers to warrant private lodges. Only as much of the story need be given here as will explain the circumstances in which the ‘Antients' came into being and the attitudes of the two opposed bodies to the Royal Arch. Actually, during the years of the formation of the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge the Royal Arch had been quietly progressing towards general adoption. The quarrel lasted for sixty years or so, and the present position of the English Royal Arch relative to the Craft is a reflection of that quarrel.
The Masonic historian Gould looked upon the formation of the 'Antients' Grand Lodge as a schism, the work of seceders from the original plan of freemasonry, but his great work was written in the 1880’s, before research had revealed that, while there must have been many discontented masons who left the ‘Moderns' lodges to throw in their lot with the opponent, it was not seceders who built the rival body, but, chiefly, Irish and Scottish masons residing in England, who naturally welcomed the help of any of the English malcontents.
The premier Grand Lodge had contributed to or even brought about many of its own troubles by its lack of zeal and discretion and its ignorance of the art of government, faults accelerated by its assumption of superiority to its sister Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland. It signally failed to meet the challenge offered by the appearance of certain irregular prints, particularly, as already stated, that of Samuel Prichard, whose Masonry Dissected, published in 1730, was reprinted scores of times in English-speaking countries. It is not unfair to say that the publication of this and similar works caused the ‘Moderns' Grand Lodge such great concern and nervousness that, afraid to give itself time properly to consider the matter, it rushed into a great mistake from which it long suffered, for somewhen in the 1730 period (the exact date is in doubt) it instructed the
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private lodges, as we have already said, to transpose the forms of recognition in the First and Second Degrees, with the intention of placing a shibboleth in the way of any clandestine mason attempting to enter its lodges. (In at least one Continental system that stemmed from English masonry about that time the means of recognition remain still transposed, although in England the matter was remedied immediately before the Union, 1813.) The transposition was regarded with horror by a great many masons, who charged the Grand Lodge with having grievously and wholly improperly interfered with a landmark.
This alteration came to be by no means the only difference between the working of the ‘Moderns' lodges and that of the independent lodges and still later, lodges of the ‘Antients' persuasion. With the passage of time the ‘Moderns' Premier Grand Lodge was charged, not in all instances fairly, with omitting prayers; de‑Christianizing the ritual; ignoring saints' days; failing to prepare Candidates in the traditional manner; abbreviating or abandoning the lectures (catechisms); abandoning the Ancient Charges; causing the ceremonies, particularly Initiation, to be more austere; allowing the esoteric Installation of the Master to fall into disuse; arranging their lodges in a different manner; etc., etc. Undoubtedly the greatest of these ‘etceteras' was the refusal to recognize and acknowledge officially the antiquity of the Royal Arch, a ceremonial regarded by the ‘Antients' as having come down to them from time immemorial. A few of these accusations may have been well founded, but many were not, and even those that were true did not apply to all ‘Moderns' lodges and at all times between, say, 1740 and 1813. We know, of course, that Dr Anderson's Constitutions of 1723 did in effect de‑Christianize the ritual; there is no doubt that the ‘Moderns' had not, in all cases, retained the affection for saints' days; it is likely that they tended to shorten the catechisms and to omit recitals of the Ancient Charges; but whether, for instance, they ‘omitted' the use of the sword in the Initiation ceremony or ‘abandoned' the esoteric Installation of the Master‑these are open to serious question. Indeed, the accusations are almost certainly false. It was not the ‘Moderns' who ignored a time‑immemorial practice and discontinued the use of the sword; it must have been the unattached lodges, and following them the ‘Antients,' who, in adopting the use of the sword, simply borrowed an idea from the French. It is thought to be impossible that the ‘Moderns' or anybody else, at the founding of the first Grand Lodge, knew of an esoteric Installation of the Master; consequently the accusation that they had ‘abandoned' it had no foundation. It must have been the unattached lodges and, in due course, the ‘Antients' who adopted that ceremony, confident, we can well admit, that it was a part of the original Masonic tradition.
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But, however, the differences came, there they were and there they stayed, to distinguish so many of the ‘Moderns' lodges from so many of the ‘Antients.' Both sides made great capital out of them, and we find the second edition of Laurence Dermott's Ahiman Rezon (the ‘Antients' Constitutions) attacking the ‘Moderns' ritual and underlining the changes which the ‘innovators' were accused of having made. But as we reflect upon the matter we ask who were the innovators? More and more we realize that, although innovators the ‘Moderns' undoubtedly were in one serious and unfortunate respect, in nearly all others it was the ‘Antients' who permitted and encouraged the positive variations that in the second half of the eighteenth century distinguished the two bodies.
It should be remembered that there was not in the eighteenth century anything that could be regarded as a cast‑iron ritual, even remotely so. All through that century the rituals were being made, borrowed from, and added to; were being developed in different localities and in different ways; and the many variations were, in due time, to give a real headache to the bodies charged with the preparation of agreed rituals following on the Union of the Craft and later that of the Royal Arch. So when we try to estimate the differences between the rituals of the ‘Antients' and the ‘Moderns' we shall do well to remind ourselves that there was no one ritual precisely followed by everybody; there was no brand‑new ritual adopted in the 1730 period by the ‘Moderns' and imposed by them on their lodges. There was one continuous process of development and modification under both of the two Grand Lodges through much of the century, although possibly not always perceptible to those immediately concerned in it.
Douglas Knoop, a trained historian, believed that the Craft lodges had no formal openings or closings in the 1730 period; that later there was, in many lodges, no opening in the Second and Third Degrees and no closing in any degree; and that ceremonial methods of opening and closing grew up gradually among both ‘Antients' and ‘Moderns,' and obviously could not be identical in all lodges in all places. This must apply also to many of the features that distinguished the two bodies, the differences being more marked in some places than in others. A process of assimilation between the two bodies was always at work, and it is to be expected that this chiefly took the form of tempering the early austerity of the ‘Moderns' ceremonies. It is believed that towards the end of the century the differences in some localities between the two systems were only slight. Evidence in the matter is conflicting, but we have the instance of Robert Millikin, of Cork, who visited a ‘Moderns' lodge in Bristol about 1793 and, beyond a few phrases in opening the lodge, discovered no difference from his own ‘Antient' ritual. However, between the extreme lodges of each
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body there must still have been some considerable differences, which must have caused the Lodge of Reconciliation plenty of trouble following the Union (seep. 115).
By the end of the century the assimilation that had been fostered in lodges of the Traditioner type (see p. 50) had made a considerable effect in some localities, and it is now certain that for years prior to 1813 many devoted masons on both sides were quietly working to bring about union. In the minds of such men the Royal Arch must have occupied a big place. A spirit of toleration and understanding had been steadily growing up between the two bodies, but there were still many masons of the type of the Deputy Grand Secretary of Ireland, who, in a letter written in 1790 to an Irish lodge, said that "A Modern Mason cannot or ought not to be admitted into a lodge of Antient Masons without passing the courses over again as if the same had never been performed ‑ their mode and ours being so different." "Without passing the courses over again"! One of the customs commonly practised during the quarrel was that of ‘remaking,' said to have been originated by the ‘Moderns,' who insisted that certain Irish masons should be ‘remade' before they could be admitted to their lodges as Brethren. Both sides practised it over a long period, so causing many anomalies and ridiculous instances, as related in the author's earlier volume.
The Union‑not immediately it came, but in the course of a few years ‑brought to an end the quarrel between the two sections of the Craft and had an immediate and marked effect upon the fortunes of the Royal Arch.
The ‘Antients' Grand Lodge
The ‘Antients' Grand Lodge was functioning as such from about 1751, although officially it still called itself in February 1752 "The Grand Committee of the Most Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons," and the term "Grand Lodge" appears in its minutes for the first time in 1753. By the time of the Craft Union (1813) its name had become "The Most Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons according to the Old Institutions." Care must be taken not to confuse this with a much later Grand Lodge, centred in Wigan, "of Free and Accepted Masons of ALL England according to the Old Institutions," formed in 1823 by four lodges that had been erased by the United Grand Lodge. The first ‘Antients' Grand Master was Robert Turner; the second the Hon. Edward Vaughan; and the third, from 1756 to 1759, the first Earl of Blesington, writing to whom in December 1756, to thank him for consenting to become Grand Master, Laurence Dermott
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spoke of "the great honour your Lordship has done the Fraternity in condescending to fill SOLOMON'S CHAIR"! Two Grand Masters of Ireland and three of Scotland were among the 'Antients' Grand Masters. The third Duke of Atholl served from 1771 to 1774, and on his death was succeeded by his son; altogether the Atholls served as Grand Masters for over thirty years, both of them being at some time Grand Master of Scotland, so it is easily understandable why the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge in its last forty years was generally known as the Atholl Grand Lodge.
On the retirement of the ‘Antients' first Grand Secretary in 1752 there was elected in his place Laurence Dermott, age thirty‑two, "a man of remarkable quality and tremendous energy," to whose "forces of character and administrative ability" must be attributed much of the' Antients' success. He became the greatest personality in the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge and one whose importance in the history of the English Royal Arch can never be questioned. He was born in Ireland in 1720, initiated in 1740 in Lodge No. 26, Dublin, of which he became Master and Secretary, and came to England about 1747 ‑ 48. It is highly probable that at some time prior to this he had been a member of a ‘Moderns' lodge, and he is thought to have become a Royal Arch mason in his Irish lodge in 1746. By trade he was a journeyman painter, and never grew ashamed of his "mecanic" origin, but he was to reply in a few words of Latin, a few years later, to the Grand Master, who had nominated the text for a sermon to be preached at St Clement's Church, London! He received a whole succession of compliments and honours during his Masonic career, but with the ever‑increasing dignity of office he never lost his head, and his bookplate names him "Lau. Dermott, G.S., Painter, London," although by now he was using the heraldic arms of the MacDermotts, chiefs of Moylurg, County Roscommon. In 1772 in his Grand Lodge minutes he becomes "Lau. Dermott, Esq.," but in that same year, in an official letter addressed to him from the Deputy Grand Secretary, Ireland, he is called "Lau. Dermott, Wine Merchant, London."
In 1756 Dermott issued the first edition of the ‘Antients' Constitutions, largely based upon Anderson's Constitutions Of 1723, and gave them the extraordinary title of Ahiman Rezon, which he may have built up from two words in the Geneva or "Breeches" Bible of 1560, which gives "Ahiman" as "a prepared Brother, one of the sons of Anak," and "Rezon" as a "secretary" or "Prince." It has been suggested that the name means "Brother Secretary," "The Brother's Secret Monitor," etc., but nobody really knows the meaning or whether the two Hebrew words in conjunction have any. Many editions of Ahiman Rezon were published in England, Ireland, and America. The English edition of 1764 includes
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"a prayer repeated in the Royal Arch Lodge at Jerusalem," and states the compiler's belief that the Royal Arch was "the root, heart and marrow of Masonry."
Dermott was an invalid for many years, and there are references to the subject in the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge minutes: in an entry of June 6, 1770, occurs the statement that he "was so ill with the gout that he was oblidg'd to be carried out of his bed (when incapable to wear shoes, stockings or even Britches) to do his duty at the Steward's Lodge," and rather more than seven years later, when he was resigning as Deputy Grand Master, he pleaded "his age, infirmities and twentysix years service," although actually he was to give many more years of service to the work that he loved. It was resolved on that occasion that a gold medal be struck and presented to Dermott, who had resigned as Secretary in 1771 and been appointed Deputy Grand Master. It was Dermott who was principally responsible for dubbing his opponents the ‘Moderns,' although, from to‑day's point of view, which side was the ‘Moderns' and which the ‘Antients' quite eludes the present writer, whose mood is echoed in John Byrom's Jacobite verse (late eighteenth century)
God bless the king, I mean the faith's defender;
God bless ‑ no harm in blessing ‑ the pretender;
Who that pretender is, and who is King,
God bless us all,‑ that's quite another thing!
The Royal Arch mason will be especially interested in the frontispiece to Dermott's second edition (1764) of Ahiman Rqon reproduced in this volume as Plate III. In this are depicted two sets of armorial bearings, in one of which, described as "The Arms of ye most Antient & Honourable Fraternity, of Free and Accepted Masons," we find the Lion, Ox, Man, and Eagle, with the Ark as crest, and the Cherubim as supporters. The lion represented strength; the ox patience and assiduity; the man intelligence and understanding; and the eagle promptness and celerity - four emblems implying, we may reasonably conclude, that to the ‘Antients' the Royal Arch was an integral part of the Masonic Order.
The ‘Antients,' as we have already indicated, had a most profound respect, amounting to warm affection, for the Royal Arch, the "root, heart and marrow" of their masonry. We are clearly led to assume that they were the first to practise it, but this assumption, as we have already said, does not rest on definite evidence. They liked it as individuals, but they liked it, too, officially as an asset in the quarrel between themselves and the ‘Moderns'; it gave them the advantage of offering a fourth degree, and, indeed, their Grand Lodge became known as "the Grand Lodge of Four Degrees," a fact which was undoubtedly well in the mind of the ‘Moderns' Grand Master, Lord Blayney, and his advisers when he
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erected in 1766 the Charter of Compact, constituting the first of all Grand Chapters. That the Royal Arch was often a considerable attraction to the ‘Modern' mason is an easy inference, and we have such evidence as the instance of a ‘Moderns' lodge in Bristol transferring its allegiance in 1768 because the Premier Grand Lodge had forbidden it to continue to practise the Royal Arch.
Many authors have boldly stated that the 'Antients' designed or adopted the Royal Arch as a mark of hostility to the ‘Moderns' or as a means of gaining an advantage over its opponents. Quite a mild version of the accusation is the statement that the Royal Arch was "the second part of the old Master's grade, which Dermott made use of to mark a supposed difference between the ‘Antients' and the ‘Moderns."' What is the statement worth? Dermott was exalted in Dublin, at a time (say, 1746) when the degree was already in existence and making progress in England.
As an Irish Royal Arch mason he is likely to have been introduced to the narrative of the repair of the Temple, whereas the English narrative was the rebuilding. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that if Dermott had been responsible for the introduction or adoption of the Royal Arch in England the English tradition throughout two hundred years would have been in accordance with the Irish system. All the evidence is against accepting any suggestion that the ‘Antients' devised the Royal Arch; they found it conveniently to their hand, warmly embraced it, and later recognized it as an asset in waging their quarrel with their opponents.
It is often commonly stated that under the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge every private lodge was empowered by its charter to confer the RoyalArch Degree. Only in a sense is this true. The Royal Arch was not specified in the lodge charter, but was regarded as such a completely integral part of the Masonic scheme as not to need mention. It was just taken for granted. And to that statement must be added a further one: under their ordinary charters or warrants, the ‘Antients,' the Irish and many of the Scottish lodges, and some few of the ‘Moderns' lodges believed they had the right to confer any and every Masonic degree they pleased!
What is claimed to be the oldest ‘Antients' warrant in existence, quite typical in its references to Installation and St John's Day, is of the date 1758, and was issued to Kent Lodge, then No. 9 (now No. 15), founded in 1752 at Spitalfields, London. It empowers the founders "to form and hold a Lodge of Free and Accepted (York) Masons... and in such Lodge, admit, Enter, and make according to the Honourable Custom of the Royal Craft ... to nominate, Chuse and Instal their Successors, etc., etc., etc., such Instalations to be on every St John's Day, during the Continuance of the Lodge for ever." But the laws and regulations of the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge made good any possible omission from its charters, for in
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them the Royal Arch was designated the "fourth degree." Towards the end of the century it was laid down "that Members of Grand Lodge, and all warranted Lodges, so far as they have the ability and numbers, have an undoubted right to exercise all the degrees of the Antient Craft."
The first official reference to the Royal Arch Degree is in the ‘Antients' minutes of 1752. The Grand Committee had met at the Griffon Tavern, Holborn, London, on March 4 of that year, with John Gaunt, Master of Lodge No. 5, in the chair and Dermott acting for the first time as Grand Secretary. It is the second meeting recorded in the minute‑book. The one and only minute of the meeting voices a formal complaint brought by five Brethren against Thomas Phealon and John Macky (Mackey) that they had
initiated many persons for the mean consideration of a leg of Mutton for dinner or supper, to the disgrace of the Ancient Craft, that it was difficult to discover who assisted them if any, as they seldom met twice in the same Alehouse. That Macky was an Empiric in phisic; and both impostors in Masonry. That upon examining some brothers whom they pretend to have made Royal‑Archmen, the parties had not the least Idea of that secret. That Doctor Macky (for so he was called) pretended to teach a Masonical Art by which any man could (in a moment) render himself Invisible. That the Grand Secrety had examined Macky, at the house of Mr. James Duffy, Tobacconist, in East Smithfield who was not a Mason and that Macky appear'd incapable of making an Apprentice with any degree of proprety. Nor had Macky the least Idea or knowledge of Royal Arch Masonry. But instead he had told the people whom he deceived, a long story about 12 white Marble stones & & and that the Rain Bow was the Royal Arch, with many other absurdities equally foreign and Ridiculous‑The Grand Committee Unanimously Agreed and Ordered that neither Thomas Phealon nor John Mackey be admitted into any Antient Lodge during their natural lives.
Another of the very early references occurs later in this same year, a Grand Lodge minute of September 2, 1752, stating that, "The Lodge was Opened in Antient Form of Grand Lodge and every piece of Real freemasonry was traced and explained: except the Royal Arch, by the Grand Secretary."
Seven years later, on March 2, 1759, we get a hint of the coming of regulations; a general meeting of Master Masons having been "convened to compare and regulate things," it was ordered that "the Masters of the Royal Arch shall also be summoned to meet and regulate things relative to that most valuable branch of the craft."
Some early evidence of the undoubtedly long and close association of the ‘Antients' with the Grand Lodge of Ireland is afforded by a Grand Lodge minute of June 2, 1762: "Ordered that a Constant Correspondence
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shall be kept with the Grand Lodge of Ireland." The minute further recited that, the Irish Grand Lodge having agreed not to admit any Sojourner from England (as a member, petitioner, etc.) without a certificate of his good behaviour under the seal of the ‘Antient' Grand Lodge in London, it was now agreed that an Irish Sojourner should likewise produce a proper certificate before he could be admitted as a member or receive any part of the General Charity. This reciprocal arrangement was aimed at ensuring that only Brethren of ‘Antient' persuasion, whether English or Irish, should be admitted or helped, and it is fully in keeping with the seventh regulation in the edition of Ahiman Rezon published two years later (1764), given in the form of question and answer:
7th. Whether it is possible to initiate or introduce a Modern Mason into a Royal Arch Lodge (the very essence of Masonry) without making him go through the Antient ceremonies? Answer. No!
The close correspondence and association between the 'Antients' on the one hand and the Irish and Scots Grand Lodges on the other was not free from anomalies (very little in the relationship of the ‘Antients' with other Masonic bodies was). The Irish and Scots viewed the ‘Antients' with a friendly eye, but looked askance at the ‘Moderns,' and at this distance of time, when so much is hidden from us and so much of what we do see is possibly misunderstood, we may blame chiefly the affectation of superiority by the Premier body and its most unfortunate transposition of the signs of recognition, for in their official attitude to matters of ritual the ‘Moderns' agreed much more closely with the Irish and Scots than the ‘Antients' did, strange as this may seem.
It might well be asked: If the ‘Antients' became innovators ‑ at any rate, in the eyes of the 'Moderns' ‑ by adopting certain ceremonies which officially were not recognized or practised by the ‘Moderns,' must it be taken for granted that in matters of ceremonial and the working of degrees the Irish and the Scots followed the example set by the ‘Antients'? Otherwise how could it come about that the ‘Antients,' the Irish, and the Scots were all three in accord ‑ an agreement that is so very obvious when reading at first hand the minutes of the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge? How came it that, of the four, the ‘Moderns' were the 'one out'? It is true that the Irish and the Scots appear to have approved the ‘Antients' ceremonials, but ‑ a big but, too ‑ while the Irish worked the Third Degree and gave to certain added degrees what might seem to be their natural home, it was a long time before they would officially countenance the Royal Arch. This is proved by the first officially recorded notice taken by the Irish Grand Lodge of that ceremonial, to be found in a resolution of 1786: "that it is
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highly improper for a Master Masons' Lodge ... to enter upon their books any Transactions relative to the Royal Arch." This might have meant merely that it was desirable for two sets of transactions to be kept in two separate books, but it does not read quite so sweetly as that, and in any case it indicated far more sympathy with the ‘Moderns' than with the ‘Antients' point of view. (Indeed, the ‘Moderns' had issued similar instructions eighteen years before, as mentioned in the next section.) Should the reader instance against this assumption that the Royal Arch had been worked in Ireland during much of the eighteenth century, then it must be made clear that such history is largely of unofficial happenings in certain lodges that felt themselves able to disregard the wishes of their Grand Lodge. And this applies with equal force to Scotland, in which country the lodges were slow and far from unanimous in adopting even the Third Degree and, further, were mostly bitterly opposed to the Installation ceremony. (Scots lodges adopted that ceremony as late as 1865, under an instruction from their Grand Lodge.) Not until 1816 did the Scots have a Grand Chapter, not till 1829 the Irish.
Before we can discuss further the attitude of the ‘Antients' we must take a fairly comprehensive view of the ‘Moderns' in their relationship to the Royal Arch.
Section Five
THE ‘MODERNS' MASONS AND THE ROYAL ARCH
THE Grand Lodge of 1717 was generally known by its opponents as the ‘Moderns,' and by that unfortunate name history still knows them. Their official attitude of indifference to the Royal Arch may have largely turned, as the years went by, upon the zealous adoption by their opponents of the ‘new' ceremonial. Officially they regarded the ‘Antients' as ‘irregular' and ‘illegal,' would not therefore countenance them, and threatened any of their own members with the ‘severest censure' for associating Masonically with them. Visitors to ‘Moderns' lodges were compelled to take an oath on the V.S.L. that they had been regularly made in a lodge constituted under the premier Grand Lodge, or, if they had not been so made, to submit to be reinitiated. Naturally the ‘Antients' bitterly retaliated in the same way.
In such an atmosphere as this it was unlikely that the ‘Moderns' Grand Lodge would look with a kindly eye upon a degree with which the rival body was closely identified, and there is an indication of this in some curious happenings centred around a lodge that met in 1755 at Ben Jonson's Head, Pelham Street, Spitalfields, London. This lodge, founded as far back as 173 a at the Nag's Head, South Audley Street, West London, must have had a somewhat chequered career, and was erased in 1755. The happenings are mentioned in the 1787 edition of Ahiman Rezon, while in Dr George Oliver's Revelations of a Square (1855) are given further details, although these must be looked at somewhat narrowly. We have drawn upon both of these sources, and believe that the story as now told represents the approximate truth. Certain members of the lodge "had been abroad and had received extraordinary benefits on account of Antient Masonry." This Dr Oliver embroiders, and says (on unknown evidence) that these Brethren brought back with them certain rituals, including that of Ramsay's Royal Arch, and these they practised secretly every third lodge night under the designation of ‘Antient Masonry.' Dr Oliver's story is that Dr Manningham, the Deputy Grand Master, was reluctantly admitted on one of these occasions, and he in due course reported that the ceremony he had witnessed was a reconstruction of Ramsay's Royal
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Arch (how could he know this?) to which had been transferred the real landmarks of a Master Mason. W. J. Hughan, much more cautious, says that the working in the Ben Jonson Lodge probably referred to the Royal Arch and that the necessary changes would be in the Third Degree, but even his statement is nothing more than guesswork. Another version is that Dr Manningham with other Brethren called at the lodge and was refused admission; consequently a complaint was made at the next meeting of Grand Lodge, and as a result the lodge was severely censured and instructed that any Brother should be eligible for admission as a visitor on any of its regular nights. The lodge resented the censure, issued a manifesto accusing the Grand Lodge of partiality, innovation, and deviation from the ancient landmarks, and publicly renounced allegiance to it. The sequel was an unanimous resolution of Grand Lodge on St John the Baptists' Day 1755 to erase the lodge from the list. This is a celebrated case, but amounts to just this: the Ben Jonson Lodge insisted on working a ceremonial unknown to the 'Moderns' ‑ possibly and even probably an early form of the Royal Arch ‑ and, in consequence, was erased.
The official attitude notwithstanding, many ‘Moderns' lodges did work a Royal Arch ceremonial, evidence thereof being the oldest English minute recording the raising of Brethren to the Royal Arch Degree. This minute is of a ‘Moderns' lodge, then No. 220, meeting at the Crown, Christmas Street, Bristol, in 1758, obviously a lodge of the Traditioner type (see p. 50). Grand Lodge is not known to have taken any steps against this lodge, and we may safely assume that from some such period as this, or even earlier, many ‘Moderns' lodges were working the Royal Arch. As an indication that their Grand Lodge could not have been unaware of what was going on but thought it better to adopt an attitude of studied indifference, let us adduce one of the most quoted phrases in the history of freemasonry. It occurs in a written reply by Samuel Spencer, the ‘Moderns' Grand Secretary in 1759, to an Irish Brother who asked for charity: " Our Society is neither Arch, Royal Arch or Antient, so that you lyave no right to partake of our Charity" ‑ a statement which may have been icily correct, but was just a gift to his opponents, whose Grand Secretary, Laurence Dermott, gladly incorporated it in his records. The petitioner, William Carrall or Carroll, "a certified sojourner in distress," coming from Dublin and possibly unaware of the division in English freemasonry, petitioned the Premier Grand Lodge for help, which unfortunately was not given him. But let us be fair in this matter; in view of the reciprocal agreement mentioned in the preceding section (see p. 60) would any English ‘Modern' have fared any better in Dublin either then or, say, only three years later? The same Grand Secretary, Spencer, wrote in 1767 to a Brother in Frankfurt who was making inquiries: "The Royal
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Arch is a society which we do not acknowledge and which we hold to be an invention to introduce innovation and to seduce the brethren." There speaks the official Spencer, but the unofficial Spencer had been exalted and admitted a joining member of a prominent chapter the year before! And the anomaly is all the more marked when we bear in mind that Samuel Spencer's Grand Master, Lord Blayney, had only recently erected the first Grand Chapter.
In 1768 Samuel Spencer's successor, Thomas French, in a letter to the Master of Sun Lodge, Bristol, said:
There is only one circumstance in your minutes which you are requested to correct, and that concerns Royal Arch Masonry, which comes not under our inspection. You are desired never to insert the transactions thereof in your Regular Lodge Books, nor to carry on the business of that degree on your stated Lodge nights.
The Charter of Compact carries French's signature. Another signatory of the Charter, James Heseltine, one of the best of the Grand Secretaries of the day and at one time an officer of the Grand Chapter, writing to J. Peter Gogel, Past Grand Master of Frankfurt in 1774, did, indeed, acknowledge that the Royal Arch is "part of Masonry"; he clearly puts the anomalous position in which he found himself:
It is true that many of the Fraternity belong to a Degree in Masonry which is said to be higher than the other, and is called Royal Arch ... I have the honour to belong to this Degree ... but it is not acknowledged in Grand Lodge, and all its emblems and jewels are forbidden to be worn there.... You will thus see that the Royal Arch is a private and distinct society. It is part of Masonry but has no connection with Grand Lodge and this is the only further Degree known to us in England.
And only twenty‑one years before the Craft Union we find the ‘Moderns' Grand Lodge resolving (November 21, 1792) "That this Grand Lodge do agree with its Committee that Grand Lodge has nothing to do with the proceedings of the Society of Royal Arch Masons."
The Unofficial Attitude
Many students of repute have held the opinion that the ‘Moderns' worked the Royal Arch in London and perhaps in the provinces long before the ‘Antients' did so. Henry Sadler thought that, "notwithstanding that the Royal Arch was first mentioned by Dermott in the records of the ‘Antients,' it was not generally adopted by them until some years after it had become exceedingly popular with the ‘Moderns."' Alas! where is the evidence in support? We simply do not know who first
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worked the Royal Arch, but, judging from the known circumstances, the present author tends to give the ‘Antients' the credit. Their Grand Lodge minutes of 1752 (already quoted) cannot be forgotten, but we certainly find the oldest record of the raising of Candidates, in England, in connexion with a ‘Moderns' lodge ‑ that at the Crown Inn, Christmas Street, Bristol, to which reference has been made at p. 50. The day was Sunday, the date August 13, 1758; four other meetings of this lodge were held, also on Sundays, during the next twelve months, but there are no later mentions of the Royal Arch in these minutes, and it is possible that Grand Lodge had warned the lodge not to continue in its new course. It is known that some or many lodges owning allegiance to the ‘Moderns' practised an ‘Antient' form of working and had considerable respect for their opponents' customs and traditions, a feeling that was far from being reciprocated, and it is not without significance that a Brother in Wakefield wrote to somebody apparently connected with the ‘Moderns' Grand Lodge in London, asking to be sent a copy of Ahiman Rezon (the ‘Antients' Constitutions).
Much has always been made of the fact that the ‘Antients' worked the Royal Arch without specific authorization in their warrants. But what of the ‘Moderns'? Did they not (until such time as the separate chapter became the vogue, say, in the 1770’s or even later), did they not work the Royal Arch in their private lodges? They too had no specific warrants! The only difference is that in one camp the lodges were doing it with implied and understood authority and in the other without! Thomas Dunckerley, a high officer and the opposite number to Laurence Dermott (‘Antients' Grand Secretary), conferred the Royal Arch Degree in private lodges which could not possibly have been authorized to work it; a certificate issued"to him in February 1768 by a lodge in Plymouth Dock (Devonport) states that he had presided as Master for two years, "during which time his Masonic skill, knowledge and experience hath been manifested in the care he hath taken in Governing, Instructing and Improving said Lodge in the several degrees of E.P. \ F.C. \ \ M.M. \ \ \ & R.A. \ \ \\" The lodge issued this certificate at a time before the Grand Chapter had begun to issue warrants for private chapters: quite obviously Dunckerley was doing as many other Masters and lodges were doing ‑ he was working the Royal Arch ceremony in his Craft lodge and taking for granted the complete regularity of his course.
As from the erection of the Grand Chapter in 1766 Brethren could regularize themselves by taking a warrant from the Grand Chapter and founding a private chapter. But the lodges showed no undue haste to put themselves right in this way, for even seven years after the coming of Grand Chapter the warranted private chapters were only twenty or so,
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surely a small number in relation to the Craft lodges which continued, on their own authority, to confer the degree. As definite instances we may quote the Anchor and Hope Lodge, NO. 37, Bolton, founded in 1732, which worked the degree from 1767 until a warrant for a chapter was issued in 1785, and the Lodge of St John, No. 191, founded in Manchester in 1769 (meeting in Bury since 1845), which at a very much later date was continuing to work the degree in lodge, and did not have at any time a chapter associated with it.
There is a sequel to all this in the warranting of chapters in considerable number in the closing years of the eighteenth century, but that is a matter for a later section.
Masters' Lodges
It has commonly been advanced that Masters' Lodges, of which first recorded mention is made in the 1730’s, played a part in the early development of the Royal Arch. It is accepted that these lodges came into being to meet a need of their day ‑ namely, to raise Fellow Crafts to the Third Degree, the Hiramic Degree having only late in the 1720’s reached some of the lodges, few of which knew it well enough to be able to confer it. It is reasonably assumed that Fellow Crafts wishing to be ‘passed' to the Master Mason's grade often resorted to the Masters' Lodges, where the ceremony was worked by particularly keen and knowledgeable Brethren, but as from the middle of the eighteenth century the ordinary lodges were able to work the degree. Consequently, as Third Degree lodges pure and simple, the Masters' Lodges had now served their purpose, and if and where they continued to exist they had to find other employment.
What that employment was nobody knows. There has been plenty of guessing, plenty of downright assertion, but (and here the writer is supported by J. Heron Lepper, no mean student of Royal Arch history) we have no evidence ‑ no positive, definite evidence ‑ that it was the conferment of the Royal Arch Degree. Only a relatively small number of Masters' Lodges were at work in the second half of the eighteenth century. Between 1760 and 1780, for example, the most likely period of their being used as Royal Arch lodges (if they ever were so used), seven are on record in the 1760’s, of which six met once a month and one every two months, and only six in the 1770’s, of which five met once a month and one quarterly. So in one decade, so far as is known, only seventy‑eight and in the other only sixty‑four Royal Arch meetings could have been available in each year to Brethren looking to the Masters' Lodges for Exaltation ‑ this at a time when both the lodges and increasingly the chapters of the ‘Moderns' were exalting Brethren in numbers. (The
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‘Antients,' making their Royal Arch masons in their ordinary lodges, had no use for Masters' Lodges.)
There is a feeling that late in the century Master Masons could have gone to the Masters' Lodges to be made virtual Past Masters for the purpose of qualifying them as Royal Arch Candidates, but there is no evidence of it. At different times in, but not all through, the thirteen years immediately preceding the Union five Masters' Lodges met monthly and six quarterly, all of them apparently disappearing with the Union. Even if the possibility is conceded that Masters' Lodges worked the Royal Arch in the second half of the eighteenth century it is fair to assume that any part they played in the history and development of the Royal Arch was negligible. It is likely (again no evidence) that they worked some of the many added degrees known late in the eighteenth century.
The student may be informed that the "somewhat tantalizing" subject of the Masters' Lodges is well treated by John Lane in A.Q.C., vol. i, while the present author offers in vol. lxvii of the same transactions a review of the existing evidence.
‘ Arching'
‘Arching' was a commonly used term to signify what is now called ‘Exaltation,' and an early use of it is in the minutes of a Bolton lodge in 1766, where from each of nine Brethren 5s. 3d. was "Received for Arching." Unanimity Lodge, Wakefield, charged a Brother a fee "for the Arches" in 1766, the plural form agreeing with an idea quite general in that day and one that is exemplified on many old Royal Arch jewels. An old manuscript ritual of Sincerity Chapter, Taunton (warranted 18i9), contains many references to candidates "passing through the Arches and back again." There must be many available references on similar lines.
Section Six
THE PREMIER GRAND CHAPTER
THE erection of a Grand Chapter sometime late in the eighteenth century was more or less inevitable, but it came sooner and somewhat differently from what might have been expected. It is obvious that late in the 1760’s many distinguished Brethren of the ‘Moderns' were entering the Order, but in what might be regarded as an irregular manner, for there was no authority that could issue charters to chapters, and the ‘Moderns' Grand Lodge would have been horrified at any suggestion that it should do anything to regularize the increasingly common practice of making Royal Arch masons in its Craft lodges. Meanwhile ‘Antient' Brethren were being quite regularly and properly exalted in their ordinary lodges, solidly behind them being their Grand Lodge, enjoying the kudos and solid advantage of being known as the "Grand Lodge of the Four Degrees." ‘Modern' Masons had a need for a Grand Chapter, both to regularize a growing practice and to meet the competition of their earnest and energetic rivals. And that Grand Chapter came in 1766, probably as warmly welcomed by the rank and file as it was keenly resented by some of their leaders and officials.
Lord Blayney, Grand Master of the ‘Moderns', recently exalted in a new chapter ‑ later the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter ‑ entered into a Charter of Compact which brought into existence the first Grand Chapter of Royal Arch masons, the first not only in England, but in the world. That Charter was signed in 1766, although in Masonic literature the date has, until very recently, been given as one year later, and it will therefore be necessary to explain the circumstances in which it is thought that the date became altered, probably within a year of the signing of the Compact.
The reader may excusably confuse one Grand Chapter with another. Let us briefly recapitulate them. The first Grand Chapter was that promoted by Lord Blayney, Grand Master, in 1766 under the title of "The Grand and Royal Chapter" or "The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter." In 1795‑96 the title was altered to "The Grand Lodge of Royal Arch Masons," and in 1801 again altered, this time to "The Supreme Grand Chapter." The ‘Antients' founded a so‑called Grand Chapter (see Section
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seven) in 1771. Another was the short‑lived York Grand Chapter or Grand Chapter of All England (its one minute is dated 1778). The present "Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England" was formed by a union in 1817 of the original Grand Chapter of 1766 and the Royal Arch masons under the former Grand Lodge of the ‘Antients.' Ireland founded its Grand Chapter in 1829 under the title of "The Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Ireland," and Scotland its Grand Chapter in 1817 under the title of "The Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland."
"The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter"
Most of the hitherto accepted stories of the way in which the first Grand Chapter came to be erected by Charter of Compact are, it is feared, somewhat inaccurate. The most reliable account available is that given in two valuable contributions to A.Q.C. (vols. lxii, lxiv) by J. R. Dashwood, to whose reproduction of the Grand Chapter minutes with his notes thereon, and to A. R. Hewitt's Address to Grand Chapter in 1966, we are indebted for much of the information that follows.
It has been commonly understood that the first Grand Chapter came into being as a result of Lord Blayney's constituting the Caledonian Chapter into a Grand and Royal Chapter; the present author fell into the same mistake. It is true that the Caledonian Chapter had much to do with the bringing into existence of the new Chapter whose members entered into the compact with Lord Blayney; both of these chapters had a close connexion with the Caledonian Lodge, which started life as an ‘Antients' lodge, but seceded in its second year and in 1764 obtained a charter from the Premier Grand Lodge, its then number being 325 and its present one 134. The first Caledonian Chapter, which may possibly have antedated the lodge of the same name, did not have a long life and a new Caledonian Chapter was in existence by 1780, but even that one is not to‑day's, the present one dating back only to 1872 and being attached to Caledonian Lodge, No. 134; this lodge has a distinguished history, among its members in early days being William Preston, the famous Masonic author and lecturer.
The first minute‑book of the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter covers the period from March 22, 1765, to December 11, 1767, inclusive, the writer of the minutes being the first Scribe E., Francis Flower, who died within a few days of the last entry. The Chapter had at first no specific name. In contradiction of many earlier and inaccurate accounts it is well to say that, although this Chapter might appear to be a
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reincarnation of the Royal Arch activities of the Caledonian Lodge, this is now known to be impossible. Of twenty‑nine original members of that lodge whose names are known not one is included among the early members of the new Chapter ‑ not even the name one might most expect to find there, that of William Preston. By‑laws of February 12, 1766, make it plain that the new Chapter was not the Caledonian Chapter, although it was under some obligation to that body.
We can well suppose that the new Chapter was formed for the definite purpose of being erected at an early date into a Grand Chapter. Its name at its inception, as already said, is unknown, and it is convenient to call it straight away the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, although it could not have functioned as such until it had received its authority from the Charter of Compact signed in its second year.
In the early pages of its first minute‑book is a self‑conferred charter under which the new Chapter considered itself entitled to act; this appears to have been agreed at a meeting on June 12, 1765, and it was signed by twenty‑nine Brethren at the next meeting (July 10), a further fourteen signatures being appended from time to time up to March 11r, 1767. The manifesto recited that the Companions had resolved to hold a chapter at the Turk's Head Tavern, Gerrard Street, Soho, London, on the second Friday ("Wednesday" was crossed out) of every month at six o'clock in the evening, and that every member should pay two guineas ("twentysix shillings" crossed out) annually towards expenses:
Every Brother who desires to pass the Arch, or to become a Member of this Chapter must be regularly proposed in open Chapter: and it is expected that the Member proposing such a one, be able to give a satisfactory account of the Brother so proposed. Any Member may without offence demand a 'Ballot: and if on being had there shall be found more than two negatives against such Brother, he shall not be permitted to pass the Arch in, or become a Member of, this Chapter.
"Every Brother passing the Arch in this Chapter" and also every joining member paid two guineas (" one guinea" crossed out), while visitors admitted "on very particular occasions" paid half a guinea each to the current expense. The penalty for behaving indecently or disorderly in the Chapter or being intoxicated with liquor therein was admonishment or, if incorrigible, expulsion. A Brother in arrears later than the fourth meeting of the current year was no longer deemed a member. Officers were elected at the first meeting after the Feast of St John the Evangelist every year, and continued in authority one whole year:
And if any Officer is absent on any night of meeting, the E:Z.L: shall appoint any able and experienced Brother to supply his place for that Night.
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And if the E:Z.L: shall unavoidably be absent, the next Officer in Authority shall officiate for him, or appoint who he judges proper to do it. And the Brother so officiating shall in all respects have ample Authority for that Night.
(Obviously, then, at that early date there was no esoteric Installation of Principal Officers.) The manifesto with its regulations was followed by a set of seven resolutions, evidently of the same date (1765), and it is of advantage to give these exactly as they appear in the minute‑book:
Ist On Chapter night, the Companions being discreetly convened in the Antichamber, the P.H. Z.L. & L. together with the E. & N. and the Principal Sr. shall go into the Chapter Room, and being properly invested shall open the Chapter in due form. After which they shall come forth to the Companions in Order, who shall receive them with proper respect. And immediately the procession shall begin.
2nd That the E.G.s be clothed in proper Robes, Caps on their Heads, and adorned with proper Jewells.‑No Aprons.
3rd That the Sn appear with the emblems of their employment.
4th That the Secretarys be adorned with proper Jewells, etc. [The word "Robes" has been interpolated at a later date.]
5th That all the Companions wear Aprons, (except those appointed to wear Robes) and the Aprons shall be all of one sort or fashion. Vis. White Leather Indented round with Crimson Ribbon and strings of the same, with a TH in gold properly displayed on the Bibb. & Purple Garters Indented with Pink.
6th The Secretarys shall order all Liquor and refreshments and take proper account of the same. But no Liquor &c. shall be brought into the Chapter room, during Chapter, on any pretense whatsoever.
7th The Officers shall preserve their stations and Authority during the remainder of the Evening, after the Chapter is closed, for the sake of good order, etc.
A later by‑law seems to give an advantage in fees, either as a joining member or a visitor, to Brethren exalted before June 12, 1766, or in the Caledonian Chapter or in a chapter in the country, or beyond the seas. From this it is plain that the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter was not the Caledonian Chapter, and that it dated its own inauguration from June 12, 1765, and that any earlier meetings were preliminary meetings, but later minutes strongly support the suggestion that there was a close amity between the new Chapter and the Caledonian Chapter.
Many Exaltations took place, including one in April 1765, of Dr John James Rouby, whose Royal Arch jewel, now in the Grand Lodge museum in London, is the earliest at present known and bears the date
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1766, although he was exalted a year earlier (see Plate VIII). At the meeting of June 12, 1765, officers were elected, their appellations being:
Bror. Keck Senr. P.H.
Bror. Maclean P.Z. Excellent Grands
Bro. Aynson P.I.
Bror. Galloway Principal Sojourner
Bror. Flower E.
Secretaries.
Bror. Jn°. Hughes N.
It will be noted that P.Z. comes second in the list, although it is known that Maclean ruled the Chapter, but the order above given is the same as that found in the Toast in the ‘Antients' Ahiman Rezon, 1756, and as used much later by the York Chapter in 1772. Elsewhere in the minute‑book of the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter the method of designating the Three Principal Officers varies considerably, and in the one year, 1766, we find the first two officers are P.Z. and P.H., but the third is given in one case as P.I., in another as J.P., and in still another as I.H.P. In all these titles the letter P stands for "Prince, Prophet, and Priest." In expenses endorsed by an Audit Committee on March 21, 1766, occur these items: Robes, £8 2s.; 24 Aprons, £5 4s.; "Copper Plate and 1,000 Bills" (presumably Summons blanks), £3 6s.; 3 Candles, 2s. 6d.; Painting the Lodge, 10s. 6d.; Brass Letters, £1; Floor Cloth, 17s. 6d.; Inkstand and Stationery, 10s. 6d.; and a "Cable Tow 15 yd. long made of Purple Blue & Scarlet Worsted, and a Tassell," £1 1s. (The ‘Lodge' was probably the lodge board, the tracing‑board.)
At the anniversary feast Thomas Dunckerley attended the Chapter for the first time, was promptly elected a member, but paid no joining fee; he has been assumed to have been the moving spirit in the new Chapter, but this is not supported by available evidence. The Chapter was seven months old when he became a member; he was immediately elected Third Principal, but made very few attendances, even after he had gone through the Principal Chair.
Lord Blayney Head of the Royal Arch
A most important era in Royal Arch masonry began on June 11, 1766, on which day twenty‑seven companions witnessed the Exaltation of Cadwallader, Lord Blayney, in the new Chapter. Automatically, it appears, he immediately became head of the Royal Arch and First Principal of the Chapter, and he did in fact preside at the next three meetings, all held in July, the first of them on the 2nd of the month, being the day on which lames Heseltine, then Grand Steward, and three others were exalted.
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Heseltine became Grand Secretary in the Craft three years later and was a keen spirit in the Chapter.
Cadwallader, ninth Lord Blayney, an Irishman, ‘Moderns' Grand Master from 1764 to 1766, was born in 1720, succeeded to the family title in 1761, was by profession an army officer, was a Major‑General in 1765 and later Commander‑in‑Chief, Munster, which office he held at the time of his death in 1775. He was initiated when young, but in which lodge is not known, and served in 1764 as Master of the (‘Moderns') New Lodge, Horn Tavern, Westminster, No. 313, which took the name Royal Lodge in 1767 and in 1824 united with the Alpha Lodge (founded in 1722), now the Royal Alpha, No. 16. The inspiration and driving force behind him may have been Thomas Dunckerley; these two with Laurence Dermott of the opposite camp are the three great names in the formative period of the Royal Arch. But we are very much in the dark as to the parts played by some of the signatories to the Charter of Compact, and it is possible that a few of them ‑ notably John Maclean and James Galloway ‑ did as much as Dunckerley, or even more, to make possible the founding of a Grand Chapter. Lord Blayney was elected Grand Master of Ireland on May 6, 1768, but resigned before June 24 of the same year.
Lord Blayney proved a good Grand Master in the Craft, and during his office constituted seventy‑four lodges, of which nineteen, bearing honoured names, are in to‑day's list. In his presence the Duke of Gloucester was initiated in Lord Blayney's lodge at the Horn Tavern, Westminster, the first Initiation of a Royal Prince on English soil since that of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1757. Lord Blayney obviously had a great regard for Thomas Dunckerley, appointed him to high office, and we can well suppose regarded him as his chief Masonic mentor. Blayney was strongly ‘Antient' in sympathies, and evidently favoured the softening of the ‘Moderns' austere working. In support of that statement may be adduced his action ‑ after witnessing in the Old Dundee Lodge, then No. 9, an Initiation not altogether to his liking ‑ in requesting the members to alter their ceremonial in some particular, a request agreed to, but not without demur.
He was the first ‘Moderns' Grand Master to acknowledge and foster the Royal Arch, but not the first Grand Master to become a Royal Arch mason, for the Hon. Brinsley Butler (later Earl of Lanesborough) was exalted during his year of office as Grand Master of Ireland, an equally difficult event to understand from any official point of view, for the Irish Grand Lodge had officially no more use for the Royal Arch than the Premier Grand Lodge of England had shown itself to have.
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The Charter of Compact, 1766
Out of the new Chapter in which Lord Blayney had been exalted came, under his direction, the Grand Chapter of England, and it came in 1766, and not, as all the historians‑Gould, Hughan, and Sadler among themhave stated, in the next year 1767. Masonic writers, including the present author, have helped to continue the mistake. Before explaining how the mistake arose it should be said that, although the major credit for the erection of England's first Grand Chapter has customarily been given to Lord Blayney, the most likely truth is that a few keen spirits, among them Thomas Dunckerley, promoted the scheme, and the Grand Master gave it his encouragement and personal authority, without which the scheme would have had but small chance of success.
At Lord Blayney's second meeting of the Chapter in which he had been exalted the famous Charter of Compact must have been decided upon, this being clear from indications in the minutes and in the Charter itself. The Charter, dated July 22, speaks of Lord Blayney as Grand Master. He was Grand Master in 1766, but not in 1767. The Charter is signed by the officers of the year 1766, not of the year 1767. "July 22" must have been of 1766 because there was no meeting of the Chapter on July 22 of 1767, nor did Lord Blayney attend the Chapter after July 30, 1766.
It is J. R. Dashwood's contention (see.,4.Q.C, vol. 1xiv) that the original Charter itself displays evidence that the dates have been tampered with, the effect being that " 1766" is a trifle clumsily made to appear as "1767." The cost of engrossing the Charter, a very beautiful piece of work, was two guineas. The draft of the Charter was probably approved on July 22, and the engrossment was ready for signing by Lord Blayney and the officers present, other officers signing at a later date.
A further alteration was, quite skilfully, to insert the letter "P" before the words " Grand Master," the whole tenor of the document proving that this is an interpolation. J. R. Dashwood's suggested explanation of the true inwardness of the matter is that, although many Grand Officers had been exalted, it is well known (as reiterated in this book) that the ‘Moderns' officially did not regard the Royal Arch with favour; it is reasonable to suppose that they may have heard with horror that their Grand Master had allowed himself to be exalted during his period of office, that he had become a Principal Officer of his Chapter, had entered into a Charter of Compact setting up a Grand Chapter with power to grant charters, and had even consented to be named as the M. E. Grand Master of Royal Arch Masonry. J. R. Dashwood thinks that some persons were
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determined to undo the worst of the damage by making it appear that Lord Blayney had acted not officially as Grand Master, but in his private capacity after he had laid down that office, and the easiest way of doing this was by postdating the Charter by a year, the letter "P" being inserted in front of the words " Grand Master" to suggest that Lord Blayney was no longer in office and was acting individually. The matter is dealt with at length in A.Q.C. at the references already given, and the interested reader can there study the matter and form his own judgment.
The Charter of Compact, a "Charter of Institution and Protection," instituted and erected
[certain Excellent Brethren and Companions] to form and be, The Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem ... with full power and absolute Authority . . . to hold and convene Chapters and other proper Assemblies for the carrying on, improving and promoting the said benevolent and useful Work. And also to admit, pass and exalt in due form and according to the Rites and Ceremonies Time immemorial used and approved in and by that most Exalted and sacred Degree, and as now by them practised, all such experienced and discreet Masters Masons as they shall find worthy. ... And also to constitute, superintend and regulate other Chapters.
The Charter itself is a handsomely illuminated and engrossed document, twenty‑five inches wide and thirty deep (see Plate IV). The faded writing is quite legible. It bears three coats of arms (Royal, Premier Grand Lodge, and Lord Blayney's), three hexalphas, nine triangles, the ‘T‑over‑H' device, etc. It has thirty signatories, of whom nine, including Lord Blayney, Dunckerley, Allen, and Thomas French, affixed their seals. At or near the head of the Charter are the words commonly found on the early Grand Chapter documents, "The Most Enlightened East." In a central triangle appear the letters "I.N.," which some students have thought stand for the "Ineffable Name," but which more probably might represent "Jesus of Nazareth." The triangles, in their curious disposition, are held to represent the positions of the Three Principals, the Three Sojourners, Scribe E., Scribe N., and the Altar. Framed and glazed, it hangs in the Librarian's office in Freemasons' Hall, London, as becomes such a most important document.
John Allen, attorney of Clement's Inn, who at times acted as Deputy Grand Master in the Craft and whose seal and signature the Charter bears, not only, it is thought, drafted the document, but apparently retained it, for after his death it was found among his papers. Some time in the nineteenth century it was placed in a storeroom in Freemasons' Hall, where late in the century it was discovered.
The Charter bears the (altered) date "1767," the ordinary calendar year reckoned from the birth of Christ, and also a second date formed by
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adding 1767 to 4004= 5771. Nowadays the year Anno Domini is converted to Anno Lucis by adding 4000.
The eighth ‘clause' of the Charter states "that none calling themselves Royal Arch Masons shall be deemed any other than Masters in operative Masonry" (a term which in this connexion must obviously mean "Craft Masonry"). This assumption appears to echo the claim to superior status made in earlier years by the ‘Scotch Masons' (see p. 39), and its presence in the Charter, besides strengthening any supposition that the earlier rite was related to the later one, may help us to arrive at an answer to a difficult question: how came it about that the new Grand Chapter, with no experience of esoteric Installation, was so soon to insist on a Past Master qualification in its Candidates? Is the answer, or some part of it, that, regarding itself as an association of Masters, it eagerly took a leaf from its opponent's book to ensure that only Masters entered into its membership? The argument may not be quite watertight, but the truth may well be somewhere in it!
Thomas Dunckerley
Thomas Dunckerley (or Dunkerley) is credited with being the ‘master mind' that continued Lord Blayney's policy. Born in London in 1724 and later acknowledged as the natural son of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II, "to whom he bore a striking resemblance," he died in Portsmouth in the year 1795. In a book‑plate known to the Rev.
A. F. A. Woodford he gives his name as Thomas Dunckerley Fitz‑George. He is believed to have been initiated in 1754 in Lodge No. 31, meeting at the Three Tuns, Portsmouth. He was called to the bar at about fifty years of age, but probably did not practise, and as the circumstances of his birth had by this time become common property he was now admitted into high social circles. In his last days he was reduced to penury by the profligacy of his son, and on his death in 1795 his estate was valued for probate at only £300, although he had been living free in apartments in Hampton Court Palace and had received from the King a pension of £800 per annum, quite a sum in those days.
Dunckerley acquired considerable Masonic experience, was a loyal officer of the premier Grand Lodge, although in sympathy with the ‘Antients' working, and at various times was the Grand Master of eight different provinces and Grand Superintendent in the Royal Arch of twenty‑eight counties.
There were early authors who credited Dunckerley with being the founder of Royal Arch masonry, obviously a ridiculous claim, but he did indeed take a leading and active part in its development. In his capacity
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of Provincial Grand Superintendent he took to Portsmouth in 1769 the warrant of constitution for a chapter in connexion with Lodge No. 259, and, while there, conferred for the first time on record the degrees of Mark Man and Mark Master Mason, which he himself had only recently received. He had some of the faults of the highly energetic worker, his zeal being inclined to run away with him, and we know that in 1777 the Grand Chapter criticized his action in exalting Brethren in Colchester otherwise than in a chartered chapter, and that in May 1780 he was again in trouble for having exceeded his powers ("with the utmost respect for Companion Dunckerley"), and it was finally decided to draw up a regular patent defining the powers of Grand Superintendents.
When the Provincial Grand Chapter for Dorsetshire, with Dunckerley as its Provincial Grand Master, met in 1781 to honour the birthday of the Prince of Wales the choir of St Peter's Church of that city sang a special hymn written for the occasion by Dunckerley. Of its seven verses here are two having clear Royal Arch implications:
Thou who didst Persia's King command
A Proclamation to extend;
That Israel's sons might quit his land
Their holy Temple to attend.
All hail ! great Architect divine!
This Universal Frame is thine.
Thy watchful Eye a length of time,
That wond'rous CIRCLE did attend;
The Glory and the Pow'r be thine,
Which shall from Age to Age descend.
All hail! great Architect divine!
This Universal Frame is thine.
The attorney John Allen is believed, as already said, to have had a considerable hand in the drafting of the Charter of Compact. Of the highest standing, he was entrusted with the legal business of Grand Lodge in the 1770‑80 period, and is thought to have prepared the conveyance of the property in Great Queen Street (including part of the site of the present Freemasons' Hall) which Grand Lodge bought in 1774.
Successors to Lord Blayney
While Lord Blayney was absent in December 1768 in Ireland on military duties he was continued or re‑elected as " Grand Master of the Most Excellent Chapter or Fourth Degree," but was not able to attend to his duties. The Duke of Beaufort, who followed Lord Blayney as Grand Master in the Craft, was also inclined to the ‘Antients' working, so much
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so that he encouraged the introduction of an esoteric Installation ceremony for Masters of Lodges, but it was not officially adopted until long afterwards. It will be shown in later sections how great a part the Craft Installation ceremony played in the development of the Royal Arch.
Owing to the continued absence of Lord Blayney, the Hon. Charles Dillon was elected in 1770 Grand Master of the Royal Arch, he being, at the same time, Deputy Grand Master in the Craft, but he did not attend Grand Chapter after his election and, as a consequence, in succeeding years the Grand Chapter elected not a Grand Master, but a Patron, who had the right to preside when present, although a Zerubbabel was elected to preside in his absence. Rowland Holt, Grand Warden in 1768 and later Deputy Grand Master, was the first Patron, and held that office until the Duke of Cumberland replaced him in 1774.
Many Grand Officers were exalted, among them Sir Peter Parker, Grand Warden, who became Deputy Grand Master of the Craft fifteen years later. H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland, exalted December 12, 1772, became Patron a year or so later, and from 1782 to 1790 was Grand Master in the Craft.
The Earliest Warranted Chapters
The first eight chapters warranted by the Grand Chapter, all in 1769, are as follow:
1. The Restauration Lodge or Chapter of the Rock Fountain Shilo (at Brother Brooks' House in London).
2. The Euphrates Lodge or Chapter of the Garden of Eden (at Manchester).
3. The Lodge of Tranquility or Chapter of Friendship (at Portsmouth).
4. The Bethlehem Lodge or the Chapter of the Nativity (at Burnley, Lanes.).
5. The Cana Lodge or Chapter of the First Miracle (at Colne, Lanes.).
6. The Most Sacred Lodge or Chapter of Universality (at London).
6b. The Lodge of Intercourse or Chapter of Unanimity (at Bury, Lanes.).
7. The Lodge of Hospitality or Chapter of Charity (at Bristol).
(Some chapters must have worked under the authority of a dispensation until granted a proper warrant; as an example, a dispensation to form the Union Lodge and Chapter of Harmony at the Bedford Head, Maiden Lane, issued in 1770 by John Maclean of the Grand Chapter, is preserved at Freemasons' Hall, London.) An important point arising from the consideration of this list has already been touched upon. The Royal Arch ‘lodge' was in the course of
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becoming a ‘chapter,' and it certainly looks as though the double title given to each body in the above list is meant to cover the eventual or inevitable translation. Obviously the Grand Chapter had no right or even a wish to establish Craft lodges. Its authority could not extend farther than the setting up of bodies devoted to the working of the Royal Arch. But there enters an anomaly or a serious question (as in so very many details of Masonic history), for the Craft Lodge of Hospitality, Bristol, the last entry in the list, was warranted by the premier Grand Lodge under a dispensation of July 22, 1769, confirmed by a warrant of August 12. This is now the Royal Sussex Lodge of Hospitality, No. 187, meeting in Bristol, while the Chapter of Charity was given its charter from the Grand Chapter on December 8, 1769, and, bearing the same name, is still at Bristol and still anchored to Lodge No. 187. Curiously and nevertheless, the Royal Arch Charter authorized the double body "by the Title of the Lodge of Hospitality or Chapter of Charity," which is extremely difficult to understand, but there it is! It may, of course, be that the lodges named were the Craft lodges to which the chapters were attached or with which they were associated, but Lane's Masonic Records mentions only the last of them, the Lodge of Hospitality, and it is certain that the first of them, the Restauration Lodge, was never officially other than a chapter, and twenty‑six years later was so called.
The rules of the Grand Chapter erected by Charter of Compact are practically those of the original Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, and were written into the Compact itself (see the Appendix), but were revised and published many years later.
Events after the Founding of Grand Chapter
Following the founding of the first Grand Chapter came a formative period, one of considerable growth and development both in the ‘Moderns' and the ‘Antients' systems. The ritual continued to develop and by 1800, the Grand Chapter had issued 116 Warrants. Certain Masonic terms were changing; the ‘lodge' was in the course of becoming a ‘chapter,' the Royal Arch ‘Brother' of becoming a ‘Companion'; and ‑ but not very quickly or generally - the ‘Candidate,' instead of being ‘raised,' would be ‘exalted.' The Grand Chapter began to issue charters to lodges authorizing them to work the Royal Arch, the charter to be attached to the warrant of the Lodge and so setting a pattern or custom in that respect strictly followed to‑day.
In the Grand Chapter itself the Zerubbabel was, according to the minutes, "appropriately Invested and Installed," but we have no means of knowing what the Installation ceremony actually was, although it is
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strongly held that the Zerubbabel chair carried no secrets with it until the turn of the century, and in most places much later. At an Installation meeting on St John's Day in Winter in 1768
the Officers resigned their several stations and delivered their Ensigns of Office to the M.E.Z. . . . Brother Galloway was elected by Ballot into the Office of Z. . . . and was appropriately Invested and Installed,
And on January 12, 1770,
Brother Heseltine was by Ballot Elected into the Office of Z. . . . and was duly Invested and Installed accordingly, making a most solemn promise on the occasion, according to ancient usage.
Some prominent masons were exalted in the Grand Chapter, among them Chevalier Bartholomew Ruspini in 1772, becoming its M.E.Z. in 1780. Ruspini's is the greatest name in the history of the Masonic charities, for the Royal Cumberland Freemasons' School, from which developed the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls, the senior charity, was established in 1788 mainly by the exertions of this influential and energetic mason, who in private life was a well‑established dentist. At a committee meeting held in 1777 Ruspini produced drawings of proposed new robes for the Principals. These drawings, with some alterations, were approved.
Some trouble behind the scenes must have prompted the Grand Chapter in 1773 to resolve unanimously
that the Royal Arch Apron be disused in this Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter until the Grand Lodge shall permit the Companions of this Chapter to wear them in the Grand Lodge, and in all or private Freemasons' Lodges.
Which looks as though a fight to determine a higher status of the Royal Arch mason was proceeding; if this were the case the fight was lost, for there are no further minutes on the subject, the resolution was apparently quietly ignored, and the Companions soon resumed the wearing of their aprons in chapter.
James Heseltine had been exalted in the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter and had signed the Charter of Compact, but this did not prevent his writing as Grand Secretary to a foreign correspondent in 1774 in the following terms:
It is true that many of the Fraternity belong to a degree in Masonry which is said to be higher than the other, and is called Royal Arch. I have the honour to belong to this degree ... but it is not acknowledged in Grand Lodge, and all its emblems and jewels are forbidden to be worn there.... You will see that the Royal Arch is a private and distinct society. It is a part of Masonry, but has no connection with Grand Lodge.
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Next year we find him writing:
I have already told you a further degree, called Royal Arch, is known in England, in which the present Grand Officers are mostly members of the Chapter. They belong to it as a separate Society, without connection with Grand Lodge, and its explanations of Freemasonry are very pleasing and instructive.
During the period of the first Grand Chapter Masonic meetings were occasionally convened by means of public advertisements. An announcement in an unidentified London newspaper states that a "Chapter will be held on Sunday evening next, at the house of Brother John Henrys, the Crown and Anchor in King Street, Seven Dials." Another advertisement calls a meeting of the Grand Chapter for the following Sunday, again at the Crown and Anchor, "in order for a Grand Installation."
Grand Chapter soon left the Turk's Head Tavern in Gerrard Street, Soho; in 1771 it went to the Mitre in Fleet Street, but moved four years later to the Freemasons' Coffee House, Great Queen Street, which stood upon some small part of the site now occupied by Freemasons' Hall and Connaught Rooms. The Chapter went into its new quarters in December 1775, in the May of which year had been laid the foundation stone of the first Freemasons' Hall.
The "Most Enlightened East" appears as the heading of the minutes in January 1776, and is also the heading of charters and certificates of that period, although the more usual heading of the minutes up to 1793 is "Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem."
Grand Chapter had a strong social side, for in its early years its annual festival was followed by a ball and supper to which apparently not only Royal Arch masons but Master Masons and their ladies were invited; and of one of these occasions the Secretary's minutes related that "after an elegant supper, the evening concluded with that Harmony and Social Mirth which has ever been the peculiar criterion of Masons and True Citizens of the World." At a ball held in January 1782 "four hundred ladies and gentlemen were present," Ruspini acted as Master of Ceremonies, and Companion Ayrton composed the ode sung on the occasion.
To "form a complete code of laws and regulations not only for this Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter, but also for the subordinate Chapters," a committee was appointed, and its report was received in May 1778; the laws were finally approved in the following October, and copies are in existence. The laws and regulations were revised and reprinted in 1782; other editions were produced in 1796 and 1807, and a further edition appeared after the ‘union', 1817.
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Four Most Excellent Companions were appointed in 1778 to hold the Great Seal in Commission and to act as Inspectors‑General, Thomas Dunckerley being one of them.
The Grand Officers in 1778 included a Patron (H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland), three Grand Masters, a President of the Council, four Inspectors‑General, a Correspondent General, a Treasurer, three Superintendents of Provinces, Past Masters Z., H., and J., a Chaplain, three Sojourners, two Scribes, two Stewards, a Standard Bearer, a Sword Bearer, an Organist, a Senior janitor or Messenger, and a junior janitor or Common Door Keeper.
Appointments to the "past rank of Z." were made in 1778 and following years, a matter more particularly dealt with at p. 179.
An extraordinary petition for relief was received in 1784 from "John Vander Hey, Esq., Privy Counsellor to His Majesty of Prussia. Late Master of the Lodge Virtutis et Artis Ainici at Amsterdam." He was voted five guineas.
The first of the stated Communications was apparently the general convention in 1785 of all Royal Arch masons in English chapters under the obedience of the Grand Chapter. It was attended by members of six chapters‑namely, Cumberland, Caledonian, Fortitude, Canterbury, Philanthropic, and Colchester.
Unknown trouble must have lain behind a serious attempt made in 1793 by the Chapter of Emulation to induce Companions to withdraw from Grand Chapter. At a Grand Convention held on May io it was resolved
that the thanks of Grand Chapter be transmitted to the several Chapters that have expressed in such handsome terms, their determination to preserve inviolate the union subsisting between them and the Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem, in opposition to the Innovation proposed in the circular Letter sent to those Chapters by the Chapter of Emulation.
Emulation Chapter, No. 16, founded in London in 1778, had issued a ‘Memorial' in the form of a circular letter, and for its attempt to create schism in the Order paid the penalty of being erased by vote of Grand Chapter.
Masonic Union in Contemplation?
The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter had a double existence. On the one hand it was a private chapter; on the other a Grand Chapter using its authority to warrant private chapters. But it will have been noted that the very first private chapter warranted was the Restauration Lodge or Chapter of the Rock Fountain Shilo, and it is more than likely that this
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may have been regarded up to the 1790's as contained within Grand Chapter. At any rate, in the December of 1795 Grand Chapter, recognizing the need for a separation, revived Restauration Chapter, No. 1, as an "exalting chapter," and (surprisingly, from our point of view) then styled itself "The Grand Lodge of Royal Arch Masons." This title was an obvious misfit, and soon gave way (1801) to "The Supreme Grand Chapter," although when the Duke of Sussex became in 1810 the highest officer of the Order he was styled "The First Grand Master of Royal Arch Masons." From all this it will be seen that the change from ‘lodge' to ‘chapter' and from ‘Master' to ‘Principal' was by no means a simple, automatic process.
Lord Moira, who, it is to be expected, was already quietly playing a part in preparing the minds of his Brethren for the coming Union, was exalted in June 1803, in Supreme Grand Chapter, "having been obligated prior to the ceremony in the Chapter of St James." In 1810 he, as M.E. Zerubbabel, proposed for Exaltation H.R.H: Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, who, having been exalted and Lord Moira having immediately resigned office, was elected and consecrated M.E. Zerubbabel, taking the title, as already mentioned, of "First Grand Master of Royal Arch Masons." The Investment and Installation of the Second and Third Principals followed. The Duke's introduction into Royal Arch masonry was doubtless influenced by a prospect of the Craft union of the opposed bodies, particularly bearing in mind that in 1813, the year of Union, he would find himself Grand Master of the ‘Moderns' and his Brother, Edward, Duke of Kent, Grand Master of the ‘Antients,' and that in the negotiations for the settlement the future of the Royal Arch would be a very considerable factor.
By 1800 the premier Grand Chapter had warranted 116 chapters, some of which were not working (in addition, many ‘Antient' lodges were working the R.A.), but we see what is probably a move in the direction of the union of the two systems in a regulation of 1798 to the effect that no Royal Arch mason exalted in lodge, as distinct from chapter, could be admitted as a member of or visitor to a chapter. Obviously, at this date, there were still ‘Modern' lodges working the Royal Arch ceremonial, and, although the regulation was not everywhere observed, it does suggest that there was a growing feeling that the ‘regular' Royal Arch mason was one who had received the degree in chapter, not in lodge.
The coming into force, late in the 1790's, of the law against seditious meetings (39 Geo. III, Ch. 79) brought uncertainty into Masonic administration and affected the warranting of new lodges. The Grand Chapter, however, continued to warrant chapters during the period of uncertainty.
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Sunday Meetings
Sunday meetings (often in private rooms) were, over a long period, regarded with great favour by Royal Arch masons. In Lancashire, for example, it was almost a general custom for chapters to meet on that day, and Norman Rogers has pointed out that when the Burnley and Colne Chapters were compelled to give up Sunday meetings the small attendance almost broke up the chapters, and it took a few years to recover from the change. This followed the official ban in 1811, when Grand Chapter decided that in future no warrants should be granted to chapters intending to hold Sunday meetings, and that chapters already meeting on a Sunday should be advised to change their day. Following the ‘union' of 1817, Supreme Grand Chapter expressed its disapprobation of Sunday meetings. In any case, it appears that Sunday meetings on licensed premises were illegal, for in 1806, as one example, the Bolton magistrates fined a landlord twelve shillings for permitting a chapter to meet at his inn on a Sunday.
A Masonic Pantomime
An almost forgotten event is the presentation of a Masonic pantomime at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, the first performance being on December 29, 1780. Altogether there were sixty‑three performances at somewhat irregular intervals, the last of them being in December 1781. It was by no means the only theatrical performance presenting a Masonic subject, but from the present point of view it was notable in that it included two features having direct reference to the Royal Arch.
The words and music were mostly written and composed by Charles Dibdin, a great figure in the theatrical and musical life of the eighteenth century and best remembered as the author of the song "Tom Bowling"; the vocalists were well‑known singers of the time. The Morning Post spoke of the absurdity of this kind of performance, but the Press in general, as well as one or two authors since that day, spoke well of it. The modern critic would not have had a very high opinion of its versification. The pantomime included a "Procession of the Principal Grand Masters from the Creation to the Present Century," the procession consisting of twenty different banners, with actors telling the story of each banner. The sixth banner was of Darius Hystaspes, "who married a daughter of Cyrus, confirmed his decree to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem: and in the 6th year of his reign his Grand Warden, Zerubbabel, finished it." Two actors
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accompanying the banner bore the Temple of the Sun. The nineteenth banner was of the Royal Arch, and was attended by "Six Gentlemen Masons, Two bearing a Pageant." It is thought that the word "Pageant" in this connexion meant a painted representation, perhaps a subsidiary banner. The pantomime included a well‑known Masonic song beginning with the line -
Hail masonry, thou Craft divine
In the Craft Constitutions of 1723 this song had been attributed to Charles Delafaye "To be Sung and Played at the Grand‑feast." The presentation of this pantomime at such a well‑known theatre is clear evidence of the considerable public interest taken in freemasonry late in the eighteenth century.
Notes on a Few Early Chapters
The following notes relate to some of the chapters at work towards the close of the eighteenth century.
Chapter of Friendship, Portsmouth. Of the first three chapters warranted by Grand Chapter in 1769 Friendship was third on the list. The first two are now extinct and Friendship can claim the distinction of being the oldest warranted chapter in the world. It is attached to Phoenix Lodge, No. 257.
Britannia Chapter, Sheffield. In Lancashire the Royal Arch made great progress in the 1760’s. Norman Rogers has brought to light that the first record of a Lancashire Royal Arch mason appears in the minute‑book of the Britannia Lodge, Sheffield (now No. 139), thus: "June 25, 1764. Thomas Beesley, Hosier, Royal Arch from Lodge 45, Liverpool." Lodge No. 45 was ‘Antients' (founded in 1755), and Thomas Beesley was visiting a lodge of the same persuasion. Britannia Lodge had started as an ‘Antients' lodge, No. 85, in 1761; it absorbed another lodge, No. 75, of the same kind in 1764, and immediately afterwards applied to the ‘Moderns' for a warrant, which was granted in 1765! While still a ‘Moderns' lodge in 1796, it is said to have amalgamated with the ‘Antients' Lodge No. 72 and, not surprisingly, to have worked under the two systems. The chapter attached to Britannia Lodge, No. 139, has had the name Paradise since it was warranted in 1798.
Lodge ofLights, Warrington. The Royal Arch must have been worked at Warrington, Lancashire, in the 1765 period. The town's oldest lodge (now No. 148) was warranted in 1765, received its name Lodge of Lights in 1806, and apparently worked the Royal Arch from its earliest days, for in December 1767 three members of the Chapter of Concord, No. 37, Bolton, visited Warrington to acquaint themselves with the ceremonial.
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References to the Royal Arch activities of the Lodge of Lights appear on other pages of this book.
Anchor and Hope Lodge, Bolton. An early chapter formed in the Anchor and Hope Lodge, No. 37, Bolton, Lancashire, has a notable place in Royal Arch history. Before the years 1767‑74 inclusive it exalted twenty‑four Candidates, as we learn from a manuscript account of Royal Arch masonry in Lancashire by Norman Rogers, to whom the following information is due. The chapter above referred to became eventually (in 1836) the Chapter of Concord, No. 37, which is still attached to the same lodge, which dates back to 1732 and offers an outstanding example of Traditioner working (see p. 50). A ‘Moderns' lodge, it was considering in 1765 the possibility of taking an ‘Antients' warrant, and in December 1768 it “crafted and raised" three members of the friendly Lodge of Relief (Bury), "they being before Modern Masons." These same three "were made Royal Arch Masons" in the following month after the "Royal Arch Lodge assembled in due form." Now, all three Ralph Holt, Elijah Lomax, and James Wood‑had gone through the chair of their ‘Moderns' Lodge of Relief, in the neighbouring town of Bury, and yet had been compelled to submit to reinitiation in another ‘Moderns' lodge.
In November 1769 the same three Brethren were granted a warrant (number 6b issued by the new Grand Chapter) for the Unanimity Chapter or Lodge of Intercourse, Bury.
In the records of the Bolton lodge is a reference, dated December 1767, to "Expenses at Warrington in making Three Arch Masons... £.11. 6." Three Brethren were named, all of whom were Past or Present Masters of their lodge, and had apparently been sent to the Lodge of Lights, Warrington, as Candidates for the Royal Arch. We learn of ‘passing the chair' (,see Section 16) in a minute of November 30, 1769: "A Lodge of Emergency when Bror. John Aspinwall, Bror. Jas. Lever and Bror. Richard Guest were installed Masters and afterwards Bror. Jas. Livesey Senr. was re‑installed." Subsequently all four were made Royal Arch masons. Now, Livesey had gone into the chair of the lodge in the preceding June, and yet had to be installed before he could be exalted. Why? Apparently because the mere fact of being made Master of a ‘Moderns' lodge did not at that time bring with it the conferment of any particular secrets, whereas ‘passing the chair' was either in itself the ‘Antients' ceremony of Installation or a development of it. This was a Traditioner lodge, it must be remembered, strongly influenced by ‘Antients' ideas. Indeed, so ‘Antient' in its ways was it‑so convinced that its lodge masonry comprehended the Royal Arch ‑ that when this Bolton chapter decided in 1785 to obtain a warrant from the premier Grand Chapter many members objected, and the membership fell from seventeen to seven.
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The first entry in the minutes of the newly warranted chapter is as follows:
Bolton, 5th October, 1785. At a General Encampment of Royal Arch Superexcellent Masons, held in due form, Bro. M. J. Boyle in the chair, the following Royal Arch Brethren were properly instructed and afterwards Initiated into the higher degree of Masonry [five names follow].
The minute is signed by Mich. James Boyle, who, quoting Norman Rogers, was probably a member of the King's Own or 3rd Dragoons, and in the minutes of Paradise Chapter is termed a "Mason of the World."
The Cana Lodge or Chapter of the First Miracle, Colne. A Lancashire lodge or chapter as here named received the fifth warrant (May 12, 1769) issued by the new Grand Chapter. It is now Cana Chapter, attached to the Royal Lancashire Lodge, No. 116, a lodge founded at the Hole in the Wall, Market Street, Colne, in 1762, possessing minutes going back to 1760, and known to have been at work earlier still. Norman Rogers has pointed out that, before the printing in separate form for distribution of the laws, etc., of the first Grand Chapter or those contained in the Charter of Compact (1766), it is obvious that some kind of written instructions must have been sent out to chapters with the early warrants (from 1769), evidence of which, he thinks, exists in the "Principia" preserved in the Cana Chapter. The full title is "The Principia to be observed by all regular constituted Chapters of the Grand and Royal Chapter," and at the foot of the document is written: "This Principia is the oldest known copy of Grand Chapter Bye‑Laws, and is the work of the same hand as the Chapter Warrant, which is dated 1769," Principia is Latin, the plural of principium, and means the beginnings or foundations, also the chief place, and, in a Roman camp, often the open space where speeches were made to the soldiers. In the Cana document the word can only mean "rules and regulations." They are here given as in the original:
1st. That as soon as the Chapter is duly formed, an account shall be transmitted to Grand Chapter containing the names of each respective Officer and Companion, and that this be done annually immediately after election.
2nd. That they have full power to make Bye‑Laws for their own government, provided they don't interfere with the fundamental ones of the Most Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter.
3rd. That their jewels and ornaments be such as are in use in Grand Chapter.
4th. That they make no innovations in the business of the chapter, and if any doubts should arise, they must always be referred to the Grand and Royal Chapter for decision.
5th. That they should contribute annually to the Grand Chapter so much as they reasonably can towards raising a fund to be employed to the most truly benevolent and advantageous purposes.
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6th. That no man of bad or immoral character be admitted a Companion, nor anyone until he hath passed through the several probationary degrees of craft Masonry and thereby obtain the necessary passport as a reward for his services.
7th. That no man be admitted for an unworthy consideration, or for a less sum than is usually paid for the three previous degrees.
8th. That they take every method to forward the true purpose of our Order, which is to promote all the useful arts and sciences and create universal peace and harmony, and that every Companion do consider it as his duty to lay before the Chapter whatever may tend to such salutory purposes.
9th. That any new discovery or any other matter thought worthy of observation be communicated to the Grand and Royal Chapter, which will always be ready to support and forward whatever may be found useful to the public in general or that Chapter in particular, not repugnant to the common welfare.
Lodge Probity and Paradise Chapter, Halifax. The earliest record of a Royal Arch chapter in Yorkshire (other than at York, then in abeyance) is in the minutes of Probity Lodge, Halifax‑a resolution dated January 9, 1765, to form a chapter. The first meeting was twenty‑one days later. In the list of twenty‑nine lodge members for 1765 sixteen have the T‑over‑H symbol appended, and of these only two, plus the Master, had been in the lodge chair. But the Royal Arch had been worked earlier than this, for in the cash account for the second term of 1764 are references to two Brethren who had been "made Roy' Arch," at a fee of ios. 6d. each, on October 18, 1764.
Unanimity Chapter, Wakefield. References to the historic chapter at Wakefield appear on other pages, in particular one (p. 159) to its ancient ritual, the like of which is not revealed by the records of any other chapter. Two books or journals contain the minutes of all meetings held from 1766 to 1793 of this chapter‑Unanimity‑whose minutes are confused for a period as from 1844 with those of the Wakefield Chapter, now No. 495. In 1865 separate records started, and these continue to 1920, when Unanimity moved to Meltham, where it is attached to Lodge of Peace, No. 149. Unanimity's beautiful and distinctive old jewels (Plate XXIV) were discovered after a long repose among "the accumulated rubbish of years," and then, early in the 1940’s, two pages of a minute‑book of the 1776 period were restored to the chapter, these having been found among some old prints in a dealer's shop. J. R. Ryland's papers in A.Q.C, vols. lvi and lxv, are a fund of valuable information on Wakefield's Royal Arch activities. From them it appears that the early meetings of the chapter were actually held in a Craft lodge which, for the occasion, called itself a "Royal Arch Lodge Night," or "Royal Arch Lodge," and frequently the three Masters of the Royal Arch lodge were the Master and
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Wardens of the Craft lodge. In the minutes of the February 3, 1768, meeting the initials M., S.W., and J.W. were put against the names of the Three Principals respectively, but then crossed out and "Mr." substituted in each case. At this meeting two Brethren were made "Excellent Royal Arch Masons." At an emergency meeting of the Royal Arch lodge on July 30, 1776, four Brethren "propos'd themselves to be rais'd Royal Arch Masons ‑ the next Lodge Night ‑ balloted for and pass'd in ye affirmative." (They were raised accordingly at the next meeting.) It is likely that these Brethren proposed themselves in the Craft lodge, which then resolved itself into a Royal Arch lodge. It was quite common in the early days for a Brother so to propose himself or be proposed by somebody else. A Candidate received the "Superlative Degree of R.A. Mason" on February 24, 1783. In February 1807 the chapter agreed to hold six meetings in the winter months, all of them on Sundays.
Richard Linnecar, referred to at p. 159, was a revered and prominent member of Unanimity Chapter, and was held in honour throughout his province and beyond. Among his many claims to attention was his book (1789) containing plays, songs, poems, and his "Strictures on Freemasonry" (comments, not adverse criticism as the word "strictures" would now imply). His poems may not have been of great worth, but certainly his "Hymn on Masonry" as well as a song written by him were popular and probably much sung. We learn from his "Strictures" of the curious legend of masons entreating St John the Evangelist, then Bishop of Ephesus, to honour with his patronage a lodge meeting in the city of Benjamin following the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, A.D. 70. "St. John told them, he was very old, being turned of ninety, but to support so good and ancient an institution, he would undertake the charge‑and from that day, all lodges are dedicated to him." The story is, of course, a myth which attempts to explain (what never has been explained, so far as we know) why lodges are dedicated to St John, and why not only lodges but Craft masonry in general came to be associated with his name, and associated so closely that his festival, December 27, was regarded as a sacred occasion by the early Brethren. Possibly the old custom of reading from (or opening the Bible at) the first verses of St John's Gospel is the only explanation now possible.
Loyalty Chapter, Sheffield. Surprisingly many of the chapters founded in the late years of the 1800’s had but a short life, a marked instance being that of the Chapter of Loyalty, No. 95, Sheffield's first regularly constituted chapter, warranted in 1795 with a notable local mason, James Woolen, as its first Z. and associated with the Royal Brunswick Lodge. It did not keep records or make returns to Grand Chapter, and as it was erased in 1809 its rather poor life did not exceed about fourteen years. A letter
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written in 1820 by Joseph Smith to Supreme Grand Chapter acknowledging a notice that Loyalty Chapter had been erased says:
I have enquired into the proceedings of the said Chapter & find that there were only three exalted by the Comp‑. who obtained the Charter. . . & two of them are no more & the third resign'd & all three without being registred & it also unfortunately happened that Two of the Principals for whom the Charter was obtained died in a few years after & consequently put a stop to the complete Knowledge of the Art.
(Since James Woolen did not die until 1814, there were two Principals alive at the date of the erasure.) A resuscitated Loyalty Chapter received a new warrant in 1821, this being attached to the Royal Brunswick Lodge, now No. 296, a lodge of which James Woolen had been Master thirteen times between 1793 and 1811.
Unity, Leeds. One of Yorkshire's oldest chapters, the Chapter of Unity, No. 72, Leeds (now Alfred Chapter, No. 306), was warranted in 1790 at a time, it is thought, when there was no Craft lodge in its town, although possibly the Loyal and Prudent Lodge was meeting by dispensation there. Although warranted in 1790, it did not meet for business until six years later, and in the interval three Craft lodges had come into being in Leeds. It met on the third Sunday of every month, and the janitor had the duty of delivering the summons to each member. Candidates "must have duly passed the Chair" and be not less than twenty‑three years of age, although the son of a Companion or a Master Mason of two years' standing was admitted at twenty‑one! The Exaltation fee was. £2 2s.
Rules agreed to in 1796 included the unusual one that the "master of the house" should light a fire in the chapter‑room in the winter season at least one hour before the time of meeting, at a cost of half a guinea each year, any failure involving him in a "forfeited sixpence." In 1819 the chapter obtained a new Charter and became attached to Alfred Lodge.
Vigilance Chapter, Darlington. Brethren of the Darlington (Durham) Lodge (founded in 1761 and soon to be known as Restoration Lodgenow No. 111) acquired from an unknown source some knowledge of the Royal Arch, and proceeded to establish in 1769 "The Lodge of Royal Arch Masons," which must have been one of the oldest examples of a selfcontained and unrecognized body working the degree. It met regularly, and in 1787 asked Grand Lodge whether it approved of what it was doing and inquired as to the charge for a warrant. The request was passed to Dunckerley, who arranged for a warrant to be issued, the members consenting to his request to be exalted (that is, re‑exalted) in Concord Chapter (now No. 124), founded in the previous year at Durham, the county town, rather less than twenty miles north of Darlington. The new chapter, Vigilance, now No. 111, was regularly constituted in February
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1788 after apparently nineteen years of irregular working. The minutebooks are complete of "the Royal Arch Masters" up to 1788 and forward from that date of the warranted chapter.
William Waples, in a manuscript placed at the author's disposal, gives much further information relating to the old lodge and chapter. "The Lodge of Royal Arch Masons" was known at one time as "The Hierarchical" Lodge, associated with a priestly order of the same name of which little is known. The lodge had a "Dedicated Arch," which may possibly have been a floor‑cloth displaying Royal Arch emblems and carried in processions. William Waples believes that, following the Union, some of the symbols of the Royal Arch were carried over into the Master Mason's Degree as practised by Restoration Lodge, with which the chapter was associated. As likely evidence of the early working of the veils ceremony, it is recorded that in 1769 the sum of £2 5s. 9d. was paid for sixty yards of ‘tammy' (otherwise tamine or taminy, a glazed woollen or worsted fabric used for curtains), and at the same time curtain rods and rings were bought.
Chapter of St James, London. The many notes on this historic chapter (now No. 2), both those following and on other pages, are mostly from W. Harry Ryland's history of the chapter issued in 1891. The ornate warrant, headed "The Almighty Jah," was granted in 1788, and is signed by James Heseltine as Z. of Grand Chapter. The chapter records are almost continuous from 1791 to date as, although the minutes for 1812 - 29 have been lost, records for those years do exist in rough form. Originally the chapter met in Old Burlington Street or its immediate neighbourhood, but since 1797 has met at Freemasons' Tavern or Freemasons' Hall. Its early meeting‑places may in part explain how it came to draw many of its early members from Burlington Lodge, now No. 96 (founded 1756), and the still earlier British Lodge, now No. 8 (founded 1722). It is attached to the time‑immemorial lodge, Antiquity, now No. 2.
As from at least as early as 1791, and continuing for the greater part of the nineteenth century, the First Principal, and very often the Second and Third, held his chair for two years. The Exaltation fee in the early days was £1 1s., or, including sash, £1 5s. At an emergency meeting in 1792 two Brethren "were raised to the degrees of Master Masons," an irregularity repeated on occasions until ten years later; after that date lodges for passing Brethren through the chair continued to be held, as was the case with many other chapters.
The double‑cubic stone is persistently called the pedestal in early minutes, and in 1814 comes a reference to the "mystical Parts of the Pedestal." Caps were worn by the Principals in the 1797 period, as becomes evident from the purchase in that year of a trunk in which to keep them; in
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1802 there is an item of 17s. 6d. for repairing them. Actually, over a very long period, the First and Second Principals have worn crowns, as they still do, and the Third Principal a mitre.
A sidelight upon the etiquette observed in forms of address at the turn of the century is afforded by a list of nine Brethren exalted at a special meeting on a Sunday in May 1797; the list includes two "Reverends," one Colonel, three Esquires, one "Mr.," one "Brother," and one plain "David."
Stewards are mentioned as assistants to the Sojourners in 180r. Both in lodge and chapter ‑ at any rate under the 'Moderns' ‑ Stewards had ceremonial duties well into the nineteenth century, and in general were of higher status than they are to‑day. A floor‑cloth was in use in the early years, for it is recorded that the sum of £1 10s. was paid for the painting of one in 1810. The Lectures (catechisms) had a big place in the early ceremonies, just as they had enjoyed in the Craft, and in 1811 the minutes record the appointment of three Sojourners as lecturers. In the chapter, on a pedestal near the Second Principal, is a carved and gilded eagle some 15 inches high.
At least twice in its history the chapter has been concerned with the activities of charlatans. Its Z. in the year 1792 attended Grand Chapter to report Robert Sampson, watchmaker, of Petty France, Westminster, "for pretending to exalt several Masons." Sampson had been expelled from his chapter and had "formed an independent Society at his own house where he professed to exalt Master Masons for 5/‑." Then, in 1808, the chapter heard ‑ probably not for the first time ‑ of another impostor, William Finch. Three Companions had been proposed as joining members in that year, but were found to have been irregularly exalted by Finch; however, they were allowed to attend as visitors on their consenting to be exalted 'in regular manner, and they became members two months later. Finch, a breeches‑maker, initiated in Canterbury, was to some extent a real student of Masonic ritual. He became an author and publisher of Masonic books and made a practice of selling rituals ‑ of very doubtful authenticity. His troubled career included an action which he brought in the courts of law and in which the Grand Secretary of that day gave evidence not in Finch's favour. He died in 1818 at the age of about forty‑six. His story, putting him in a rather better light, is told by Colonel F. M. Rickard in A.Q.C., vol. Iv.
A report in the Lewes Journal (Sussex) of October 5, 1801, speaks of a Royal Arch chapter that had just been held in the Old Ship Tavern, Brighton, under a deputation from St James's Chapter, "when nine MASTERS of ARTS were exalted." It should be explained that ‘virtual' Masters were commonly so designated.
Section Seven
THE SO‑CALLED ‘ANTIENTS' GRAND CHAPTER
Soon after the erection of the premier Grand Chapter it seems likely that the ‘Antients' for the first time found the scales tilted against them, and, although to them any separate control of the Royal Arch was of no advantage, they obviously felt compelled to counter the efforts of their rivals by creating their own Grand Chapter. So, in 1771, they replied to Lord Blayney's gesture, but their Grand Chapter was nothing more than a nominal body; it is not known to have had minutes before 1783, and it is doubtful whether for a long time it had even the semblance of a separate organization, certainly never an independent one such as that of the first Grand Chapter. The explanation is simple enough: the ‘Moderns' had formed their Grand Chapter in the face of official dislike; it had to be separate and distinct, or otherwise could not have existed at all. On the other hand, the ‘Antients' system embraced and comprehended the Royal Arch; its Brethren loved it, respected it, believed it to be an integral part of the Masonic Order; any independent organization for its control was superfluous. Nevertheless, they felt obliged to make a positive reply to Lord Blayney's move, for they had enjoyed in the Royal Arch a considerable asset which now might tend to disappear, so they founded a ‘Grand Chapter.' Very slowly at first, but quite definitely in the course of a generation or so, the ‘Antient' Brethren would be looking not to the lodge, but to the chapter when they wished to be exalted, but for years to come they would view with disapproval the setting up of any authority, even a shadowy one, coming between their Grand Lodge and the working of the R.A. in their lodges. There continued for many years a most distinct ‘oneness' between their Grand Lodge and their Grand Chapter; indeed, in general, it was impossible to distinguish between them.
That the arrival of the first Grand Chapter forced their hands is obvious from many minutes of the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge. Consider the proceedings of September 4, 1771, when Laurence Dermott, the new Deputy Grand Master, was in the chair. The Grand Secretary (Dicky) asked whether his Grace, the Duke of Atholl, was Grand Master "in every respect." The meeting unanimously answered the question in the affirmative. Then the Grand Secretary said he had heard it advanced that the
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Grand Master "had not a right to" inspect into the proceedings of the R.A.; that he, the Grand Secretary, had "with regret perceived many flagrant abuses of this most sacred part of Masonry; and therefore proposed that the Master and Past Masters of the Warranted Lodges be conven'd as soon as possible in order to put that part of Masonry on a Solid Basis."
In this same year, 1771, matters relating to the R.A. having come before it, the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge "considered that as several members of Grand Lodge were not Royal Arch masons, the Chapter were the ‘properest' persons to adjust and determine this matter"; it was then agreed that the case be referred to their Chapter "with full power and authority to hear and determine and finally adjust the same." In November 1773 it was resolved in Grand Lodge "that this Chapter perfectly coincided and agrees that Masters and Past Masters (Bona‑fide) only ought to be admitted Masters of the Royal Arch." Then, in the next month, December, we find the Grand Lodge deciding when the Grand Chapter is to meet, the actual resolution being
that a General Grand Chapter of the Royal Arch shall meet on the first Wednesday of the Months of April and October in every year to regulate all matters in that branch of Masonry, and that at such meetings a faithful copy of the Transactions with a list of all the Royal Arch Masons of the respective Lodges shall be returned to the Grand Secretary to be Inrolled.
At this very same meeting we hear what is undoubtedly an echo of the disquiet created in the ‘Antients' ranks by the formation of the first Grand Chapter:
The Master 193 reported that several Members of His Lodge was very refractory, insisting that the Grand Lodge had no power to hinder them from being admitted Royal Arch Masons, and that they was countenanced in such proceedings by Bror. Robinson, the Landlord of the House they assembled in.
Then follows an attack on this Brother Robinson, who was summoned to attend the next Steward's Lodge. (In the ‘Antients' system, the functions of the Steward's Lodge somewhat resembled those of to‑day's Board of General Purposes.)
There is further evidence of the close association of the two bodies when in 1788‑89 it was resolved that copies of the R.A. regulations should be included in the Circular Letter of the Year. This followed an inquiry by a select committee into a report that many and gross abuses had been practised; so seriously was the matter regarded that, pending the completion of the inquiry and thorough reform, no R.A. masons could be made without consent of Grand Lodge officers. Later, in 1791, we find the
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Grand Lodge confirming a "report of the General Grand Chapter and Committee of the Holy Royal Arch" and agreeing to circulate it to all lodges under the ‘Antients' constitution. At about this period there are references in the minutes to "A Book of the Royal Arch: Transactions," but it is not known whether a copy of this book is in existence. In the years 1796‑97 Grand Lodge read the minutes of the last Grand Chapter of the R.A. and passed them unanimously. A minute of June 3, 1807, of the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge, recorded that fees received on exaltees had been finally paid into Grand Lodge. More complete evidence of the real identity of the two bodies is hardly possible.
Rules and Regulations
No rules relating to the Royal Arch appear to have been made in the early years by the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge, whose book of constitutions, Ahiman Rezon for 1756 and 1778, did not include any, although having borrowed a phrase from Anderson's first Constitutions (it helped itself cheerfully from any useful source), its rule No. a stated that "the Master of a particular Lodge has the right and authority of congregating the members of his own Lodge into a Chapter upon any emergency or occurrence," but, as stated earlier, it is extremely unlikely ‑ practically impossible ‑ that " Chapter" in Anderson's instance had anything to do with the R.A. In 1783, however, the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge ordered a register of the Excellent Royal Arch Masons returned by lodges to be made, and more than ten years later, in 1794‑95, they went through the rules and regulations on which they had been working and issued them in revised form as a set.
The earliest‑known ‘Antients' register of R.A. masons dates back to 1782‑83, but, to tell the truth, it is not a live, current register, but more in the nature of a list of Brethren known to be (or have been) R.A. masons, for it includes in an early entry Laurence Dermott's name, to which is appended "D.G.M. No. 26, 1746" (Laurence was not Deputy Grand Master until many years later). The names of other prominent masons appearing in the list could not have been compiled from any normal returns.
The rules and regulations of 1794 are stated to be:
For the Introduction and Government of the Holy Royal Arch Chapters under the Protection and Supported by the Antient Grand Lodge of England Made at Several Times. Revised and corrected at a Grand Chapter, Octoder Ist, 1794. Confirmed in Grand Lodge, December 3rd, 1794.
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The outstanding points of the rules are:
1. That every chapter shall be held "under the authority and sanction of a regular subsisting warrant granted by Grand Lodge according to the Old Institution."
2. That six regularly registered Royal Arch masons be present at the making of an R.A. mason.
3. "That no Brother shall be admitted into the H.R.A. but he who has regularly and faithfully passed through the three progressive degrees, and has filled and performed the office of Master in his Lodge to the satisfaction of his Brethren, to ascertain which they shall deliver up to him in open lodge, held in the Master's degree, a certificate to the following purport:
To the presiding chiefs of the Chapter of Excellent Royal Arch Masons under the Lodge.... No.... Whereas our truly well beloved Brother ... a geometric Master Mason, every way qualified so far as we are judged of the necessary qualifications for passing the Holy Royal Arch, we do hereby certify that the said trusty and well beloved brother has obtained the unanimous consent of our Lodge No.... for the recommendation and the signing of this certificate.
Given under our hands this ..... day of .....
W.M.
S.W.
J.W.
Secretary..................
4. "That a general Grand Chapter of the H.R.A. shall be held half yearly, on the first Wednesday in the months of April and October in each year, that every warranted Lodge shall be directed to summons its Excellent Royal Arch Members to attend the same, and that none but members of warranted Lodges and the present and past Grand Officers (being Royal Arch Masons) shall be members thereof, and certified sojourners to be admitted as visitors only."
5. That Scribes shall keep a register of all Brethren admitted to the Degree and make due return half‑yearly.
6. That general Grand Chapters of Emergency may be called, on application being made to the Grand Chiefs by at least six Excellent Masons.
7. "That on the admission of a new brother the form of the return to General Grand Chapter shall be as follows:
We, the three Chiefs, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do certify that in a Chapter of Holy Royal Arch, convened and held under the sanction and authority of the Warrant of the Worshipful Lodge No.... our well beloved
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Brethren, G.H., I.K., and L.M., having delivered to us the certificate hereunto subjoined and proved themselves by due examination to be well quali fied in all the three degrees of Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason, were by us admitted to the supreme degree of Excellent Royal Arch Masons. Given under our hands and Masonic Mark in Chapter this ..... day of ..... in the year of Masonry ..... and in the year of our Lord ....
......Z. ......H.
Scribe ..........
8. "That all registered Royal Arch Masons shall be entitled to a Grand Royal Arch certificate on the payment of three shillings, which shall be a perquisite of the Grand Scribe, they paying the expense of printing, parchment, ribbon, etc. etc."
9. "That the expenses of General Grand Chapter for Tylers, summonses, etc. shall be borne from the Grand Fund as formerly ordered by Grand Lodge."
10. That London Brethren, on admission, shall pay a fee of half a guinea, of which two shillings shall be paid to the general Grand Fund on registration and one shilling to the Grand Scribe; country, foreign and military chapters may charge a smaller fee but make the same payment on registration.
11. That a member of any particular lodge in London recommended by the Master, Wardens, and Secretary in open lodge assembled, and after due examination by any of the Three Grand Chiefs, or the Two Grand Scribes or any two of the same, the brother, being a Master Mason and duly registered at least twelve months as shall appear under the hands of the Grand Secretary, and having passed the chair, shall, if approved by the R.A. chapter to whom the brother is recommended be admitted to the sublime degree of Excellent or Royal Arch Masons.
12. The foregoing rule is adapted to Brethren in country or foreign lodges.
13. That the names of exaltees be duly returned.
14. That Excellent Brothers from country and foreign lodges "the two Scribes or any two of them" be entitled to be registered and receive a certificate.
A note laid down that nine Excellent Masters, to assist the Grand Officers in visiting lodges (chapters), etc., were to be elected in October of each year: "That the general uniformity of Antient Masonry may be preserved and handed down unchanged to posterity." These nine Brethren have come down to history as the "Nine Worthies," and they soon had duties, and very important ones, in addition to those originally named.
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They wore a special jewel (Plate XXXI) whose chief motif was three arches, one within the other, these jewels being among the most distinctive of those made in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The names of these "Worthies" were kept in a special register, and one of their particular duties was to examine all persons undertaking to perform R.A. ceremonies, install Grand Officers, "or as to processions." The "Nine Worthies" developed in the course of time into a Committee on the lines of to‑day's Board of General Purposes; thus we find that in 1797 the question of estimating and reporting the expense of proper clothing and regalia for the Grand Chapter was referred to them. Probably all the "Worthies" were preceptors of considerable experience. One of them, J. H. Goldsworthy, appointed a few years later, was Lecture Master, had some part in bringing about the Union, and, living to be nearly eighty years of age, was a Senior Grand Deacon in 1845 and a member of the Board of General Pufposes as late as 1850. He died eight years later.
Further laws and regulations for the Holy Royal Arch Chapter were agreed in April 1807: "Revised, amended and approved in General Grand Chapter at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, London, April 1st, 1807." They are included in the seventh edition of Ahiman Rejon, 180y, and the preamble to them (somewhat repeating that of the 1794 version) so clearly points to the ‘Antients' high regard for the Order that it may well be reproduced here:
Antient Freemasonry consists of four Degrees‑The three first of which are, that of Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the sublime degree of Master; and a Brother being well versed in these degrees and otherwise qualified is eligible to be admitted to the fourth degree, the Holy Royal Arch. This degree is certainly more august, sublime and important than those which precede it, and is the summit and perfection of Antient Masonry. It impresses on our minds a more firm belief of the existence of a Supreme Deity, without beginning of days or end of years and justly reminds us of the respect and veneration due to that Holy Name.
Until within those few years, this degree was not conferred upon any but those who had been a considerable time enrolled in the Fraternity; and could, beside, give the most unequivocal proofs of their skill and proficiency in the Craft.
It must of consequence be allowed that every regular and warranted Lodge possesses the power of forming and holding Meetings in each of these several degrees, the last of which, from its pre‑eminence, is denominated, among Masons, a Chapter. That this Supreme degree may be conducted with that regularity, order and solemnity becoming the sublime intention with which it has from time immemorial been held, as an essential and component part of Antient Masonry, and that which is the perfection and end of the beautiful system; the Excellent Masons of the Grand Lodge of England, according to
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the Old Constitutions, duly assembled and constitutionally convened in General Grand Chapter, have carefully collected and revised the regulations.
The rules of 1807 are in general effect the same as those of 1794 just given, but there are a few significant changes.
Rule No. 1 states that, agreeably to established custom, the Officers of the Grand Lodge for the time being are considered as the Grand Chiefs; the Grand Secretary and his Deputy for the time being shall act as Grand Scribes; and the said Grand Officers and Grand Scribes are to preside at all Grand Chapters, according to seniority; they usually appoint the most expert R.A. companions to the other offices; and none but Excellent R.A. masons, being members of warranted lodges, in and near the Metropolis, shall be members thereof. Certified Sojourners may be admitted as visitors only.
Rule No. 4 provides that, as from this date, every chapter under the authority of the Grand Chapter must have a "regular subsisting warrant of Craft masonry granted by the [Antients] Grand Lodge or a Charter of Constitution specifically granted for the purpose." (Thus, the day in which the R.A. could be worked under the inherent authority of the Craft lodge appears to have closed.)
By Rule 10 the minimum fee for Exaltation is one guinea, out of which the chapter shall pay to the Grand Scribe three shillings, two shillings shall go to the general Fund of Grand Lodge, and to the Grand Scribe as a perquisite for his trouble, etc., one shilling.
It is expressly laid down in Rule 6 that the Candidate for the R.A. must have attained three progressive degrees; have passed the chair; been registered in the Grand Lodge books, as a Master Mason, for twelve months at least; and have been approved on examination by some one of the Grand Chiefs or Grand Scribes, to ascertain which a certificate must be given and signed in open lodge and further attested by the Grand Secretary.
There is little or nothing to help the historian to form an opinion as to the part played by the ‘Antients' Grand Chapter in preparing for and helping to bring about the ‘union,' but the impression is that of itself, it did nothing, for it was part and parcel of the ‘Antients' Grand Lodge, and that body spoke for both Craft masonry and the Royal Arch, integral parts of one system. The ‘Antients' Grand Lodge must have had in the course of the very lengthy discussions a great deal to say about the Royal Arch, but what it said is a matter of inference and to be judged by the terms upon which peace was achieved. In the many references to the preliminary negotiations between the two high parties to be found in the ‘Antients' minutes there is not, so far as the present writer is aware, any reference to the Royal Arch.
Section Eight
YORK ROYAL ARCH MASONRY
THERE is no historical basis for the claim made by the ‘Antients' that they were York masons and were handing down to posterity a rite that had been worked at York for hundreds of years. The matter is gone into in the writer's earlier book, and all that need be said here is that any claim that there is a York rite of great antiquity is more a matter of sentiment than of fact. Laurence Dermott, in claiming in Aihiman Rezon that ‘Antient' masons were called York masons because the first Grand Lodge in England was congregated at York, A.D. 926, by Prince Edwin under a Charter from King Athelstan, was not only repeating a myth, but was astutely borrowing an appellation which he rightly thought would be an asset.
The York Grand Lodge
The only Grand Lodge at York (the Grand Lodge of ALL England) was one having a drawn‑out existence from 1725 to 1792. It had grown from a lodge in the city of York which had been meeting for twenty years or more, but the Grand Lodge thus brought into being had a sphere of influence limited to its own district; becoming dormant about 1740, it was revived in 1761, and was helpful to William Preston when, in his quarrel with the senior Grand Lodge, he availed himself of its help to form in London in 1779 the Grand Lodge of England, South of the River Trent, whose life was short and uneventful.
The original issue of Ahiman Rezon (1756) did its best to bracket the new Grand Lodge with the York masons. One of its headings was "Regulations for Charity in Ireland, and by York Masons in England," and a Warrant of Constitution issued by the ‘Antients' in 1759 carries the designation "Grand Lodge of York Masons, London." But, remembering Anderson's statements that freemasonry was known at the creation of the world, we are inclined to look indulgently upon Laurence Dermott's claim to a mere eight hundred years or so of history.
T. B. Whytehead asks the following question in the preface to Hughan's Origin of the English Rite:
Is it not in the bounds of possibility that the Royal Arch really had its
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far back origin at York amongst a superior class of Operatives and was revived as a Speculative Order by those who were associated in a special manner with their Brethren the Operatives, descendants of the old Guildmen?
How gratifying and comforting it would be to be able to answer this question with a simple ‘Yes.' But how impossible! There is no evidence linking the Royal Arch with operative masonry. History, some acquaintance with the English operative system, plus a little common‑sense reasoning dictate a definite ‘No.' We do not even know that there ever were mason operative ‘guildmen.' Some of the best of the operatives were, in some cases and at some time, members of a City Company, but it is extremely doubtful whether the operative craft, by its very nature, ever lent itself to control by local guilds ‑ for reasons explained in the author's earlier work.
Fifield Dassigny in his boob: (1744), mentioned at p. 45, refers to an assembly of Master Masons in the City of York and to "a certain propagator of a false system ... a Master of the Royal Arch," which system "he had brought with him from the City of York." Any basis in fact for the last statement is unknown. There is no evidence that the Royal Arch was worked in York before the year in which Dassigny's book appeared. So far as the records go, the earliest connexion with York is to be found in the Minute Book belonging to the Royal Arch Lodge of York dated 1762.
York's Earliest Chapter and its Grand Chapter
A ‘Moderns' lodge, the Punch Bowl Lodge, No. 259, was formed in York in 1761. Its Brethren were actors, all of them members of the York Company of Comedians, whose principal member and a great favourite with Yorkshire audiences was its first Master, a genius named Bridge Frodsham. (Gilbert Y. Johnson's paper in A.Q.C. vol. lvii, to which we are indebted for much of our information, includes an entertaining character sketch of Frodsham.) Four members of the lodge proceeded to found a Royal Arch lodge, one of the earliest instances of a separate Royal Arch organization; of course, it had no warrant‑there was no authority that could have issued it. Members of the Punch Bowl Lodge joined the York Grand Lodge, which took over the control of the Royal Arch Lodge and developed it in 1778 into the Grand Chapter of ALL England, usually called the York Grand Chapter. This was not blessed with long life, and is believed to have collapsed soon after the date of its last minutes ‑ namely, September 10, 1781.
Its minutes date from 1778 and are headed "A Most Sublime or Royal Arch Chapter" (an instance of an early use of the word ‘chapter'). The minute, bearing date 1778, is renowned in Royal Arch history. Its sequel
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is the presence of an engraving of the Crypt of York Minster on the summons of the existing York Lodge, No. 236 (see Plate X). The minute recording a meeting of the Grand Chapter of ALL England is headed "York Cathedral, 27th May, 1778," and states that:
The Royal Arch Brethren, whose names are undermentioned, assembled in the Ancient Lodge, now a sacred Recess within the Cathedral Church of York, and then and there opened a Chapter of Free and Accepted Masons in the Most Sublime Degree of Royal Arch.
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