Elias Ashmole and the Warrington Lodge

Robert Freke Gould in his "History of Freemasonry Its Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions, Customs, Part 2", deals with the question of Elias Ashmole's initiation into Freemasonry:

"Although the admission of Elias Ashmole into the ranks of the Freemasons may have been, and probably was, unproductive of the momentous consequences which have been so lavishly ascribed to it, the circumstances connected with his membership of what in South Britain was then a very obscure fraternity - so little known, indeed, that not before the date of Ashmole's reception or adoption does it come within the light of history - are, nevertheless, of the greatest importance in our general enquiry, since, on a close view, they will be found to supply a quantity information derivable from no other source, and which, together with the additional evidence I shall adduce from contemporary writings, will give us a tolerably faithful picture of English Freemasonry in the seventeenth century.

The entries in Ashmole's "Diary" which relate to his membership of the craft are three in number, the first in priority being the following:-

"1646, Oct. 16, 4.30. P.M. - I was made a Free
Mason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Coll: Henry Mainwaring of Karincham in
Cheshire. The names of those that were then of the Lodge [were] Mr Rich. Penket
Warden, Mr James Collier, Mr Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam Rich: Ellam
& Hugh Brewer."

The "Diary" then continues :--

"Oct. 25. - I left Cheshire, and came to London about the end of this month, viz, the 30th day, 4 Hor. post merid. About a fortnight or three weeks before [after!] I came to London, Mr Jonas Moore brought and acquainted me with Mr William Lilly: it was on the Friday night, and I think on the 20th of Nov."

"Dec. 3. - This day, at noon, I first became acquainted with Mr John Booker."

It will be seen that Ashmole's initiation or admission into Freemasonry, preceded by upwards of a month, his acquaintances with his astrological friends, Lilly and Booker.

In ascending the stream of English Masonic history, we are deserted by all known contemporary testimony, save that of the "Old Charges" or "Constitution," directly we have passed the year 1646. This of itself would render the proceedings at Warrington in that year of surpassing interest to the student of Masonic antiquities. That Ashmole and Mainwaring, adherents respectively of the Court, and the Parliament, should be admitted into Freemasonry at the same time and place, is also a very noteworthy circumstance. But it is with the internal character, or, in other words, the composition, of the lodge into which they were received that we are chiefly concerned. Down to the year 1881 the prevalent belief was, that, although a lodge was in existence at Warrington in 1646, all were of the "craft of Masonry" except Ashmole and Colonel Mainwaring. A flood of light, however, was suddenly shed on the subject by the research of Mr W. H. Rylands, who, in perhaps the very best of the many valuable articles contributed to the now defunct Masonic Magazine, has so far proved the essentially speculative character of the lodge, as to render it difficult to believe that there could have been a single operative Mason present on the afternoon of October 16, 1646. Thus Mr Richard Penket[h], the Warden is shown to have been a scion of the Penkeths of Penketh, and the last of his race who held the family property.

The two names which next follow were probably identical with those of James Collyer or Colliar, of Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, and Richard Sankie, of the family of Sonkey or Sankey, as they were called, landowners in Warrington from a very early period; they were buried respectively at Winwick and Warrington - the former on January 17, 1673-4, and the latter on September 28, 1667. Of the four remaining Freemasons named in the "Diary", though without the prefix of "Mr," it is shown by Rylands that a gentle family of Littler or Lytlor existed in Cheshire in 1646; while he prints the wills of Richard Ellom, Freemason of Lyme [Lymme], and of John Ellams, husbandman, of Burton, both in the County of Cheshire - that of the former bearing date September 7, 1667, and of the latter June 7, 1689. That there were the Ellams named by Ashmole cannot be positively affirmed, but they were doubtless members of the same yeoman family, a branch of which had apparently settled at Lymm, a village in Cheshire, about five miles from Warrington. Of the family of Hugh Brewer, nothing has come to light beyond the fact that a person bearing this patronymic served in some military capacity under the Earl of Derby in 1643.

The proceedings at Warrington in 1646 establish some very important facts in relation to the antiquity of Freemasonry, and to its character as a speculative science. The words Ashmole use, "the names of those who were then of the lodge"," imlpying as they do either that some of the existing members were absent, or that at a previous period the lodge-roll comprised other and additional names beyond those recorded in the "Diary," amply justify the conclusion that the lodge, when Ashmole joined it, was not a new creation. The term "Warden," moreover, which follows the name of Mr Rich. Penket, will of itself remove any lingering doubt whether the Warrington Lodge could boast a higher antiquity than the year 1646, since it points with the utmost clearness to the fact, that an actual official of a subsisting branch of the Society of Freemasons was present at the meeting.

"Finis p me
Eduarda : Sankey
decimo seato die Octobria
Anno Domini 1646"

Commenting upon the proceedings at the Warrington meeting, Fort remarks, "It is a subject of curious speculation as to the identity of Richard Sankey, a member of the above lodge. Sloane's MS, No. 3848, was transcribed and finished by one Edward Sankey, on the 16th day of October 1646, the day Elias Ashmole was initiated into the secrets of the craft." The research of Rylands has afforded a probable, if not altogether and absolute, solution of the problem referred to, and from the same fount I shall again draw, in order to show that an Edward Sankey, "son to Richard Sankey, gent.," was baptized at Warrington, February 3, 1621-1.

It therefore appears that on October 16, 1646, a Richard Sankey was present in lodge, and that an Edward Sankey copied and attested one of the old manuscript Constitutions; and that a Richard Sankey of Sankey flourished at this time, whose son Edward, if alive, we must suppose would have been a young man of four or five and twenty. Now, as it seems to me, the identification of the Sankeys of Sankey, father and son, with the Freemason and the copyist of the "Old Charges" respectively, is rendered as clear as anything lying within the doctrine of probabilities can be made to appear.

I assume then, that a version of the old manuscript Constitutions, which has fortunately come down to us, was in circulation at Warrington in 1646. Thus we should have, in the year named, speculative, and, it may be, also operative masonry, co-existing with the actual use, by lodges and brethren, of the Scrolls or Constitutions of which the Sloane MS, 3843 (13), affords an illustration in point. Upon this basis I shall presently contend, that having traced a system of Freemasonry, combining the speculative with the operative element, together with a use or employment of the MS, legend of the craft, as prevailing in the first half of the seventeenth century - when contemporary testimony fails us, as we continue to direct our course up the stream of Masonic history, the evidence of manuscript Constitutions, successively dating further and further back, until the transcripts are exhausted, without apparently bringing us any nearer to their common original, may well leave us in doubt at what point of our research between the era of the Lodge at Warrington, 1646, and that of the Lodge at York, 1355, a monopoly of these ancient documents by the working masons can be viewed as even remotely possible.

The remaining entrie in the "Diary" of a Masonic character are the following:-

"March 1682
"10. - About 5 P.M. I recd: a Summons to appr at a Lodge to be held the next day, at Masons Hall London.
"11 - Accordingly I went, & about Noone were admitted into the Fellowship of Free Masons.
"Sr William Wilson Knight, Capt. Rich: Borthwick, Mr Will: Woodman, Mr Wm Grey, Mr Samuel Taylor & Mr William Wise.
"I was the Senior Fellow among them (it being 35 years since I was admitted) There were prsent beside my selfe the Fellowes after named,
"Mr Tho: Wise Mr of the Masons Company this prsent years. Mr Thomas Shorthose, Mr Thomas Shadbolt, xxxxx Waindsford Esq., Mr Nich: Young, Mr John Shorthose, Mr William Hamon, Mr John Thompson, & Mr Will: Stanton.
"Wee all dynerd at the halfe Moone Tavern in Cheapside, at a Nobledinner prepaired at the charge of the New = accepted Masons."

From the circumstances, that Ashmole records his attendance at a meeting of the Freemasons held in a hall of the Company of Masons, a good deal of confusion has been engendered, which some casual remarks of Dr Anderson, in the Constitutions of 1723, have done much to confirm. By way of filling up a page, as he expresses it, he quotes from an old Record of Masons, to the effect that, "the said Record describing a Coat of Arms, much the same with that of the LONDON COMPANY of Freemen Masons, it is generally believ'd that the said Company is descended of the ancient Fraternity; and that in former Times no Man was Free of that Company until he was install'd in some Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, as a necessary Qualification." "But" he adds, "that laudable Practice seems to have been long in Dissuetude."

Preston, in this instance not unnaturally, copied from Anderson, and others of course have followed suit; but as I believe myself to be the only person who has been allowed access to the books and records of the Masons' Company for purposes of historical research, the design of this work will be better fulfilled by a concise summary of the results of my examination, together with such collateral information as I have been able to acquire, than by attempting to fully describe the superstructure of error which has been erected on so treacherous a foundation.

This I shall proceed to do, after which it will be the more easy to rationally scrutinise the later entries in the "Diary". "

Editor:

In summary, Robert Freke Gould proves from his research and sources that:

1) Elias Ashmole was not the first recorded incident of the initiation of a speculative Freemason in England as has been claimed.

2) Ashmole was initiated into an English Speculative Masonic Lodge in Kermincham, Warrington, in 1646 .

3) The Lodge at Kermincham, Warrington was a speculative Freemason's Lodge of long standing.

4) When Ashmole travelled to London to be made a Fellow of the Craft, the ceremony took place in a speculative Freemasons' Lodge meeting in the hall of the Masons' Company.

5) The Lodge at Warrington could not have been a stand-alone independent Lodge as has also been claimed because:

a) Ashmole's initiation was attended by "an actual official of a subsisting branch of the Society of Freemasons";

b) Ashmole's initiation must have been accepted as being entirely regular, by the Freemasons of the London Lodge;

c) The acceptance of the regularity of Ashmole's initiation could only have been the case if Sankey's Lodge, the London Lodge, and the Lodge at Warrington all worked in accordance with, and provided hand-written copies of, "The Constitutions of Masonrie" recognising the Ancient Landmarks of a Freemason.

Robert Freke Gould was a lieutenant in the 31st Regiment, English Army. He later qualified as a barrister. From 1868, he is best remembered as an early proponent of the authentic school of masonic research and for his three-volume History of Freemasonry (1883-1887).





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Biography - Elias Ashmole:

Elias Ashmole (23 May 1617 – 18 May 1692) Politician, Antiquary, Soldier, Astrologer, was a member of The Royal Society. His interests were antiquarian as well as scientific.

Elias Ashmole was born in Breadmarket Street, Lichfield in Staffordshire. His father was a saddler and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy Coventry Draper. He attended Lichfield Grammar School and was a chorister at Lichfield Cathedral. He went to live in London in 1638 and became a Solicitor. He married Eleanor Mainwaring (1603–1641) a member of the poor but aristocratic family. Eleanor died whilst pregnant.

Ashmole supported Charles I in the Royalist cause and at the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 he left London for the house of his father-in-law at Smallwood in Cheshire. He was appointed King's Commissioner of Excise at Lichfield in 1644. Soon afterwards he was given a military post at Oxford where he served as an ordnance officer for the King's forces. During this time he studied mathematics and physics at his lodgings, Brasenose College. 1645, he left Oxford to accept the position of Commissioner of Excise at Worcester. Elias Ashmole was given the additional military post of Captain in Lord Astley's Regiment of Foot, part of the Royalist Infantry. In July 1646, he retired once more to Cheshire after the surrender of Worcester to Parliamentary forces. Three weeks previously he learned of the death of his mother from the plague. On October 16th, 1646 he was initiated a Freemason at Warrington.

In 1647, Ashmole approached several rich widows in the hope of securing a good marriage. In 1649 he married Mary, Lady Mainwaring, the daughter of Sir William Forster of Aldermaston, a wealthy thrice-widowed woman twenty years his senior. She was related to his first wife and was the mother of grown children. The marriage was not a success. She laid suit for a separation and alimony but it was dismissed by the courts in 1657. His marriage to Lady Mainwaring did however, provide Ashmole with her first husband's estates which left him wealthy enough to pursue his interests, including botany and alchemy.

During the 1650s, Ashmole devoted a great deal of energy to the study of alchemy. In 1650, he published Fasciculus Chemicus under the pseudonym James Hasholle. In 1652, he published his most important alchemical work, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, an extensively annotated compilation of metaphysical poems in English. In 1658, his final alchemical publication was The Way to Bliss. After the publication of this work his interest waned in favour of other pursuits. However, his works were avidly studied by other natural philosophers, such as Issac Newton.

In 1656. John Tradescant, who with his father had built a vast collection of exotic plants, mineral specimens and curiosities legally deeded his collection to Ashmole. The terms of the deed left the collection to Ashmole on Tradescant's demise. Tradescant died in 1662. His widow contested the deed but it was vigorously defended and the matter was settled in Chancery in Ashmole's favour.

Ashmole embarked on further catalogues, including one of the Roman coin collection of the Bodleian Library. This task was completed in 1666 after eight years of work.

At the Restoration of Charles II, his loyalty to the Crown was rewarded with political offices. He was appointed Secretary and Clerk of the Courts of Surinam and Comptroller of the White Office. He was also appointed to the office of Commissioner and then Comptroller for the Excise in London. Later he was made the Accountant General of the Excise. This post made him responsible for a large portion of the King's revenue which gave him a considerable income as well as the power of patronage.

The King commissioned Ashmole to prepare a catalogue of the coins and medals held in the Royal Collection and appointed him to the commission responsible for tracing items from the collection which had been dispersed or sold by the parliamentary regime. Ashmole involved himself in the organisation of the coronation.

His most significant appointment was to the College of Arms as Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary in June 1660. In this position he devoted himself to the study of the history of the Order of the Garter, which had been a special interest of his since the 1650s.

Ashmole became one of the founding members of the Royal Society in 1661, but he was not a very active member although he proposed a design for the Royal Society's coat of arms.

By 1665 he was collecting information for his Antiquities of Berkshire and, in 1672, published The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter and was considered a leading authority on court protocol and ceremony.

On 1 April 1668, Lady Mainwaring died, and on 3 November of the same year Ashmole married Elizabeth Dugdale (1632–1701), the much younger daughter of his friend and fellow herald , the antiquarian Sir William Dugdale. The marriage was childless.

In 1675, he resigned as Windsor Herald, perhaps because of factional strife within the College of Arms. He was offered the post of Garter Principal King of Arms, which traditionally came with a knighthood, but he turned it down in favour of his father-in-law, Sir William Dugdale.

The Restoration led to the re-establishment of the Church of England. Ashmole remained a Royalist and presented new service books to Lichfield Cathedral. In 1684, Sir William Dugdale wrote to his son-in-law that "the vulgar sort of people" were not "yet weaned from the presbyterian practises, which was long prayers of their own devising, and senseless sermons".

In 1678 Ashmole stood for Parliament in a by-election for the Constituency of Lichfield. He lost. He then put himself forward as a candidate in the General Election of 1685. Although he was the most popular candidate, he was pursuaded to stand down by King James II in favour of Court favourite, Richard Leveson.

During the 1680's, Ashmole's health began to deteriorate. He continued as an excise officer throughout the reign of James II and retained this post until his death, although he became much less active in public affairs.

During the period before his death, Elias Ashmole collected notes on his life in "Diary" form to serve as source material for a biography. The biography was never written, but as we see from above, these notes are a rich source of information on Ashmole and his times.

Ashmole died at his house in Lambeth on the 18th of May 1692. He was buried at St.Mary's Church, Lambeth on 26 May.

Ashmole bequeathed the remainder of his collection and library to Oxford for the Ashmolean Museum. Two-thirds of his library now resides in the Bodleian at Oxford.

Ashmole’s widow, Elizabeth, married a stonemason, John Reynolds, on 15 March 1694. They had no children and on her death seven years later the house and lands in Lambeth passed into Reynolds’s hands.

Statement at York

"York being the established Place of Masonic Government, the whole fraternity successively paid Allegiance to its Authority, and whereas the Sacred Art flourished so much, that masonry in the South came to require some Nominal Patron to Superintend its Government. A person under the Title of Grand Master for the South was appointed, with the Approbation of the Grand Lodge at York, to which the whole fraternity at large were still bound, as they were before, to pay Tribute and acknowledge Subjection. And thus Masonry flourished for many years in the South, as well as in the North, but afterwards became again at so low a Ebb in the South that in the year 1717, only four Lodges remained extant in those parts, but those Lodges ever glorified in Originating from the Ancient York Masons, which they constantly testified. And whereas those very lodges cemented under a new Grand Master for the South, and hence arose what is now called the Nominal Grand Lodge in London, whose meetings have been by some considered as General Meetings, but without any Constitutional Authority to give such Meetings a Sanction to that Title.

"And whereas the Grand Lodge of All England, still existing at York, is the Supreme Legislature of Masonry in this kingdom. And hath, with Lamentations. beheld that the Nominal Grand Lodge, in London, have not only forgotten the Allegiance due to this Parent State of Masonry in England, but have proceeded to insult its Dignity, and depart from every ancient Landmark of the Order, assuming such arbitrary and unmasonic Measures, as ought not to be found among Maceons.

"Besides, which, many Masters and Lodges under their Sanction have been struck off their Books on trifling occasions, and particularly on Pecuniary ones, Motives which Masons ought to blush at, and, in fine, they have adopted Measures altogether arbitrary and repugnant to the principles of the Masonic Institution, whereby the true Spirit of Free Masonry in the South of England hath been subverted, and if not timely supported by the Masonic Legislature might become totally destroyed.

"Hence however, the Grand Lodge in London, from its Situation, being encouraged by some of the Principal Nobility of the Nation, arose at Great Power, and began to despise the origin from whence it sprang. In an unbrotherly manner, wishing the Gr. Lodge at York annihilated, which appears by one of their Almanacks, insinuating, that although there are some Brethren remaining, who act under the Old Constitution of York, yet that they are few in number, and will soon be annihilated.

"Upon the whole, let every dispassionate Mason but weigh impartially the several Facts here stated, and he must spurn at the daring Innovation offered by the Nominal Grand Lodge in London, to so sacred and Institution.

"If he wishes to partake of Masonry in its Original Purity, he will turn his attention to that source, where it hath been Inviolably maintained and continued for Successive Ages to this Day, and where the Legislature of Masonry for this Kingdom stands fixed by its true Title 'The Grand Lodge of All England, Established at the City of York.' "

YORK 1779

The Oxford Poem

"The mason poor that builds the lordly halls,

Dwells not in them; they are for high degree;

His cottage is compact in paper walls,

And not with brick or stone, as others be."

Edward DeVere
17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604)

Prince Edwin of York is Found

The Grand Lodge at York formally announces that it has traced the final resting place of King Athelstan's brother, Prince Edwin of York, the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of All England (AD926).

King Athelstan

Prince Edwin of York is chronicled in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People where it is recorded that he ordered the construction of a church on the former Roman fortress site of Eboracum (York).

Prince Edwin is also chronicled immediately after "Exemptus" King Athelstan in the Rosicrucian Chronology for the year AD925.

In one of Symeon of Durham's Northumbrian Annals dated AD933, which he used as material for his Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum, he states that: "King Ethelstan ordered his brother Edwin to be drowned in the sea".

William of Malmesbury expressed grave doubt about this story "on account of the extraordinary affection he [Athelstan] manifested towards the rest of his brothers".

Records of the Abbey of St Bertin in Flandres, a few miles from Ushant, make note of King Athelstan's expressions of gratitude for their burial of Edwin, who had drowned in a storm escaping from England during a period of turmoil (AD933).

In the Cartulaire de l'abbaye de S. Bertin it records the favour Athelstan heaped on the monastery "because the king's brother, King [sic] Edwin, had been buried in the monastery of St. Bertin."

The cartulary version dates the incident to 932, "In the year of the Incarnate Word". It describes how the same King [sic] Edwin, when, because of some perturbation in his kingdom, got into a ship and tried to reach this side of the sea, but the winds rose and the ship foundered in the storms and he was "swallowed down" in the midst of the waves. When his body was brought to the shore Count Adalolf received it with honour because he was a close kinsman and brought it to Saint Bertin for burial. Adalolf was also the Abbot of Saint Bertin and a cousin to both Athelstan and Edwin.

The William of Malmesbury version in his Gesta regum suggests ingenuity and perseverance in an armour-bearer who found and fished out his master's body and swam a ship to land.

This incident is confirmed by the entry in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles for the year 933: "This year died Bishop Frithestan; and Edwin the atheling was drowned in the sea".

Milton Abbey in Blandford Forum, Dorset, England was founded by King Athelstan to commemorate the death at sea of his brother Edwin.

Representations have been made to the relevant authorities and a further statement will be released after a formal visit to l'Abbeye Saint-Bertin by representatives of the Grand Lodge at York.

Anderson's Constitutions of 1723

by Bro. LIONEL VIBERT
Past Master, Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, United Grand Lodge of England

THE BUILDER AUGUST 1923

Bro. Lionel Vibert, of Marline, Lansdowne, Bath, England, is author of "Freemasonry Before the Existence of Grand Lodges" and "The Story of the Craft" and is editor of "Miscellanea Latomorum". He has contributed papers to the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, notably one on "The French Compagnonnage," a critical and exhaustive treatise that is bound to replace Gould's famous chapter among the sources available to the rank and file of students of that important theme. After having devoted his attention for several years to pre-Grand Lodge Masonry, Bro. Vibert is now specializing on the Grand Lodge era the records of which are still so confused or incomplete that, in spite of the great amount of work accomplished by scholars in the past, a work "great as the Twelve Labours of Hercules" remains yet to be done. The paper below is one of the author's first published studies of the Grand Lodge era. To us American Masons, who live under forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions and to whom Masonic jurisprudence is an almost necessary preoccupation, any new light on that formative and critical period, and especially on Dr. Anderson whose Constitutions is the groundwork of our laws, is not only interesting but useful.

THE GRAND LODGE THAT WAS brought into existence in 1717 did not find it necessary to possess a Constitution of its own for some years. Exactly what went on between 1717 and 1721 we do not know; almost our only authority being the account given by Anderson in 1738 which is unreliable in many particulars. Indeed it cannot be stated with certainty whether there were any more than the original Four Old Lodges until 1721; it would appear from the Lists and other records we possess that the first lodge to join them did not do so till July of that year; the statements as to the number of new lodges in each year given by Anderson are not capable of verification. It was also in the year 1721 that the Duke of Montagu was made Grand Master on 24th June, having probably joined the Craft just previously. The effect of his becoming Grand Master, a fact advertised in the dally press of the period, was that the Craft leapt into popularity, its numbers increased, and new lodges were rapidly constituted. Even now it was not anticipated that the Grand Lodge would extend the scope of its activities beyond London and Westminster, but Grand Master Payne, possibly anticipating the stimulus that would be provided by the accession to the Craft of the Duke, had got ready a set of General Regulations, and these were read over on the occasion of his installation. Unfortunately we do not possess the original text of them but have only the version as revised and expanded by Anderson. But we can understand that in a very short time it would be found necessary for these regulations to be printed and published to the Craft. Their publication was undertaken by Anderson, who took the opportunity to write a history of the Craft as an introduction, and to prepare a set of Charges; his intention clearly being to give the new body a work which would in every respect replace the Old Manuscript Constitutions. The work consists of a dedication written by Desaguliers and addressed to Montagu as late Grand Master; a Historical introduction; a set of six Charges; Payne's Regulations revised; the manner of constituting a new lodge; and songs for the Master, Wardens, Fellow Craft and Entered Apprentice, of which the last is well known in this country (England) and is still sung today in many lodges. There is also an elaborate frontispiece. The work was published by J. Senex and J. Hooke, on 28th February, 1722-3, that is to say 1722 according to the official or civil reckoning, but 1723 by the so-called New Style, the popular way of reckoning. (It did not become the official style till the reform of the calender in 1752.) The title page bears the date 1723 simply.

Dr James Anderson

Dr. Anderson was born in Aberdeen, and was a Master of Arts of the Marischal College in that city. He was in London in 1710 and was minister of a Presbyterian Chapel in Swallow Street, Piccadilly, till 1734. He was also chaplain to the Earl of Buchan, and as the Earl was a representative peer for Scotland from 1714-1734, it was probably during these years that he maintained a London establishment. We do not know that the Earl was a Mason, although his sons were. When Anderson was initiated we do not know either; but it may have been in the Aberdeen Lodge. There is a remarkable similarity between his entry in the Constitutions of his name as "Master of a Lodge and Author of this Book," and in entry in the Aberdeen Mark Book, of "James Anderson, Glazier and Mason and Writer of this Book." This was in 1670 and this James Anderson is no doubt another person. It just happens most unfortunately that the minutes for the precise period during which we might expect to find our author are missing. In any case he was familiar with the Scottish terminology which he no doubt had some share in introducing into English Freemasonry.

Nor can it be stated with confidence when he joined the Craft in London. He was Master of a lodge in 1722, a lodge not as yet identified, but there is no record of his having had anything to do with Grand Lodge prior to the Grand Mastership of the Duke of Montagu. He was not even present at the Duke's installation; at all events Stukeley does not name him as being there. He himself, in his version of the minutes, introduces his own name for the first time at the next meeting.

HOW HE CAME TO WRITE THE WORK

His own account of the work, as given in 1738, is that he was ordered to digest the Old Gothic Constitutions in a new and better method by Montagu on 29th September, 1721, that on 27th December, Montagu appointed fourteen learned brothers to examine the MS., and that after they had approved it was ordered to be printed on 25th March, 1722. He goes on to say that it was produced in print for the approval of Grand Lodge on 17th January, 1722-3, when Grand Master Wharton's manner of constituting a lodge was added. In the book itself are printed a formal Approbation by Grand Lodge and the Masters and Wardens of twenty lodges (with the exception of two Masters), which is undated, and also a copy of a resolution of the Quarterly Communication of 17th January, 1722-3, directing the publication and recommending it to the Craft.

With regard to the committee of fourteen learned brethren and the three occasions on which the book is alleged to have been considered in Grand Lodge, the Approbation itself states that the author first submitted his text for the perusal of the late and present Deputy Grand Master's and of other learned brethren and also the Masters of lodges, and then delivered it to Grand Master Montagu, who by the advice of several brethren ordered the same to be handsomely printed. This is not quite the same thing. And it is to be noted that in 1735 Anderson appeared before Grand Lodge to protest against the doings of one Smith who had pirated the Constitutions which were his sole property. His account of this incident in the 1738 edition suppresses this interesting circumstance. Further it is very clear from the Grand Lodge minutes that the appearance of the book caused a good deal of dissension in Grand Lodge itself, and it brought the Craft into ridicule from outside; in particular Anderson's re-writing of Payne's Regulations was taken exception to. Anderson himself did not appear again in Grand Lodge for nearly eight years.

The true state of the case appears to be that Anderson undertook to write the work as a private venture of his own and that this was sanctioned, since it was desirable that the Regulations at least published, without any very careful examination of his text, or of so much of it as was ready, and that when it was published it was discovered, but too late, that he had taken what were felt by many to be unwarrantable liberties not only with the traditional Charges but also with Payne's Regulations.

THE BOOK IS ANALYZED

In using the term Constitutions he was following the phraseology of several of the versions of the Old Charges, and in fact the word occurs (in Latin) in the Regius, though Anderson never saw that. It was apparently traditional in the Craft. The contents of the work itself indicate that the various portions were put together at different dates and Anderson tells us it was not all in print during Montagu's term of office.

Taking the Approbation first, this is signed by officers of twenty lodges; the Master and both Wardens have all signed in all but two. In those, numbers eight and ten, the place for the Master's signature is blank. Mr. Mathew Birkhead is shown as Master of number five; and he died on the 30th December, 1722. Accordingly the Approbation must be of an earlier date and of the twenty lodges we know that number nineteen was constituted on 25th November, 1722, and number twenty if, as is probable, it is of later date, will have been constituted possibly on the same day but more probably a few days later. Thus we can date the Approbation within narrow limits. In his 1738 edition Anderson gives a series of the numbers of lodges on the roll of Grand Lodge at different dates which cannot be checked from any independent source, and he suggests that on 25th March, 1722, there were already at least twenty-four lodges in existence because he asserts that representatives of twenty-four paid their homage to the Grand Master on that date; and that those of twenty-five did so on 17th January, 1722-3. Because of Anderson's assertion as to twenty-four lodges some writers have speculated as to the lodges the officers of which omitted to sign or which were ignored by the author. But the truth probably is that these lodges - if they existed at all - were simply not represented at the meeting.

Philip Duke of Wharton

The Approbation is signed by Wharton as Grand Master, Desaguliers as Deputy, and Timson and Hawkins as Grand Wardens. According to the story as told by Anderson in 1738 Wharton got himself elected Grand Master irregularly on 24th June, 1722, when he appointed these brethren as his Wardens but omitted to appoint a Deputy. On 17th January, 1722-3, the Duke of Montagu, "to heal the breach," had Wharton proclaimed Grand Master and he then appointed Desaguliers as his Deputy and Timson and Anderson, (not Hawkins,) Wardens and Anderson adds that his appointment was made for Hawkins demitted as always out of town. If this story could be accepted the Approbation was signed by three officers who were never in office simultaneously, since when Desaguliers came in Hawkins had already demitted. This by itself would throw no small doubt on Anderson's later narrative, but in fact we know that his whole story as to Wharton is a tissue of fabrication. The daily papers of the period prove that the Duke of Wharton was in fact installed on 25th June, and he then appointed Desaguliers as his Deputy and Timson and Hawkins as his Wardens. It is unfortunate that Anderson overlooked that his very date, 24th June, was impossible as it was a Sunday, a day expressly prohibited by Payne's Regulations for meetings of Grand Lodge. There are indications of some disagreement; apparently some brethren wished Montagu to continue, but in fact Wharton went in the regular course; the list of Grand Lodge officers in the minute book of Grand Lodge shows him as Grand Master in 1722. And that Hawkins demitted is merely Anderson's allegation. In this same list he appears as Grand Warden, but Anderson himself has written the words (which he is careful to reproduce in 1738): "Who demitted and James Anderson A.M. was chosen in his place;" vide the photographic reproduction of the entry at page 196 of Quatuor, Coronatorum Antigrapha Vol. X; while in the very first recorded minute of Grand Lodge, that of 24th June, 1723, the entry as to Grand Wardens originally stood: Joshua Timson and the Reverend Mr. James Anderson who officiated for Mr. William Hawkins. But these last six words have been carefully erased, vide the photo reproduction at page 48 Quatuor Corontorum Antigrapha VOL X, which brings them to light again. Hawkins then was still the Grand Warden in June 1723, and on that occasion Anderson officiated for him at the January meeting. The explanation of the whole business appears to be that Anderson in 1738 was not anxious to emphasize his associated with Wharton, who after his term of office as Grand Master proved a renegade and Jacobite and an enemy to the Craft. He had died in Spain in 1731. For the Book of Constitutions of 1738 there is a new Approbation altogether.

But we have not yet done with this Approbation for the further question arises, At what meeting of Grand Lodge was it drawn up? The license to publish refers to a meeting of 17th January, 1722-23, and that there was such a meeting is implied by the reference to this document in the official minutes of June, when the accuracy of this part of it is not impugned. But this Approbation was as we have seen drawn up between the end of November and the end of December, 1722, and between these limits an earlier date, is more probable than a later. No such meeting is mentioned by Anderson himself in 1738. But the explanation of this no doubt is that he now has his tale of the proclamation of Wharton at that meeting on 17th January, and any references to a meeting of a month or so earlier presided over by that nobleman would stultify the narrative. It is probable that a meeting was in fact held, and that its occurrence was suppressed by Anderson when he came to publish his narrative of the doings of Grand Lodge fifteen years later. The alternative would be that the whole document was unauthorized, but so impudent an imposture could never have escaped contemporary criticism. Truly the ways of the deceiver are hard.

THE FRONTISPIECE IS DESCRIBED

The Frontispiece to the Constitutions of 1723, which was used over again without alteration in 1738, represents a classical arcade in the foreground of which stand two noble personages, each attended by three others of whom one of those on the spectator's left carries cloaks and pairs of gloves. The principal personages can hardly be intended for any others than Montagu and Wharton; and Montagu is wearing the robes of the Garter, and is handing his successor a roll of the Constitutions, not a book. This may be intended for Anderson's as yet unprinted manuscript, or, more likely it indicates that a version of the Old Constitutions was regarded at the time as part of the Grand Master's equipment, which would be a survival of Operative practice. Behind each Grand Master stand their officers, Beal, Villeneau, and Morris on one side, and on the other Desaguliers, Timson, and Hawkins, Desaguliers as a clergyman and the other two in ordinary dress, and evidently an attempt has been made in each case to give actual portraits. It is unnecessary to suppose, as we would have to if we accepted Anderson's story, that this plate was designed, drawn, and printed in the short interval between 17th January and 28th February. It might obviously have been prepared at any time after June 25, 1722. By it Anderson is once more contradicted, because here is Hawkins - or at all events someone in ordinary clothes - as Grand Warden, and not the Reverend James Anderson, as should be the case if Wharton was not Grand Master till January and then replaced the absent Hawkins by the Doctor. The only other plate in the book is an elaborate illustration of the arms of the Duke of Montagu which stands at the head of the first page of the dedication.

We can date the historical portion of the work from the circumstance that it ends with the words: "our present worthy Grand Master, the most noble Prince John, Duke of Montagu." We can be fairly certain that Anderson's amendations of Payne's Regulations were in part made after the incidents of Wharton's election because they contain elaborate provisions for the possible continuance of the Grand Master and the nomination or election of his successor and in the charges again, there is a reference to the Regulations hereunto annexed. But beyond this internal evidence, (and that of the Approbation and sanction to publish already referred to), the only guide we have to the dates of printing the various sections of the work is the manner in which the printers' catch words occur. The absence of a catch word is not proof that the sections were printed at different times because it might be omitted if, e.g., it would spoil the appearance of a tail-piece; but the occurrence of a catch word is a very strong indication that the sections it links were printed together. Now in the Constitution of 1723 they occur as follows: from the dedication to the history, none; from the history to the Charges, catch word; from the Charges to a Postscript 'put in here to fill a page', catch word; from this to the Regulations, none; from the Regulations to the method of constituting a New Lodge, catch word; from this to the Approbation, none; from the Approbation to the final section, the songs, none; and none from here to the license to publish on the last page.

Accordingly we may now date the several portions of the work with some degree of certainty. The times are as follows:

The plate; at any time after June 25th, 1722.
The dedication, id., but probably written immediately before publication.
The historical portion; prior to 25th June, 1722.
The charges printed with the preceding section, but drafted conjointly with the Regulations.
The postscript; the same.
The General Regulations, after Wharton's installation
The method of constituting a new Lodge; printed with the preceding section.
The Approbation; between 25th November and end of December, 1722.
The songs and sanction to publish; after January 17th, 1722-3, and probably at the last moment.

Of these sections the plate and Approbation have already been dealt with. The dedication calls for no special notice; it is an extravagant eulogy of the accuracy and diligence of the author. The songs are of little interest except the familiar Apprentice's Song, and this is now described as by our late Brother Matthew Birkhead.

THE HISTORICAL PORTION

This requires a somewhat extended notice. The legendary history, as it is perhaps not necessary to remind my readers, brought Masonry or Geometry from the children of Lamech to Solomon; then jumped to France and Charles Martel; and then by St. Alban, Athelstan and Edwin, this worthy Craft was established in England. In the Spencer family of MSS. an attempt has been made to fill in the obvious gaps in this narrative by introducing the second and third temples, those of Zerubbabel and Herod, and Auviragus king of Britain as a link with Rome, France and Charles Martel being dropped, while a series of monarchs has also been introduced between St. Alban's paynim king and Atheistan [sic]. Anderson's design was wholly different. He was obsessed by the idea of the perfection of the Roman architecture, what he called the Augustan Style, and he took the attitude that the then recent introduction of Renaissance architecture into England as a return to a model from which Gothic had been merely a barbarous lapse. He traces the Art from Cain who built a city, and who was instructed in Geometry by Adam. Here he is no doubt merely bettering his originals which were content with the sons of Lamech. The assertion shows a total want of any sense of humour, but then so do all his contributions to history. But it is worth while pointing out that it suggests more than this; it suggests that he had an entire lack of acquaintance with the polite literature of the period. No well-read person of the day would be unacquainted with the writings of Abraham Cowley, the poet and essayist of the Restoration, and the opening sentence of his Essay of Agriculture is:

"The three first men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman and a grazier; and if any man object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire he would consider that as soon as he was so he quitted our profession, and turned builder." It is difficult to imagine that Anderson would have claimed Cain as the first Mason if he had been familiar with this passage.

From this point he develops the history in his own fashion, but he incorporates freely and with an entire disregard for textual accuracy any passages in the Old Charges that suit him and he has actually used the Cooke Text, as also some text closely allied to the William Watson. We know the Cooke was available to him; we learn from Stukeley that it had been produced in Grand Lodge on 24 June, 1721. Anderson, in 1738, omits all reference to this incident, but asserts that in 1718 Payne desired the brethren to bring to Grand Lodge any old writings and records, and that several copies of the Gothic Constitutions (as he calls them) were produced and collated. He also alleges that in 1720 several valuable manuscripts concerning the Craft were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous brethren.

The former of these statements we should receive with caution; for the very reason that the 1723 Constitutions show no traces of such texts; the latter may be true and the manuscripts may have been rituals, or they may have been versions of the Old Charges, but there was nothing secret about those. The antiquary Plot had already printed long extracts from them.

Returning to the narrative we are told that Noah and his sons were Masons, which is a statement for which Anderson found no warrant in his originals; but he seems to have had a peculiar fondness for Noah. In 1738 he speaks of Masons as true Noachidae, alleging this to have been their first name according to some old traditions, and it is interesting to observe that the Irish Constitutions of 1858 preserve this fragment of scholarship and assert as a fact that Noachidae was the first name of Masons. Anderson also speaks of the three great articles of Noah, which are not however further elucidated, but it is probable that the reference is to the familiar triad of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. He omits Abraham and introduces Euclid in his proper chronological sequence, so that he has corrected the old histories to that extent; but after Solomon and the second Temple he goes to Greece, Sicily and Rome, where was perfected the glorious Augustan Style. He introduces Charles Martel - as King of France! - as helping England to recover the true art after the Saxon invasion, but ignores Athelstan and Edwin. He however introduces most of the monarchs after the Conquest and makes a very special reference to Scotland and the Stuarts. In the concluding passage he used the phrase "the whole body resembles a well built Arch" and it has been suggested, not very convincingly perhaps, that this is an allusion to the Royal Arch Degree.

There is an elaborate account of Zerubbabel's temple which may have some such significance, and the Tabernacle of Moses, Aholiab and Bezaleel is also mentioned at some length, Moses indeed being a Grand Master. He also inserts for no apparent reason a long note on the words Hiram Abiff, and in this case the suggestion that there is a motive for his doing so connected with ritual is of more cogency. It is an obvious suggestion that the name was of importance to the Craft at this date, that is to say early in 1722, and that the correctness of treating Abiff as a surname instead of as equivalent to his "father" was a matter the Craft were taking an interest in.

THE SIX CHARGES

The Charges, of which there are six, are alleged to be extracted from ancient records of lodges beyond Sea, and of those in England, Scotland and Ireland. In the Approbation the assertion is that he has examined several copies from Italy and Scotland and sundry parts of England. Were it not that he now omits Ireland altogether we might nave been disposed to attach some importance to the former statement. As yet no Irish version of the Old Charges has come to light but it is barely possible that there were records of Irish Freemasonry at the time which have since passed out of sight, a Freemasonry no doubt derived originally from England. But the discrepancy is fatal; we must conclude that the worthy doctor never saw any Irish record. And we can safely dismiss his lodges in Italy or beyond Sea as equally mythical.

Of the six Charges themselves the first caused trouble immediately on its appearance. It replaced the old invocation of the Trinity and whatever else there may have been of statements of religious and Christian belief in the practice of the lodges by a vague statement that we are only to be obliged to that religion in which all men agree. Complete religious tolerance has in fact become the rule of our Craft, but the Grand Lodge of 1723 was not ready for so sudden a change and it caused much ill feeling and possibly many secessions. It was the basis of a series of attacks on the new Grand Lodge.

CONSTITUTING A NEW LODGE

The manner of constituting a New Lodge is noteworthy for its reference to the "Charges of a Master," and the question, familiar to us today: Do you submit to these charges as Masters have done in all ages? It does not appear that these are the six ancient Charges of a previous section; they were something quite distinct. But not until 1777 are any Charges of the Master known to have been printed. It is also worthy of notice that the officers to be appointed Wardens of the new lodge are Fellow Crafts. There is also a reference to the Charges to the Wardens which are to be given by a Grand Warden. This section appeared in the Constitutions of the United Grand Lodge as late as 1873.

Anderson in 1738 alleges that he was directed to add this section to the work at the meeting of January 17 and he then speaks of it as the ancient manner of constituting a lodge. This is also the title of the corresponding section in the 1738 Constitutions, which is only this enlarged. But its title in 1723 is: Here follows the Manner of constituting a NEW LODGE, as practiced by His Grace the Duke of Wharton, the present Right Worshipful Grand Master, according to the ancient Usages of Masons. We once more see Anderson suppressing references to the Duke of Wharton where he can in 1738, and yet obliged to assert that the section was added after January 17th in order to be consistent in his story. It is not in the least likely that this is what was done. It was to all appearance printed at one and the same time with the Regulations, which he himself tells us were in print on 17th January, and since Wharton constituted four lodges if not more in 1722 he will not have waited six months to settle his method. We may be pretty certain that this section was in print before the Approbation to which it is not linked by a catch-word.

THE REGULATIONS

The Regulations, as I have already mentioned, have come down to us only as rewritten by Anderson. The official minutes of Grand Lodge throw considerable light on the matter. The first of all relates to the appointment of the Secretary, and the very next one is as follows:

The Order of the 17th January 1722-3 printed at the end of the Constitutions page 91 for the publishing the said Constitutions as read purporting, that they had been before approved in Manuscript by the Grand Lodge and were then (viz) 17th January aforesaid produced in print and approved by the Society.

Then the Question was moved, that the said General Regulations be confirmed, so far as they are consistent with the Ancient Rules of Masonry. The previous question was moved and put, whether the words "so far as they are consistent with the Ancient Rules of Masonry" be part of the Question. Resolved in the affirmative, But the main Question was not put. And the Question was moved that it is not in the Power of any person, or Body of men, to make any alteration, or Innovation in the Body of Masonry without the consent first obtained of the Annual Grand Lodge. And the Question being put accordingly Resolved in the Affirmative. We would record these proceedings today in somewhat different form, perhaps as follows:

It was proposed (and seconded) that the said General Regulations be confirmed so far as they are consistent with the Ancient Rules of Masonry. An amendment to omit the words "so far ... Masonry" was negatived. But in place of the original proposition the following resolution was adopted by a majority: That it is not, etc.

The effect of this is that it indicates pretty clearly that there was a strong feeling in Grand Lodge that Anderson's version of the Regulations had never been confirmed; that there was a difference of opinion as to now confirming them, even partially; and that in fact this was not done, but a resolution was adopted instead condemning alterations made without the consent of Grand Lodge at its annual meeting first obtained. I should perhaps say that the word "purporting" does not here have the meaning we would today attach to it; it has no sense of misrepresentation. Anderson was present at this meeting, but naturally not a word of all this appears in the account he gives of it in 1738.

Regulation XIII, or one sentence in it rather, "Apprentices must be admitted Masters and Fellow Craft only here, (i.e. in Grand Lodge) unless by a Dispensation," was at one time the battle ground of the Two Degree versus Three Degree schools; but it is generally admitted now, I believe, that only two degrees are referred to, namely the admission and the Master's Part.

The order of the words is significant. In the Regulation they read "Masters and Fellow Craft." In the resolution of 27 November, 1725 by which the rule was annulled, the wording is "Master" in the official minutes, which is a strong indication that the original Regulation only referred to one degree. In 1738 Anderson deliberately alters what is set out as the original wording and makes it read "Fellow Crafts and Masters," while in the new Regulation printed alongside of it the alteration of 27 November, 1725, is quoted as "Masters and Fellows" both being inaccurate; and he even gives the date wrongly.

The second Regulation enacts that the Master of a particular lodge has the right of congregating the members of his lodge into a chapter upon any emergency as well as to appoint the time and place of their usual forming. But it would be quite unsafe to assume that this is another reference to the Royal Arch; it appears to deal with what we would now call an emergent meeting.

Payne's, or rather Anderson's, Regulations were the foundation on which the law of the Craft was based, it being developed by a continual process of emendation and addition, and their phraseology can still be traced in our English Constitutions today.

SUBSEQUENT ALTERATIONS

In America Franklin reprinted this work in 1734 apparently verbatim. In 1738 Anderson brought out a second addition which was intended to replace the earlier one altogether, but it was a slovenly performance and the Regulations were printed in so confused a manner, being all mixed up with notes and amendments (many inaccurately stated), that it was difficult to make head or tail of them and to ascertain what was the law of the Craft. He also re-wrote the history entirely and greatly expanded it, introducing so many absurdities that Gould has suggested that he was deliberately fooling the Grand Lodge, or in the alternative that he was himself in his dotage. He died very shortly after. But this same ridiculous history has done duty in all seriousness till comparatively recent years, being brought up to date by Preston and others who were apparently quite unconscious of its true value. Unfortunately that portion of the history which professed to give an account of the proceedings of Grand Lodge and for which the official minutes were at Anderson's disposal is full of what one must consider wilful inaccuracies and misstatements.

In the next edition of the Constitutions, 1754, the Regulations were rewritten by Entick, but the history was preserved. Entick also reverted to the Charges as drawn up in 1723 into which, especially the first, Anderson had introduced various modifications in 1738, and those Charges are the basis of the Ancient Charges to be found today in the Constitutions of the United Grand Lodge of England, the only differences, except as regards the first Charge, not amounting to more than verbal modifications.

OUR DEBT TO ANDERSON

While as students we are bound to receive any statement that Anderson makes with the utmost caution unless it can be tested from other sources, we must not be too ready to abuse the worthy Doctor on that account. Our standards of historical and literary accuracy are higher than those of 1723, and his object was to glorify Montagu and the Craft and the new style of architecture introduced by Inigo Jones and others of his school; and this he did wholeheartedly, and if in the process he twisted a text or two or supplied suitable events to fill gaps in his narrative for which mere history as such had failed to record facts, no one at the time would think any the worse of him for that. It was a far more serious matter that he was instrumental in removing from the literature of the Craft all definite religious allusions; but as we now see, the Craft in fact owes its universality today to its wide undenominationalism and in this respect he builded better than he knew. The Constitutions of 1723 remains one of our most important texts and only awaits publication in full facsimile with suitable notes and introduction at the hands of some Society with the requisite funds.

NOTE: The Grand Lodge of All England is governed by the authority of the Old York Constitutions of A.D. 1600 (referred to in the article above as "Old Manuscript Constitutions" and "Old Gothic Constitutions") and rejects the innovations contained in the Moderns version of the Craft brought about by the activities detailed in the article written by Vibert. The Grand Lodge at York has published this article as an aid to understanding at this time when the vital issues of authenticity of origin and regularity are being re-visited and evaluated by serious students of genuine Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry.

Sussex v Sussex : The Case for Genuine Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry

When, Where and Why?

The answers to the questions "When Freemasonry?" or "Where Freemasonry?" began remain inconclusive and unsatisfactory due to the lack of reliable and available evidence, much of which has been either lost, destroyed or simply invented for parochial political reasons. No matter how firmly the alleged events at the Goose and Gridiron are presented by the "historians" of Freemasonry, what actually took place, and most crucially the circumstances surrounding them, are highly dubious. Can we really be expected to believe that organised Freemasonry only began in the tiny back room of a London Ale-house in 1717?

The Librarian and Curator of the United Grand Lodge of England, John Hamill, identifies the nature of at least part of the problem when he states that, "We don’t know enough about how Freemasonry evolved, and we don’t know enough about the early development of rituals; the earliest ritual fragments we have date from the mid-1690s onwards. We don’t know what went on before then." 1

What went on before is at least partly known, but the truly vital question about English Freemasonry is "Why?". The answer to this question contains all that is necessary to put English Freemasonry back to its rightful place at the heart of English society.

If one ponders why the membership, vitality and consequence of English Freemasonry continues to plummet and why it has become necessary to repone the Grand Lodge of All England, one must conclude that as Rudyard Kipling indicated in an earlier time of national concern, it stands in need of “re-setting".

Genuine Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry was appropriated by the Hanoverian dynasty in 1813 during a period of national crisis in a move designed to ensure that henceforth the Fraternity would be unable to articulate an independent response to the situation of the day. Freemasonry was also institutionalised by the same process of patronage that the Hanoverians used to such effect elsewhere in the Kingdom.

The overt and unwarranted conscription of English Freemasonry to the Hanoverian cause undertaken by the Duke of Sussex, and the resultant emasculating effect this subsequently and persistently produced, stands in contrast to the useful and dynamic possibilities Kipling hinted at in his Masonic references set out at a time of crisis, in his Sussex period.

For members of the Grand Lodge of All England at York, Freemasonry without a conspicuous Anglo-Saxon element is like Hamlet without the Prince, and stands shorn of those characteristics that are necessary in the challenging circumstances of to-day.

Those who focus upon the events, real or legendary occurring in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and who because of the difficulties inherent in researching the distant past regard those centuries as a more convenient starting point for the study of Freemasonry, sacrifice the necessary appreciation of the role of myth and legend within Freemasonry.

The alleged meeting of the "Four Old Lodges" at the Goose and Gridiron in 1717, and the nature of the arrangements which led on 27 December 1813 to the inception of the United Grand Lodge of England are not rendered incontrovertible because of the relative nearness of those times to the present.

Evidence, fact and truth relative to English Freemasonry in those years is generally confused, and the terms used imprecise and misleading.

What is often presented as fact in connection with those more recent events is as much disputed as King Athelstan’s charter of A.D. 926, and with at least as much reason.

In the search for truth, including that relative to the facts concerning the origin of Freemasonry, Freemasons are right to seek for that degree of elucidation which myth and legend are able to impart.

Proper appreciation of the value of myth and legend, combined with an understanding of the relationship between fact and belief, aid inquiry into the nature of Freemasonry. The reasons why the years 926 and 1717 are important relates to more than just belief or disbelief about particular events. The legends themselves are informative, and speculation is more than idle consideration.

Myth, Legend and Fact

Myth, legend and the proper interpretation of fact form essential conceptual tools for understanding the fundamental and characteristic role of Freemasonry within England, and English society. Failure to utilise these tools weakens the relevance of Freemasonry and aids those who desire and work towards its irrelevance.

Myth represents the use of a real or fictional story in which a recurring theme embodies in a consistent manner cultural ideals or emotions. Consistency is essential, and realised as the situation then, and now. The reality or fictional status of the material is not considered crucial, or even material.

We subscribe to the view expressed by Childs that at one level "The reality of the mythical, timeless event enters into the present moment of time." 2

Legend differs from myth in that here one is concerned with an unverified or unverifiable story or event handed down from an earlier time.

The story or event may well be vital in a particular context. It may be desired, it may be consistent with some known fact or facts, or even acted upon, but it cannot in its entirety be established. Indeed a legend does not need to be verified for it to have relevance or potency, because it is to some extent connected with a reality.

Both King Alfred and Robert the Bruce were in their own time, and particular situations, preoccupied with war and matters of state.

The elements of the cakes and the spider, central to each of the well-known legendary stories, need not be verified for the instructional value or context of the supposed events to be recognised.

A legendary event may be connected with the recurring theme found in a myth, or be considered along with and in the context of a factual assertion. The possible nexus in which these conceptual devices operate is itself worthy of study.

Fact, refers to something which is asserted to be true. It is not credible to maintain that a historical or evidential fact can ever be put forward in the same manner as a mathematical fact. The former are clearly subject to interpretation and it is perfectly reasonable for a fact to be disputed. The mere recitation of a number of facts does not in itself guarantee truth although it may lead to the acceptance of a proposition.Truth is attainable, but facts currently in our possession may not secure truth. We are mindful of Francis Bacon’s observation contained in his essay "Of Truth", "What is truth", said jesting Pilate, "and would not stay for an answer." 3

In terms of Myth, the answer was present in the story itself. Freemasons in common with everyone else are impelled to believe, but firm belief is often the companion to irrationality.

Russell highlights our dilemma by paraphrasing David Hume’s empirical philosophy, although drawing a conclusion not actually reached by Hume, "We cannot help believing, but no belief can be grounded in reason. Nor can one line of action be more rational than another, since all alike are based upon irrational convictions." 4

Given the nature and extent of the surviving evidential material available to us with regard to the origins of Freemasonry, the contribution of philosophers such as William James can assist us in our search for truth.

James counsels us that, "We cannot reject any hypothesis if consequences useful to life flow from it." 5

Although recognizing inadequacies in James’s view, one can see the relevance of that view in the context of English Freemasonry. Why should a Masonic tradition uniquely founded upon Anglo-Saxon principles not be the tradition best placed to serve the needs of the people of England?

Constitutional Perspectives and the Articles of Union

Any attempt at assessing the events leading up to and including the ratification of the Articles of Union and the advent of the United Grand Lodge of England on 27 December 1813, must take account of the constitutional situation prevailing in England at the time.

The Hanoverian dynasty and English Freemasonry alike, due to the alliance formed between them, rendered themselves subject to constitutional examination and evaluation through the focus of English conceptions of constitutional probity.

Due to the nature of its inception, the Grand Lodge of London and its successor organisation The United Grand Lodge of England, remains subject to scrutiny through English forms of critical analysis.

The British constitution was seen as not only something of practical benefit, but of having its genesis in traditional Anglo-Saxon theories still vibrant and central within English constitutional conceptions. 6

There was also a strong and pervasive belief in the existence of a social contract existing between the People and the Sovereign.

Sir Ernest Barker, in considering Social Contract theory puts it this way, "The theory of the Social Contract might be mechanical, juristic, and a priori. But it was none the less a way of expressing two fundamental ideas or values to which the human mind will always cling – the value of Liberty, or the idea that will, not force, is the basis of government, and the value of Justice, or the idea that right, not might, is the basis of all political society and of every system of political order." 7

In short, the English system was thought to recognise the existence of natural rights, firmly set within the constitution, and a constitutional tradition involving the will of the People, however defined, and going back to Anglo-Saxon times.

James II, by violating those rights, had produced a situation in which the People had removed him and replaced him with a Sovereign bound more explicitly by way of the Bill of Rights.

The constitutional situation then, as now, bears directly upon the notion of English Freemasonry. It is quite possible to agree with Gardner’s contention that the revolution of 1688 has “everything” to do with Freemasonry, although his failure to recognize that the British constitution includes statutes dealing with constitutional law, and is therefore not wholly unwritten, undermines his argument, that British monarchs are not constitutional monarchs, although his position as Jacobite Historiographer Royal perhaps explains this blind spot. 8

Walpole, Scott, Blackstone, Burke, and Locke all recognized the advantages which accrued to the constitution. Acknowledgement of the will of the people, however expressed, and that form of expression inevitably changes over time, was ever a hallmark of Anglo-Saxon society.

Athelstan, Anglo-Saxon Freedoms and the People

The Grand Lodge of All England at York properly focuses its concerns upon England, and recognises Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, as the King who raised the English people to nationhood.

This monarch’s achievements extended beyond England. He may be considered the first British monarch, although the title Bretwalda (Britain Ruler) had been first claimed in the fifth century by Aelle, King of Sussex, the South Saxons.

Bede translates Bretwalda into the Latin Imperium, and cognizance of the status of the Christian emperors may have been part of the reason for the singular importance granted to York in the Anglo-Saxon period, and beyond.

Certainly Offa of Mercia both in architecture and in the matter of royal succession attempted to emulate the Christian emperors. In A.D. 306, the first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, commenced his reign at York, then the Roman fortress of Eboracum.

York would retain its importance throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, and it is likely that Canute, who was the first king to call himself King of England, rather than King of the English, and who was also King of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and therefore aware of the vital strategic location of the city, refrained from making York his capital because of his recognition that his kingdom was that of Wessex or the West Saxons, as indeed was Athelstan’s.

The persistent claim of the West Saxons to rule the English and the fundamentally non-racist tradition of the Anglo-Saxon people can be seen from the record contained in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for A.D. 920, "In this year before midsummer, King Edward went with his troops to Nottingham … he was chosen as father and lord by the king of the Scots and all the Scottish people; by Raegnald, and Eadulf’s sons, and all who dwell in Northumbria, English, Danes, Norse and others, and the King of the Strathclyde Welsh and the Strathclyde Welsh themselves." 9

The Anglo-Saxons were, and remain a people whose national consciousness is rightly based more upon geography and shared institutions and traditions than upon race. Freemasonry can flourish in such a climate.

In A.D. 926, Athelstan entered York and was also acknowledged by the King of Scots, and the King of the British Kingdom of Strathclyde as their “father and lord”. Athelstan’s status was further reinforced by the agreement of the Welsh princes to pay him tribute. The year in question is made more significant for Freemasons because of the authority granted to them at that time by the King.

William Preston stated in 1738 that, "... the first Grand Lodge of England was formed in York in A.D. 926. King Athelstane sold the Masons a Royal Charter, which gave them the right to meet every year at York and to rule themselves under a Royal Grand Master." 10

Similarly, Dr James Anderson’s famous declaration well supported in fact over the years by many, including Robert Graves, in respect of the Masonic Assembly convened by Prince Edwin in A.D. 926, distinguished English from Scottish Freemasonry, and promoted the Anglo-Saxon or English dimension. 11

A point often overlooked by those who demand production of this particular charter, is that in Anglo-Saxon times the actual issue of a charter could be handled by the Witan, (the Civil Service) and it often was, even though the right concerned was given by the King. The claim that a Royal Charter was such a unique item that it could not possibly go missing is overstated.

The Tradition of the Will of the People in the Anglo-Saxon Period

Despite the existence of a number of foreign kingdoms upon English soil, the English of the period turned increasingly to the kings of Wessex as their natural rulers.

The supremacy of Wessex amongst the Anglo-Saxons had been due initially to King Egbert, the grandfather of Alfred the Great. Egbert’s passage to the throne, following the death of his kinsman, King Cynewulf in 786, had not been direct. Egbert had initially been denied the vacant throne by the Witan because strict hereditary principles did not apply in Anglo-Saxon England, and the Witan elected Beothric to succeed Cynwulf. It was only following the death of Beothric that Egbert’s claim to the throne was accepted, and he, returning to England, became King in 802. Due to the shift of power from Mercia to Wessex during Egbert’s reign the Chroniclers refer to him as the “Bretwalda”.

The Anglo-Saxon Witan appears to have at least some connection, in theory if not in practice, with the Folkmoot (a meeting of the folk, the earliest known democratic structure), before which all freemen (including free Masons) had the right to appear.

The references in the Chronicles to the loud expressions of approval or disapproval made by the crowd in respect of the decisions of the Witan indicate some degree of involvement by the people in at least some of the decision making procedures of the Anglo-Saxons.

The notion of the will of the people needs to start somewhere. It is suggested that it is in the Witan and its functions that the inception of this notion can be first identified with certainty. The powers of the Witan in respect of electing or deposing a king were subject to custom, another vital constitutional element, but they certainly existed.

That the will of the English people could be effective in Anglo-Saxon times can be seen in the method by which the virtual civil war between King Edward and Earl Godwine was ended. The violent quarrel between the King and Earl during 1051 and 1052 was ended despite the two armies facing each other across the Thames, when the King’s armies refused to fight against their countrymen.

Additionally, and crucially, Anglo Saxon theories and traditions about kingship had always contained an elective element. No matter how they were defined, the People, as a concept had real meaning.

The crowning of Harold on 6 January 1066, the day his predecessor Edward was buried, makes this clear. Earl Harold had been offered the crown by the Witan despite there being other contenders with more obvious claims, and even though he had no royal blood. After William defeated Harold, and because he had succeeded to the throne by battle rather than inheritance, the people at his coronation on Christmas Day were asked in English and French whether they accepted William as their King. The elective element, no matter how discharged was recognized throughout the entire period.

During the Anglo-Saxon period a conception of nationhood, a sense of the value of custom and tradition, recognition of the need for a voice of the people, and an awareness of the value of constitutional constraints upon the powers of monarchy were developed. These traditional constitutional forms would serve as a bench mark which the philosophers and parliamentarians would use in future disputes regarding patronage, royal power, and the will of the people.

Whilst agreeing with Gardner’s contention that the revolution of 1688 has “everything” to do with Freemasonry, one should not overlook the subsequent effects upon both constitutional matters and English Freemasonry, brought about by the successors to the revolution, the Hanoverians, who came to the throne following the death of Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts, in 1714.

The Hanoverians

Cinematic portrayals of the Hanoverians as being mad, bad, or comedic, fail to credit the dynasty with the genius for rationalisation, organisation, and enquiry it manifested during the period 1714 to 1837. 12

Whilst the degree of personal engagement generally involved is subject to debate, there can be little doubt that in areas as diverse as agriculture, military science, constitutional reform, and religion, individual members of the House of Hanover left their mark. 13

It is beyond dispute that in the area of Freemasonry at least, the involvement of Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex and his brother Edward, Duke of Kent produced a profoundly personal, sustained, and continuing effect. 14

During the long and eventful reign of the House of Hanover, due to its German connections, the Germanic gained in popularity in England. Simultaneously, the Anglo-Saxon nature of English nationhood was stressed and used ideologically to link the Hanoverians with the first English kings.

Anglo-Saxon heritage provided a basis for excluding overtly Stuart sentiment generally, and Jacobite sympathy in particular, whilst strengthening the links, perhaps somewhat fancifully, between England and Germany.

The long period between the reign of the last Anglo-Saxon King, and the revolution of 1688 which brought the reign of James II to an end, was not considered a bar to the ideological connection between the Hanoverians and the House of Wessex.

The terms “Anglo-Saxon” and “English” became increasingly coterminous. How much of this was purely ideological it is hard to determine, but the Stuart period, with its many problematic and continental connections, and quite persistent theories of Divine Right came to be seen as an unfortunate and overtly foreign interlude. The attempt to graft the House of Hanover into England’s Anglo-Saxon past was an exercise in institutional restitution, of an ideological kind, despite a gap of over six hundred years.

The attraction of Anglo-Saxon theories and constitutional traditions provided scope for expanding notions about the will of the people. No matter how they were defined, the people, as a concept had real meaning, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries philosophers had spoken increasingly of the inherent sovereignty of the English People.

John Locke had conceived of the people retaining still, “… a supreme power to remove or alter the Legislative, when they find the Legislative act contrary to the Trust reposed in them.” 15

The Hanoverian period provides substantial evidence on the part of the Hanoverians to appropriate England’s Anglo-Saxon past for their own dynastic purposes. One only has to think of the almost cult status granted to King Alfred in this period, yet it should be borne in mind how tenuous this link actually was. Although the Anglo-Saxons had been Germanic in origin, the Hanoverians were recognisably German.

Queen Victoria’s grandfather, George III was the actual ruler of Hanover, her father married a German princess, whilst she, of course, married a German, and her daughter married the heir to the Prussian throne.

It was during this period that the notion of English and British freedom being in some way derived from ancient Germanic customs gained both academic and popular support.

However, the Hanoverians were pragmatically Teutonic rather than mythically Anglo- Saxon, and in practice the Hanoverians leaned towards an altogether more authoritarian style. This can be seen particularly in the area of the military, a land of delight for George II, and in the response of William IV to the widespread agitation in the late period of Hanoverian rule, when measures which even in those times were seen as overly repressive were introduced. The Hanoverians themselves were often, as children, subjected to a frighteningly strict form of upbringing. One of George IV’s brothers was actually flogged for contracting asthma.

However theoretical the will of the people was in terms of constitutional practice and political philosophy, the mob or more specifically the London Mob, was available as a political device. The mob could still be raised and manipulated to serve a political purpose. No matter how ancient a pedigree could be claimed for the mob, the Hanoverians were decidedly against it. Control, order, and discipline were, in respect of the populace, considered virtues.

Wide ranging influence on the part of the Hanoverians, and their use of extensive powers of patronage, provided them with real power, even at a time when party politics were undermining the extent of prerogative power. For Edmund Burke, the M.P. for Wendover, "The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less odium, under the name of influence." 16

Influence and patronage wrought by the Hanoverians was not limited to Parliament. It was used to full effect within Freemasonry, rendering the fraternity subject to the rationalising and controlling tendencies so marked in the House of Hanover.

Control of English Freemasonry and the Articles of Union

William Preston makes clear that following the events of 1717, the newly formed London Grand Lodge, however it came into existence, had from its inception the intention to radically alter the nature of English Freemasonry. The process of conflating the vital notion of Regularity with the novel doctrine of Recognition had begun. Indeed, the intention seems to have been to completely monopolise Freemasonry in England, aspiring to re-define Freemasonry in its own terms and in its own image.

In direct reference, William Preston asserted that, " … the privilege of assembling as Masons which had hitherto been unlimited should be vested in certain Lodges or assemblies of Masons convened in certain places; and that every Lodge hereafter convened, except the four old Lodges at this time existing, should be legally authorised to act by a warrant from the Grand Master for the time being, granted to certain individuals by petition, with consent and approbation of the Grand Lodge in communication; and that without such warrant no lodge should be hereafter deemed regular or constitutional." 17

By 1813 the degree of control had been extended. The Duke of Sussex’s determination, post ratification of the Articles of Union between the Moderns London Grand Lodge and the Antients Grand Lodge, represents a typically Hanoverian approach to Freemasonry.

John Hamill and his United Grand Lodge of England colleague, Bob Gilbert, note that it appears that the Duke of Sussex had in fact four main and very clearly expressed intentions " … to assert Grand Lodge’s authority over all the lodges of the two former obediences; to standardise; to complete the de-Christianisation of the Craft and Royal Arch; and to maintain the Craft’s superiority over any other Masonic order." 18

Such ambitions are very much in the Hanoverian tradition, and represent one aspect of the power of influence. However, another lasting effect of the use of patronage and influence, one which still needlessly divides Freemason from Freemason, is the doctrine of Recognition. This bogus doctrine has its genesis in the exemption granted to “approved” lodges from the draconian effects of The Unlawful Societies Act, 1799.

The Doctrine of Recognition

The doctrine of Recognition as practiced by the United Grand Lodge of England is not only un-Masonic in nature, but it represents the residue of that grand lodge’s previous collusion in one of the most overtly and unnecessarily repressive items of legislation ever introduced into England, The Unlawful Societies Act, 1799.

Much of the repressive legislation of the period, including The Treasonable Practices Act, 1795, The Newspaper Publication Act, 1797 and the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, seem not to have been fully utilised, and there is doubt as to their need or efficacy. 19 What is clear is that they were seen as an affront to the Constitution. Fox in 1795 challenged the government to say at once, " … that a free constitution is no longer suitable to us, but do not mock the understandings and the feelings of mankind by telling the world that you are free." 20

Essentially, it is the issue of freedom under the constitution that is the point for Freemasonry. However, the collusion of the three grand lodges concerned who for the sake of their own self-regulation and aggrandisement, set themselves apart from their fellow Masons, represents a continuing grievance and is even today the cause of disparity in England, North America and elsewhere.

The Unlawful Societies Act provided for the effective self-regulation of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England, meeting at Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, London, The Grand Lodge of Masons of England, according to the Old Institution, and The Grand Lodge of Free Masons of Scotland, and the meetings of subordinate lodges or societies sanctioned or approved by those grand lodges.

One intention of the legislation was to provide a means by which a certificate would be furnished each year by the participating Grand Secretaries to Clerks of the Peace providing details of approved lodges. That intention would later be turned by the United Grand Lodge of England into an opportunistic attempt to monopolise the governance of Freemasonry in England and is a matter to be profoundly regretted, as is the action of The Conference of Grand Masters of Masons of North America’s Commission on Information for Regularity, both of which organizations improperly conflate Recognition with Regularity and by so doing damage the vital doctrine of Regularity by the introduction of the bogus doctrine of Regularity of origin, i.e. that for the purposes of Recognition each Grand Lodge shall have been established lawfully by a duly recognised Grand Lodge. 21

The English Masonic Tradition

Preston’s assertion in 1783 that the first Grand Lodge was formed at York in 926, and that, “There is at present a Grand Lodge of masons in the city of York, who trace their existence from this period” represents a claim for a uniquely English or Anglo-Saxon form of Freemasonry. Moreover, it represents a Masonic tradition for York independent of what did or did not occur at the Goose and Gridiron in 1717, and is not dependent upon whether a charter from the days of King Athelstan ever existed.

Preston is clearly informing other Freemasons of the existence of a Grand Lodge they may be unaware of, one clearly outside the influence of Hanoverian London.

This notion of independence, of freedom, and of liberty, is characteristically English. Hamill and Gilbert, whilst considering colonial Freemasonry, acknowledge the existence of lodges of Freemasons independent of the London Grand Lodges, "There is no doubt that in some areas time immemorial lodges emerged – that is, lodges started at some unknown date by groups of men who had become Freemasons in the British Isles and who met without any authority from a Grand Lodge or a Provincial Grand Master." 22

The point here is that time immemorial lodges, unwarranted by London Grand Lodges, of any description, are and were known within Freemasonry, no matter how inconvenient their existence to the United Grand Lodge of England. Freemasonry has never been confined to the sole ambit of the United Grand Lodge of England.

Hamill and Gilbert make plain the difficulty experienced by the London Grand Lodges in the 1700s which was due to the continued vibrancy of the Grand Lodge of All England at York, which threatened the monolithic aspirations of the London Grand Lodges:

"The situation in England was exacerbated by the revival in 1761 of the Old Lodge at York and further complicated matters by constituting the dissident members of the Lodge of Antiquity, London (one of the founding lodges of the London Grand Lodge) as the Grand Lodge South of the River Trent in 1779". 23

It is no wonder that the situation was “exacerbated” and “complicated” by the “revival” of the Grand Lodge of All England. Then, as now, the desire to regain what was in danger of being lost, has produced a revival of traditional English Freemasonry, determined to participate fully as a competent and confident Masonic body, and focused upon the real issues confronting English Freemasonry.

Kipling’s Sussex Period and the Need for “Resetting”

The Boer Wars of 1880-1881 and 1899-1902 produced a feeling of national crisis, due in large part to the lack of consensus in Britain about the military action. The wars were not universally popular in England, and there was strong political opposition to the wars voiced in Parliament. The lack of consensus, and the introspection it gave rise to, caused many to search for a more appropriate path for Britain to take in the future. This feeling was greatly exacerbated by the horrors of the Great War, and the unrest it caused.

Rudyard Kipling, well known for his support for and understanding of soldiers and the Empire, was one who, when challenged by the effect the Boer Wars had upon the national consciousness, sought for a way forward. Kipling indicated a way forward based upon a re-setting of Freemasonry, and the re-discovery of Englishness.

Kipling, shocked by what had occurred during the war in South Africa, and seeking to make sense of the turn of events, took up residence in Sussex and immersed himself in both a study of Englishness and in the practice of being English. In a letter dated 30^th November 1902 he writes, "England is a wonderful land. It is the most marvellous of all foreign countries that I have ever been in. It is made up of trees and green fields and mud and the gentry, and at last I’m one of the gentry …”. 24

From this point in time, the Sussex period, Kipling in a series of poems, articles and short stories began setting out a way forward based upon English, and essentially Anglo-Saxon values. Also, at this point, Kipling turns his attention to Freemasonry, the utility of which he has no doubt, but which now he senses offers a vital means of relief. However, for Kipling there are problems in Freemasonry. Control is one aspect which needs to be addressed. Another is ensuring that the fraternity is, to use modern terminology “fit for purpose”.

It should be remarked upon, to give due credit to Kipling, that his concern for fallen soldiers was shown in his founding of two lodges connected with the War Graves Commission, one in England, “Silent Cities” the other in France.

Interests of the Brethren (1917) 25 is set in a fictional and possibly irregular lodge, during war-time, in which military men on leave from the front draw succour from the rituals and practical creed residing there. Kipling promotes a notion of the good that Freemasonry can provide. He suggests that membership ought to be greatly increased, and speculates upon how an unwarranted lodge, due to the exigencies of the time, can assist in a great work. In raising and setting out the possibility of breaking Masonic rules, Kipling leaves the final decisions involved to his fellow-Masons.

In The Palace (1902), 26 Kipling introduces a “King and a Mason” who, intending to build a palace, finds the wreck of an earlier building, which at first appears lacking in plan or design, but which is revealed as being a necessary foundation for the building of a subsequent structure.

The King tells us:

There was no worth in the fashion-there was no wit in the plan-
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran-
Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone;
“After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known.”
Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

For Kipling, men, nations, and Freemasonry could be reset, by building upon earlier foundations, providing those foundations were based upon truth.

In Norman and Saxon (1911) 27 Kipling attempts to provide an insight into the Saxon legacy which has given form to English character. Originally published in A School History of England, by Kipling and C.R.L. Fletcher, the poem represents the distinctive and, for Kipling, positive personal qualities of the Saxon, which will be resilient to change and the ultimate merging of the Saxon and Norman stock. The qualities are those that will stand England in good stead.

The Norman Baron, speaking to his son says:

"My son, I am dying, and you will be heir
To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for share
When he conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little handful it is.
But before you go over to rule it I want you to understand this:–
"The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, 'This isn't fair dealing,' my son, leave the Saxon alone.
"You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears;
But don't try that game on the Saxon; you'll have the whole brood round your ears.
From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field,
They'll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield.”

Kipling’s work offers something to Freemasons to-day, recognition of the value of character, the importance of justice, right action and fair dealing. In the context of Freemasonry, Kipling identifies the need to renew, relieve and reset. For Kipling, Freemasonry is an active force which requires thoughtful consideration, and the ability to deal with difficult issues.

English Freemasonry Today

The problems and challenges facing English Freemasonry to-day can be overcome, and Freemasonry can regain its central and useful role in our society. However, The Grand Lodge of All England does not believe this can be accomplished by sacrificing essential Masonic elements on the altars of political correctness or fashion. The Grand Lodge of All England at York is wholly regular and works under the authority of The Old York Time Immemorial Constitution of A.D. 1600, and firmly rejects the arbitrary and unjustified changes which have been imposed on other jurisdictions.

The democratic ideals of Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry are represented in a fraternity well equipped for the challenges of twenty-first century England. All degrees conferred by the York Grand Lodge are Craft degrees, although the Master of any lodge may convene a Chapter of the Holy Royal Arch.

The Grand Lodge of All England does not have Grand Lodge promotions. Active Grand Officers are elected by the representatives of the lodges, with no appointments by the Grand-Master Mason except those of Grand Secretary and Grand Tyler. The Grand-Master Mason is elected to his position and does not appoint either his deputy or his successor. Although elected annually he may only serve the lodges as Grand-Master Mason for a maximum of five years.

The Grand Lodge of All England confers the ten degrees of Craft Masonry upon candidates. From Apprentice Freemason to The Holy Order of Grand High Priest, all Masonic degrees and orders are available to all members in return for a single affordable annual subscription. There are no “invitation only” degrees, lodges, or orders.

The Grand Lodge of All England has reclaimed the ancient penalties and words, in operating a coherent ten degree Craft system and in restoring discarded rites to their proper place.

Fuller details as to the structures and systems of the Grand Lodge of All England can be obtained from the web site at http://www.grandlodgeofallengland.org/, along with contact details and other items of information and explanation.

The Grand Lodge of All England has an active and energetic membership, which, whilst looking forward, draws upon the resources and benefits of ancient, traditional and regular English Freemasonry.

The case for English Freemasonry, Sussex –v- Sussex, turns on whether the future is best served by a conception of Freemasonry dominated by the need to control and originated as a dynastic prop, or one democratic in nature, Anglo-Saxon in character, and conversant with and sympathetic to the current needs of English society.

NOTES ON THE AUTHORS:

Richard Young is Grand Chancellor of The Grand Lodge of All England, a Historian and Retired Law Lecturer. Peter Clatworthy is Grand Secretary of The Grand Lodge of All England, a Masonic Administrator, Writer and Lecturer.

REFERENCES:

1. Barrett, (p.92), [Barrett, David V. (1999). Secret Societies, London: Cassell]
2. Childs, (p.19), [Childs, Brevard S. (1960). Myth and Reality In the Old Testament. London: SCM]
3. Francis Bacon, The Essays, (1601)
4. Russell, (p.645), [Russell, Bertrand (1975). History of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Unwin University Books]
5. Russell, op. cit., (p.771)
6. Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott and Sir William Blackstone, all praised the constitution, as did Montesquieu and Voltaire.
7. Barker, (p.viii), [Barker, Sir Ernest. (1947). Social Contract. London: OUP]
8. Gardner, (p.11), [Gardner, Laurence. (2006). The Shadow of Solomon. London: HarperElement]
9. Savage, (p.119), [Savage, A. (1995). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Godalming: CLB]
10. See Grand Lodge of All England at York webpage at www.grandlodgeofallengland.org
11. Dr James Anderson's revised Book of Constitutions, Grand Lodge of London (1738)
12. This is not to suggest that the eccentricities displayed are not worthy of note, but to recognize the contributions made by this royal household.
13. George I in respect of party government; George II in respect of the military and music; George III in farming; William IV in constitutional reform.
14. Concern about preventing English Freemasonry from providing a channel for latent Jacobite or revolutionary sentiment would render royal interest understandably pragmatic, and wholly Hanoverian.
15. John Locke. Of Civil Government, 1690
16. Quoted in Cowie, (p.345), [Cowie, L.W. (1967). Hanoverian England 1714-1837. London: Bell]
17. Preston: Illustrations of Freemasonry
18. Hamill and Gilbert, (p.9), [Hamill J. and Gilbert R.A. (1991). World Freemasonry. London: Aquarian Press
19. Prescott provides instances where, in the case of the Act of 1799, other legislation could have been used. See Prescott, (p.8), [Prescott, Andrew (2000). The Unlawful Societies Act of 1779, Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, November 2000]
20. Debate on legislation during 1975
21. See Basic principles for Grand Lodge recognition, dated 4th September 1929
22. Hamill, J and Gilbert R.A. op.cit (p.86)
23. Ibid. (p.86)
24. Quoted in Carrington, (p.433), [Carrington, C. (1970). Rudyard Kipling, Harmondsworth: Pelican]
25. Kipling, R., "Interests of the Brethren", in Debits and Credits, (London, 1926)
26. Kipling, R., "The Palace", in The Five Nations, (London, 1902)
27. Kipling, R., "Norman and Saxon", in A School History of England, (London, 1911)