was probably organized, although we have no recorded evidence to that effect, through the advice and instructions of Ramsay-and was a Jacobite Lodge consisting solely of the adherents and partisans of the Old Pretender. This is the most explicit instance that we have of the connection of the Stuarts with Freemasonry. It was an effort made by the adherents of that house to enlist the Order as an instrument to restore its fallen fortunes. The principal members of the Lodge were Derwentwater, Maskelyne, and Heguertly or Heguety. Of Derwentwater I have already spoken; the second was evidently a Scotchman, but the name of the third has been so corrupted in its French orthography that we are unable to trace it to its source. It has been supposed that the real name was Haggerty; if so, he was probably an Irishman. But they were all Jacobites. The Rite of Strict Observance, which at one time in the last century took so strong a hold upon the Masons of Germany, and whose fundamental doctrine was that of Ramsay-that Freemasonry was only a continuation of the Templar system—is said to have been originally erected in the interests of the Stuarts, and the Brotherhood was expected to contribute liberally to the enterprises in favor of the Pretender. Upon a review of all that has been written on this very intricate subject—the theories oftentimes altogether hypothetical, assumptions in place of facts, conjectures altogether problematical, and the grain of history in this vast amount of traditional and mythical trash so small-we may, I think, be considered safe in drawing a few conclusions. In the first place it is not to be doubted that at one time the political efforts of the adherents of the dethroned and exiled family of the Stuarts did exercise a very considerable effect on the outward form and the internal spirit of Masonry, as it prevailed on the continent of Europe. In the symbolic degrees of ancient Craft Masonry, the influence was but slightly felt. It extended only to a political interpretation of the Legend of the Master's degree, in which sometimes the decapitation of Charles I., and sometimes the forced abdication and exile of James II., was substituted for the fate of Hiram, and to a change in the substitute word so as to give an application of the phrase the "Widow's son" to the child of Henrietta Maria, the con sort of Charles I. The effect of these changes, except that of the word, which still continues in some Rites, has long since disappeared, but their memory still remains as a relict of the incidents of Stuart Masonry. But the principal influence of this policy was shown in the fabrication of what are called the "High Degrees," the "Hautes Grades" of the French. Until the year 1728 these accumulations to the body of Masonry were unknown. The Chevalier Ramsay, the tutor of the Pretender in his childhood, and subsequently his most earnest friend and ardent supporter, was the first to fabricate these degrees, although other inventors were not tardy in following in his footsteps. These degrees, at first created solely to institute a form of Masonry which should be worked for the purpose of restoring the Pretender to the throne of his ancestors, have most of them become obsolete, and their names alone are preserved in the catalogues of collectors; but their effect is to this day seen in such of them as still remain and are practiced in existing Rites, which have been derived indirectly from the system invented in the Chapter of Clermont or the Château of St. Germain. The particular design has passed away but the general features still remain, by which we are enabled to recognize the relicts of Stuart Masonry. As to the time when this system first began to be developed there can be but little doubt. We must reject the notion that James II. had any connection with it. However unfitted he may have been by his peculiar temperament from entering into any such bold conspiracy, the question is set at rest by the simple fact that up to the time of his death there was no Masonic organization upon which he or his partisans could have acted. His son the Chevalier St. George was almost in the same category. He is described in history as a prince—pious, pacific and without talents, incapable of being made the prominent actor in such a drama, and besides, Speculative Masonry had not assumed the proportions necessary to make it available as a part of a conspiracy until long after he had retired from active life to the practice of religious and recluse habits in Rome. But his son Charles Edward, the Young Pretender as he was called, was of an ardent temperament; an active genius, a fair amount of talent, and a spirit of enterprise which well fitted him to accept the place assigned him by Ramsay. Freemasonry had then begun to excite public attention, and was already an institution that was rapidly gaining popularity. Ramsay saw in it what he deemed a fitting lever to be used in the elevation of his patron to the throne, and Prince Charles Edward with eagerness met his propositions and united with him in the futile effort. To the Chevalier Ramsay we must attribute the invention of Stuart Masonry, the foundations of which he began to lay early in the 18th century, perhaps with the tacit approval of the Old Pretender. About 1725, when the first Lodge was organized in Paris, under some illegitimate authority, he made the first public exposition of his system in the Scottish High Degrees which he at that time brought to light. And finally the workings of the system were fully developed when the Young Pretender began his unsuccessful career in search of a throne, which once lost was never to be recovered. This conspiracy of Ramsay to connect Freemasonry with the fortunes of the Stuarts was the first attempt to introduce politics into the institution. To the credit of its character as a school of speculative philosophy, the attempt proved a signal failure. CHAPTER XXXI THE JESUITS IN FREEMASONRY HE opinion has been entertained by several writers of eminence that the Company of Jesus, more briefly styled the Jesuits, sought, about the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, to mingle with the Freemasons and to bend the objects of that Institution to the ambitious designs of their own Order. This view has been denied by other writers of equal eminence, though it is admitted that Roman Catholic, if not Jesuitical, features are to be found in some of the high degrees. It is contended by one German writer that the object of the Jesuits in seeking a control of the Masonic Institution was that they might be thus assisted in their design of establishing an aristocracy within themselves, and that they sought to accomplish this object by securing not only the direction of the Masonic Lodges, but also by obtaining a monopoly of the schools and churches, and all the pursuits of science, and even of business. But the more generally accepted reason for this attempted interference with the Lodges is that they thus sought by their influence and secret working to aid the Stuarts to regain the throne, and then, as an expected result, to re-establish the Roman Catholic religion in England. The first of these explanations is certainly more satisfactory than the second. While there is a great want of historical testimony to prove that the Jesuits ever mingled with Freemasonry-a question to be hereafter decided-there is no doubt of the egotistical and ambitious designs of the disciples of Loyola to secure a control of the public and private affairs of every government where they could obtain a foothold. It was a knowledge of these designs that led to the unpopularity of the Order among even Catholic sovereigns and caused its total suppression, in 1773, by Pope Clement XIV., from which it was not relieved until 1814, when their privileges were renewed by Pope Pius VII. But I think that we must concur with Gadeike in the conclusion to which he had arrived, that it is proved by history to be a falsehood that Freemasonry was ever concealed under the mask of Jesuitism, or that it derived its existence from that source.1 It is, however, but fair that we should collate and compare the arguments on both sides. Robison, who, where Masonry was concerned, could find a specter in every bush, is, of course, of very little authority as to facts; but he may supply us with a record of the opinions which were prevalent at the time of his writing. He says that when James II. fled from England to France, which was in 1688, his adherents took Freemasonry with them to the continent, where it was received and cultivated by the French in a manner suited to the tastes and habits of that people. But he adds that "at this time, also, the Jesuits took a more active hand in Freemasonry than ever. They insinuated themselves into the English Lodges, where they were caressed by the Catholics, who panted after the re-establishment of their faith, and tolerated by the Protestant royalists, who thought no concession too great a compensation for their services. At this time changes were made in some of the Masonic symbols, particularly in the tracing of the Lodge, which bear evident marks of Jesuitical interference." " Speaking of the High Degrees, the fabrication of which, however, he greatly antedates, he says that "in all this progressive mummery we see much of the hand of the Jesuits, and it would seem that it was encouraged by the church."" But he thinks that the Masons, protected by their secrecy, ventured further than the clergy approved in their philosophical interpretations of the symbols, opposing at last some of "the ridiculous and oppressive superstitions of the church," and thus he accounts for the persecution of Freemasonry at a later period by the priests, and their attempts to suppress the Lodges. The story, as thus narrated by Robison, is substantially that which has been accepted by all writers who trace the origin of Freemasonry 1 "Freimaurer Lexicon," art. Jesuiten." 8 Ibid., p. 30. 4 Ibid. |