The Shadow of Solomon: The Lost Secret of the Freemasons Revealed

The masonic Grand Lodge of Scotland was founded some years after those of England and Ireland. The reason for this might have been the much wider scope of Scottish Freemasonry, which had many more independent lodges from which to obtain agreement. Of the 100 lodges invited to the foundation meeting, representatives from only 33 attended. The other two-thirds did not see the point of a central regulatory body. By virtue of this, the Edinburgh-based Grand Lodge could not exert its authority in the same way as the London group and so the lodges were permitted to retain their own procedures, regalia and ritual. Subsequently, as new lodges were formed after 1736, it was necessary to afford them the same privilege.6 The situation remains the same today and, although lodges in Scotland are chartered by Grand Lodge, they retain their individual modes of operation, and there is no rigidly standard ritual.

The Grand Lodge of Scotland is keen to assert that theirs is the only nation capable of proving a direct documented connection between operative stonemasonry and speculative Freemasonry. Certainly, Scotland holds the oldest masonic records in the world and even in today’s lodge workings a stonemason’s maul is used by the Master and Wardens.

The dissident preacher, Dr James Anderson (1680-1739), who prepared the 1723 Constitutions for the Grand Lodge of England, had been born into a Scottish masonic family. His father was a lodge member in Aberdeen, although there is no record of James having been initiated there. Well-known Scottish Freemasons of the 1700s included the poet Robert Burns, the architect Robert Adam, the author Sir Walter Scott, and John Paul Jones of Kirkcudbright, who founded the American Navy.

Edict of Rome

Back in England, the Grand Master Augustus, Duke of Sussex, died in 1843. During the 1750s, the Welsh Grand Master frequented a London lodge at the Turk’s Head in Greek Street, Soho (see page 82). This was a lodge of The Most Antient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons (the Antients), who had formed their Grand Lodge in 1751. Their original Grand Secretary was the Irish artist and wine merchant Laurence Dermott, who had been initiated into a Dublin lodge 10 years earlier. When publishing the Constitutions of the Antients in 1756, Dermott stated that the premier Grand Lodge (the Moderns) had perverted masonic traditions, and he moulded the Antients into a far more democratic organization.7

Unlike the Moderns, the Grand Master of the Antients had no independent or final authority in respect of existing or newly appointed lodges. Everything had to be ratified by mutual consent of the officers. Travelling warrants were issued into the military regiments so that lodges could be established and convened wherever the troops were stationed at home or abroad. This enabled the Antients to grow at a much faster pace than the Moderns, and there was a good deal of friction between the two.

In line with the York-based Grand Lodge of All England, the Antients differed considerably from the Moderns because they did not limit their function to the three degrees of English Craft Freemasonry. They and York (whose foundation lodge dated back to 1705) had an additional Chapter for the working of Royal Arch ritual, along with a different structure for their Knight Templar units (see page 163). In the event, the York Grand Lodge wound up in 1792, while the Antients and Moderns subsequently amalgamated on 27 December 1813. Prior to that, Augustus of Sussex was Grand Master of the Moderns, and his brother Edward, Duke of Kent, was Grand Master of the Antients. At the time of amalgamation, Edward stepped down to leave Augustus as the overall Grand Master of the new United Grand Lodge of England.8 Lodges from each branch were then renumbered, with the Grand Master’s Lodge of the Ancients becoming No 1, and the Moderns’ Lodge of Antiquity becoming No 2. The rest were numbered alternately. Provincial Grand Lodges were formalized to run the regions, and the Constitutions were restructured into a new format in 1819.

When Augustus died, Thomas Dundas, Earl of Zetland (Shetland), took the reins for 27 years, during which period Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street, London, was substantially rebuilt and extended. He was followed by George Robinson, Lord Ripon—son of Frederick, Earl Grey (Whig prime minister 1830-34). However, George resigned the Grand Mastership in 1874 in order to join the Catholic Church, subsequent to which he became Viceroy of India.9

The Catholic Church had formally opposed and denounced Freemasonry from the time that Anderson’s revised Constitutions were published. There have been numerous significant Vatican pro nouncements in this respect,10 with over a dozen in the 19th century alone. The first, known as In Eminenti, was a Bull of Pope Clement XII in 1738. He classified Freemasons as ‘depraved and perverted’, and decreed that they ‘are to be condemned and prohibited, and by our present constitution, valid for ever, we do hereby condemn and prohibit them’. He added that Freemasonry has contempt for ecclesiastical authority, and that its members plot ‘the overthrow of the whole of religious, political, and social order based on Christian institutions’. Clement concluded:

We desire and command that both bishops and prelates and other local ordinaries, as well as inquisitors for heresy, shall investigate and proceed against transgressors of whatever state, grade, condition, order dignity or pre-eminence they may be; and they are to pursue and punish them with condign penalties as being most suspect of heresy.

As a result of this edict, Catholics were placed under penalty of excommunication, incurred ipso facto, and were strictly forbidden to enter or promote masonic societies in any way.11

In 1864, after numerous other denouncements, it was the turn of Pope Pius IX to condemn Freemasonry with his encyclical letter, Quanta Cura. This censured societies which draw no distinction between ‘the true religion and false ones’. Coming from the Catholic hierarchy, this was very much a repeat of the way in which the Anglican Church had admonished King James II (VII) for tolerating different religions whilst granting people the liberty of their conscience. In this context, Pope Pius wrote that such organizations dare to assert that ‘liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right…They do not think and consider that they are teaching the liberty of sedition’.

The strange thing about all this is that Freemasonry, just like all manner of other clubs and societies, was not (and is not) a religion, nor in any way a religious institution. Hence, it is open to all. The problematical difference between Freemasonry and other private associations, as far as the Catholic Church was concerned, was that Freemasonry embodied a vow of secrecy. This was contrary to the ‘confessional’ tradition of the doctrine, and was solemn enough to override the Church obligation to confide secrets to one’s priest. In short, Freemasonry was an environment within which the Church lacked the power of authority that it had in other walks of life.

A later encyclical from Pope Leo XIII in 1884 pursued this viewpoint even further. Whereas the previous decrees had suggested that Freemasonry was irreligious, Leo’s Humanum Genus went further in claiming that it was anti-religious. When discussing ‘that strongly organized and widespread association called the Freemasons’, he stated:

No longer making any secret of their purposes, they are now boldly rising up against God himself. They are planning the destruction of the Holy Church publicly and openly, and with this the set purpose of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom…We pray and beseech you, venerable brethren, to join your efforts with Ours, and earnestly to strive for the extirpation of this foul plague.

In order to put the masonic view of religious tolerance into perspective, we can see that, from the very outset of the 1723 Constitutions, this item of concern was addressed in a manner which made the position very clear:

Concerning God and religion: A mason is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid atheist nor an irreligious libertine. But though in ancient times masons were charged in every country to be of the religion of that country or nation, whatever it was, yet ‘tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves: that is to be good men and true, or men of honour and honesty, by whatever denominations or persuasions they may be distinguished.

Although the definitions, ‘stupid atheist’ and ‘irreligious libertine’ have been superseded, along with a generally better wording since that time, the basic premise still prevails in that Freemasonry is religiously tolerant even though not religiously based.

Missing Documents

At the departure of George, Lord Ripon, United Grand Lodge realized another splendid coup in December 1874 when, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), accepted the nomination as Grand Master. This added particular weight to the Masonic Charge after initiation:

Ancient no doubt it is, having subsisted from time immemorial. In every age, monarchs have been promoters of the Art,12 have not thought it derogatory to their dignity to exchange the sceptre for the trowel, have participated in our mysteries and joined in our assemblies.

Electing to resign his office on his accession to the throne in 1901, Edward remained Protector of the Order,13 but during his 26-year term he took Freemasonry to a new level of international prominence. This was particularly the case on the occasion of his mother Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee. To celebrate this event, and also to make the point to Grand Lodges abroad that Imperial Britain still held a form of masonic sovereignty, Edward convened a special Jubilee Grand Lodge in 1897, with his brother Arthur (Duke of Connaught) and his son Albert (Duke of Clarence) in attendance (see plate 14).

A few years earlier, steps had been taken to clear the field of any potential opposition from supporters of the Royal House of Stuart, which had been responsible for the dissemination of traditional Scots (Ecossais) Freemasonry in France and other parts of Europe from 1688. Even from as late as 1733, some while after the foundation of premier Grand Lodge, there are records of Ecossais high degrees and Scots Masters at the Devil’s Tavern lodge, Temple Bar, in London.14 And, perhaps surprisingly for the Victorian era, the Jacobite Cycle of the White Rose (see page 81) had been revived in 1886 by Bertram, 5th Earl of Ashburnham. His colleagues in this were Melville Henri Massue, 9th Marquis de Ruvigny, along with the Celtic language authority Henry Jenner FSA, the writer and press correspondent Herbert Vivian, and the Hon Stuart Erskine.

The Jacobite Peerage, compiled by Melville de Ruvigny, relates that in the autumn of 1886, a select number of prominent people were sent elaborately sealed pamphlets from the White Rose (a traditional emblem of James II, Duke of York) marked ‘Private and Confidential’.15 The communication reads as follows:

For a long time past, it has seemed desirable that some efforts should be made to bring together those who, by hereditary descent or community of sentiment, are in sympathetic accord on the subject of history and the misfortunes of the Royal House of Stuart. It is now close to two-hundred years since the Revolution of 1688 dispossessed that House from the Throne of Great Britain. The chivalrous devotion of so many Englishmen and Scotsmen to that House, which they regarded as their lawful Sovereign, has never received a fitting tribute of respect and honour from those who, with an affectionate intensity, admire and reverence the disinterested loyalty of the noble men and women who freely gave up life and fortune for a Sacred Cause.

This approach by mail gave rise to a number of supportive replies, and plans were made for a grand Stuart Exhibition in London. Relics and relevant documents arrived from all over Britain, and arrangements were made to hold the display at the New Gallery in 1889 to mark the bicentenary of Stuart exile. By 1887, plans were under way, and two years later the Exhibition took place—but it was not sponsored by the White Rose as originally planned. Instead, by way of a strategic manoeuvre of the Imperial court, the patronage was taken over by Queen Victoria herself. Notwithstanding Lord Ashburnham’s leadership of the White Rose, the Queen appointed him president of the display, but retained her own control by excluding Ruvigny, Erskine, Vivian and Jenner. This was particularly hard on Henry Jenner who, as Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, had been responsible for the Exhibition’s manuscript collection, much of which was never seen again by the respective owners.

Aided in France by Marie, dowager Countess of Caithness, plans had been made by Anne, Duchess of Roxburghe (Mistress of Robes for the Queen), and others to organize a coinciding event in Scotland. Charles Benedict Stuart, 4th Count of Albany in descent from Prince Charles Edward, was invited to attend from Italy, but was found dead soon afterwards. The circumstances were suspicious, and there was a common belief that he had been murdered.16 Charles had supposedly fallen from his horse, but Father Torquato Armellini (Postulator of the Jesuits in Rome) maintained that his demise was in no way consistent with the presumed fall. In fact, the post-mortem examination revealed that Charles had died from suffocation.17

The 1904-21 Jacobite Peerage relates that the Stuart documents which disappeared after the Exhibition were not the only such papers to go missing in the Hanoverian era. In 1817 (during the reign of King George III), a Dr Robert Watson purchased a collection of manuscripts concerning the Stuart dynasty. He bought them in Rome, where they had been the property of Cardinal Henry Stuart, the younger brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Watson paid £23.00 sterling (equivalent to about £1,000 today), and prepared to publish the contents, but the files were seized and taken to London. Some time later, he received an ex gratia payment from Westminster for having been deprived of his property. Not content with this, he pursued his right to the collection—but he too was found mysteriously dead (supposedly having committed suicide) in 1838. The papers have never since appeared in the public domain, and their whereabouts remain a matter of conjecture.

Subsequent to the Exhibition fiasco, Ruvigny, Vivian and Erskine founded the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1892, they attempted to lay a wreath at the Charing Cross statue of King Charles I in London, but were again blocked by Queen Victoria, who sent ‘a considerable detachment of police’ to obstruct the ceremony. In the wake of this, Herbert Vivian spent much of his time abroad as foreign news correspondent for the Morning Post, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express. Henry Jenner, a constant protagonist of the Celtic realms, wrote his noted Handbook of the Cornish Language, and became a Bard of the Breton Gorsedd, promoting the culture and arts of Brittany. Lord Ashburnham and the Marquis de Ruvigny also departed from the political stage to direct their future interests towards chivalric endeavours. In 1908, Ruvigny became Grand Master of the Stuart Order of the Realm of Sion—a continuation of Scotland’s Order of the Thistle (equivalent to England’s Order of the Garter) whose title had been usurped by the English Crown. This international organization later merged with its allies, the Knights Protectors of the Sacred Sepulchre, and the Order of the Sangréal (Holy Grail)—a long-standing dynastic Order of the Royal House of Stuart, founded in 1689.18

The Great Divide

The reign of Queen Victoria, Regina et Imperatrix, saw an amazing boom in masonic interest. In London, the number of lodges increased from 100 to 382, and the provinces showed a commensurate increase. On a global scale, English lodges numbered 2,543 throughout the British Empire by the end of the 19th century.19 Clubs and Societies multiplied considerably within Victorian middle-class society, and Freemasonry was by far the largest and most influential of these in a period when imposing masonic halls and opulent lodges were built in a number of major centres. Although not at the Jubilee Grand Lodge with Edward, Arthur and Albert in 1897, Prince Edward’s younger brother Leopold (who had died shortly before) was also a Freemason, and the Craft had become a truly royal institution. Throughout the land, masons, by definition, achieved a celebrity status, opening churches, theatres and pavilions, and Freemasonry, with openly paraded regalia, became a focus of public ceremony. The foundation stone for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon was laid with full masonic honours by William, Lord Leigh, Provincial Grand Master of Warwickshire, in 1877.20 Similar events were held to establish Truro Cathedral in 1880, and the York Institute in 1883.21 Truro was the first cathedral to be consecrated in England since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, and Prince Edward’s laying of the foundation stone led to other masonic cathedral foundations at Rochester, Peterborough and Liverpool.

Regular masonic newspapers also emerged in this era: The Freemason in 1869 and The Freemason’s Chronicle in 1875. There was nothing discreet about being a Freemason in those times—in fact, quite the opposite; it was truly a mark of social prestige. Even private groups that were in no way masonic made applications for warrants to become lodges. The Savage Club, for example—a fraternity of writers, artists and thespians of London’s bohemian sect—was consecrated at Freemasons’ Hall on 18 January 1887, with the actor Sir Henry Irving as its Treasurer.22 When French masons came to Britain, they could hardly believe the pomp and pageantry of the English institution, nor indeed the personal cost of it to members. Since the French Revolution (1789-99), such displays of class and financial status had become unfamiliar to them, while as republicans they were baffled by the apparent preoccupation with monarchy.

The French masonic journal Le Monde Maçonnique went so far as to criticize English Freemasonry for its cathedral bequests, claiming that it should concentrate rather more on moral architecture. In line with this, the Grand Orient of France asserted that the United Grand Lodge of England was like ‘a body without a soul’. In retaliation, The Freemason expressed the view that the English system was more solid and grounded than that of the French, which it described as too mystical and esoteric. There had always been differences because the Franco-Scottish system was founded on far more ancient traditions, whereas the more lately contrived English system had spent nearly two centuries endeavouring to find its feet. And it found them in what was a regeneration of medieval feudal benevolence—a realm of aristocratic and wealthy benefactors, adherents of the Empire who aspired to a popular Robin Hood image without having to steal from the rich. They were the rich.

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