"Verily we must confess that the world in those days did bring forth painful worthy men who brake with all force through darkness and barbarism and left us who succeeded to follow them."-Fama Fraternitatis R. C.

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE SECRET OF ELIZABETHAN PAPERMARKS

"If God doth grant me a long life so to complete these varied labours, it shall bee well for th' world, since I am seeking not my owne honour, but th' honor and advancement, th' dignitie and enduring good of all mankinde."-FRANCIS BACON, Biliteral Cipher, p. 98.

N the early years of the seventeenth century, a singular Brotherhood or Secret Society sprang

I

into prominence in Europe. Its founder was, until recently, believed to have been Johann Valentin Andreas, a learned monk, who, having a profound sense of the gross and innumerable evils which afflicted mankind, sought by means of a secret Fraternity to redress them.

The Brethren of the Rose and Cross, known as "The Rosecroix" or "Rosicrucians," are believed to have taken their name from their emblem of a rose combined with a cross, these two symbols, in all probability, expressing the Rosicrucian philosophy,

which, so far as we are able to judge, was a mixture of Western Christianity and Eastern Mysticism. The early history of the Fraternity is fabulous and unreliable as fabulous as that of Freemasonry, which gravely asks us to believe that Enoch was a very eminent Mason, and that a Lodge was in full activity upon the Plains of Shinar.

"There are," says Mr. A. E. Waite, "no vestiges of the Rosicrucians traceable before the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the belief in their antiquity originates in a priori, considerations which are concerned with the predilections and prejudices of thinkers, whose faith and imagination have been favoured by evolution or environment at the expense of their judgment."

In the year 1614, or thereabouts, there was published anonymously in Germany, a singular skit, in the form of a pamphlet, entitled "A Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World." In this the corrupt Age is supposed to be brought to trial by order of the God Apollo, and various remedies for the cure of its ailments and diseases are suggested by eminent classical philosophers. In an English translation of this work, which is attributed to the Rosicrucians, Sir Francis Bacon is designated as Chancellor of the Great Assize. Sir Francis Bacon is also further identified with the Fraternity by the fact that his "New Atlantis was

in after years published almost word for word by John Heydon, a mystical writer claiming to be fully acquainted with the secret cabala of Rosicrucianism. Either this was a case of literary theft, or the "New Atlantis" was really prepared in the first instance for the use of the mysterious Fraternity, and Heydon was justified in his action. As he was a highly esteemed man of good birth and education, the latter seems the preferable explanation.

The "New Atlantis" is a remarkable book, quite unlike in style to anything else amongst Bacon's acknowledged works. His chaplain, Dr. Rawley, describes it as a "fable my lord devised that he might exhibit therein a model or description of a college instituted for the interpreting of Nature and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of man." The 1638 edition of the book bears upon its title-page the imprint of a large Tudor rose, within which is a flamboyant heart. Mr. Waite states that he is in a position to affirm that the esoteric emblem of the Rosicrucian fraternity was a Tudor rose inclosing a heart impressed with a cross. The difference between the two designs is so slight that the fact of the appearance of this emblem upon "The New Atlantis cannot be dismissed as coincidence. I shall show hereafter that the woodcuts which adorn so many sixteenth and seventeenth

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century publications, are not conventional designs due to the whim or caprice of the draughtsman or the printer, but that they probably all possess pregnant meanings.

When John Heydon annexed "The New Atlantis and published it as though it were his own, he altered it in several slight but important details. The Island of the New Atlantis became the "Land of the Rosicrucians," and wherever Bacon used the term "Solomon's House," Heydon substituted "The Temple of the Rosie Cross," or some similar expression, as in the passage following:

"Amongst the excellent acts of that king one above all hath the preeminence, it was the erection and institution of an order or Society which we call 'Solomon's House' (altered by John Heydon to The Temple of the Rosie Cross'), the noblest foundation as we think that ever was upon the earth and the lanthorn of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God."

The idea that the book was no mere visionary dream, but, on the contrary, a thinly-veiled true description of the Rosicrucian fraternity was, I believe, first put forward in 1888 by Mr. W. F. C. Wigston. In the following pages I hope to produce evidence which will carry conviction of the truth of his prophecy. In 1614-1616, or thereabouts, two mysterious mani