Secret Societies And Subversive Movements Part 11

To sum up, then, the origins of the system we now know as Freemasonry are not to be found in one source alone. The twelve alternative sources enumerated in the _Masonic Cyclopaedia_ and quoted at the beginning of this chapter may all have contributed to its formation. Thus Operative Masonry may have descended from the Roman Collegia and through the operative masons of the Middle Ages, whilst Speculative Masonry may have derived from the patriarchs and the mysteries of the pagans. But the source of inspiration which admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala.

Whether this penetrated to our country through the Roman Collegia, the _compagnonnages_, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, or through the Jews of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose activities behind the scenes of Freemasonry we shall see later, is a matter of speculation.

The fact remains that when the ritual and const.i.tutions of Masonry were drawn up in 1717, although certain fragments of the ancient Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrines were retained, the Judaic version of the secret tradition was the one selected by the founders of Grand Lodge on which to build up their system.

6

THE GRAND LODGE ERA

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

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

Other Continental writers again a.s.sert that Cromwell, the arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, was "a higher initiate of masonic mysteries,"

and used the system for his own elevation to power[340]; further, that he found himself outdistanced by the Levellers; that this sect, whose name certainly suggests masonic inspiration, adopted for its symbols the square and compa.s.s,[341] and in its claim of real equality threatened the supremacy of the usurper. Finally, Elias Ashmole, the Rosicrucian Royalist, is said to have turned the masonic system against Cromwell, so that towards the end of the seventeenth century the Order rallied to the Stuart cause.[342]

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

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

In the matter of the Stuarts we are, however, on firm ground with regard to Freemasonry. That the lodges at the end of the seventeenth century were Royalist is certain, and there seems good reason to believe that, when the revolution of 1688 divided the Royalist cause, the Jacobites who fled to France with James II took Freemasonry with them.[343] With the help of the French they established lodges in which, it is said, masonic rites and symbols were used to promote the cause of the Stuarts.

Thus the land of promise signified Great Britain, Jerusalem stood for London, and the murder of Hiram represented the execution of Charles I.[344]

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

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

Paul's Churchyard, when Mr. Antony Sayer was elected Grand Master and invested with all the badges of office.[345]

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

But the point that official history does not attempt to elucidate is the reason for this decision. Why should the Freemasons of London--whether they were at this date a speculative or only a semi-speculative a.s.sociation--have suddenly recognized the necessity of establishing a Grand Lodge and drawing up a ritual and "Const.i.tution"?

It is evident, then, that some circ.u.mstances must have arisen which led them to take this important step. I would suggest that the following may be the solution to the problem.

Freemasonry, as we have seen, was a system that could be employed in any cause and had now come to be used by intriguers of every kind--and not only by intriguers, but by merely convivial bodies, "jolly Brotherhoods of the Bottle," who modelled themselves on masonic a.s.sociations.[346]

But the honest citizens of London who met and feasted at the Goose and Gridiron were clearly not intriguers, they were neither Royalist nor Republican plotters, neither Catholic nor Lutheran fanatics, neither alchemists nor magicians, nor can it be supposed that they were simply revellers. If they were political, they were certainly not supporters of the Stuarts; on the contrary, they were generally reported to have been Hanoverian in their sympathies, indeed Dr. Bussell goes so far as to say that Grand Lodge was inst.i.tuted to support the Hanoverian dynasty.[347]

It would be perhaps nearer the truth to conclude that if they were Hanoverian it was because they were const.i.tutional, and the Hanoverian dynasty having now been established they wished to avoid further changes. In a word, then, they were simply men of peace, anxious to put an end to dissensions, who, seeing the system of Masonry utilized for the purpose of promoting discord, determined to wrest it from the hands of political intriguers and restore it to its original character of brotherhood, though not of brotherhood between working masons only, but between men drawn from all cla.s.ses and professions. By founding a Grand Lodge in London and drawing up a ritual and "Const.i.tutions," they hoped to prevent the perversion of their signs and symbols and to establish the Order on a settled basis.

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

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

Concerning G.o.d and Religion

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

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

But in spite of its innocuous character, Freemasonry, merely by reason of its secrecy, soon began to excite alarm in the public mind. As early as 1724 a work ent.i.tled _The Grand Mystery of the Freemasons Discovered_ had provoked an angry remonstrance from the Craft[349]; and when the French edict against the Order was pa.s.sed, a letter signed "Jachin"

appeared in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ declaring the "Freemasons who have lately been suppressed not only in France but in Holland" to be "a dangerous Race of Men":

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

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

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

Later on in France, the Abbe Perau published his satires on Freemasonry, _Le Secret des Francs-Macons_ (1742), _L'Ordre des Francs-Macons trahi et le Secret des Mopses revele_, (1745), and _Les Francs-Macons ecrases_ (1746)[351] and in about 1761 another English writer said to be a Mason brought down a torrent of invective on his head by the publication of the ritual of the Craft Degrees under the name of _Jachin and Boaz_.[352]

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

The Additional Degrees

The origin and inspiration of the additional degrees has provoked hardly less controversy in masonic circles than the origin of Masonry itself.

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

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

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

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

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

Freemasonry in France

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

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

The Jacobite character of the Paris lodge is not a matter of dispute.

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

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

says Yarker, "that there was at this period in France an _Ordre du Temple_, with a charter from John Mark Larmenius, who claimed appointment from Jacques du Molay. Philippe of Orleans accepted the Grand Mastership in 1705 and signed the Statutes."[364]

Without, however, necessarily accepting the Charter of Larmenius as authentic let us examine the probability of this a.s.sertion with regard to the Duc d'Orleans.

Amongst the Jacobites supporting Lord Derwent.w.a.ter at the Grand Lodge of Paris was a certain Andrew Michael Ramsay, known as Chevalier Ramsay, who was born at Ayr near the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, where the Templars are said to have formed their alliance with the masons in 1314.

In 1710 Ramsay was converted to the Roman Catholic faith by Fenelon and in 1724 became tutor to the sons of the Pretender at Rome. Mr. Gould has related that during his stay in France, Ramsay had formed a friendship with the Regent, Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, who was Grand Master of the _Ordre de Saint-Lazare_, inst.i.tuted during the Crusades as a body of Hospitallers devoting themselves to the care of the lepers and which in 1608 had been joined to the _Ordre du Mont-Carmel_. It seems probable from all accounts that Ramsay was a Chevalier of this Order, but he cannot have been admitted into it by the Duc d'Orleans, for the Grand Master of the Ordre de Saint-Lazare was not the Duc d'Orleans but the Marquis de Dangeau, who, on his death in 1720, was succeeded by the son of the Regent, the Duc de Chartres.[365] If, then, Ramsay was admitted to any Order by the Regent, it was surely the _Ordre du Temple_, of which the Regent is said to have been the Grand Master at this date.