“By the Solemn Act of Union between the two “Grand Lodges of Free-Masons of England”, in December 1813, it was ‘declared and pronounced that pure Antient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more, viz., those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.”
The Premier Grand Lodge at York went further; that until quite recently the earliest allusion to Royal Arch Masonry at York was to be found in the “Treasurer’s Book of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons” commencing April 29, 1768; but the fortunate discovery of Messrs Whytehead and Todd in 1879 now enables us to trace the degree back to February 7, 1762. Passing over the mention of the Royal Arch by the “Atholl” Masons in 1752, the next in order of priority is the precious little volume at York… Its chief value consists in being the earliest records of a Chapter, including a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, known.” Full particulars of this valuable minute book will be found in Mr Whytehead’s article, entitled “The Royal Arch at York.” Hughan, who has carefully examined the volume, does not consider that it could have been the first record of the Royal Arch at York, though it is the earliest preserved. The meetings are described as those of a “Lodge ” – not a “Chapter “- up to April 29, 1768; and the association, though evidently an offshoot of Lodge No. 259 at the “Punch Bowl,” the chief officer “P.H.”) in 1762 being Frodsham, who was the first Master of that Lodge, it gradually obtained the support of the York Grand Lodge, and ultimately developed into a Grand Chapter for that degree. The special value of the volume is its record of the warrants granted to Royal Arch Chapters in the neighbourhood of York, the first of which was petitioned for on December 28, 1769, being the date of the earliest issued by the “Grand Chapter in London” Moderns ), which was granted on February 7, 1770. The book ends on January 6, 1776.
Four Royal Arch warrants at least were granted, and probably more.
1. Ripon,Agreed to February 7, 1770.
2. Crown” Inn, Knaresborough,.m April 1770.
3. Inniskilling Regiment of Dragoons, ” October 1770.
4. “Druidical” Chapter, Rotherham, 0 February 25, 1780.
These Chapters appear to have been held under the protecting wings of Craft Lodges, as in the custom now-three out of the four preserving a connection with the Premier York Grand Lodge. The degree was conferred at York on brethren hailing from Hull, Leeds, and other towns, which suggests that a knowledge of Royal Arch Masonry even at that period was far from being confined to the schismatics of London. The officers of the ” Grand Lodge of all England ” were elected ” Masters of this Royal Arch Chapter whenever such Presiding Officers shall be members hereof. In case of default, they shall be succeeded by the senior members of the Royal Arch Chapter (May 2, 1779).” The only copy of a York charter (R. A.) known and was issued on July 6, 1780, to members of the ‘ Druidical Lodge of Ancient York Masons at Rotherham,” under the seal of the Mother Grand Lodge of all England.
A unique meeting of the Royal Arch degree took place on May 27, 1778, in York Cathedral, and is thus described: The Royal Arch Brethren whose names are undermentioned assembled in the Ancient Lodge, now a sacred Recess within the Cathedral Church of York, and then and there opened a Chapter of Free and Accepted Masons in the Most Sublime Degree of Royal Arch. The Chapter was held, and then closed in usual form, being adjourned to the first Sunday in June, except in case of Emergency.” This Assembly has supplied the text or basis for the tradition that the Premier Grand Lodge in olden time was in the habit of holding its august assemblies in the crypt of the venerated Minster at York.
On June 2, 1780, the Grand Chapter resolved that “the Masonic Government, Anciently established by the Royal Edwin, and now existing at York under the title of The Grand Lodge of All England, comprehending in its nature all the different Orders or Degrees of Masonry, very justly claims the subordination of all other Lodges or Chapters of Free and Accepted Masons in this Realm.” The degrees were five in number, viz.: the first three, the Royal Arch, and that of Knight Templar. The Grand Lodge, on June 20, 1780, assumed their protection, and its minute-book was utilised in part for the preservation of the records of the Royal Arch and Knight Templar Degrees. Hughan considers that the draft of a certificate preserved at York for the five degrees of January 26, 1779, to November 29, 1779, “is the oldest dated reference that we know of Knight Templar in England.”
Of the Encampments warranted by the Grand Lodge of all England for the “Fifth Degree,” i.e., the Knight Templar, I know but of two, viz.:
K. T. Encampment, Rotherham, July 6, 1780
Do., No. 15, Manchester, October 10, 1786
What ultimately became of the first mentioned is unknown, but the second seems to have joined the Grand Encampment held in London, under Thomas Dunkerley, Grand Master, the charter bearing date May 20, 1795.
The dissimilarity of approach to grounds for membership between the Premier Grand Lodge at York and the new organization at London was not simply a matter of spiritual emphasis. What it is important to recognise, however, is to underline the spiritual aspects of the Premier Grand Lodge at York it must not be imagined that these led only to private and individual consequences. The members of the Premier Grand Lodge at York were not just Masons but significant members of the local community. What they believed and practised was bound to have an effect on their daily surroundings. Even we, in our present rituals, are constantly reminded that we are to act and behave towards others “as men and as Masons.”
Since what we are talking about here, however, is somewhat unknown to any present-day audience it will, perhaps, be useful if we first sketch in the background to this Grand Assembly which does not fit into our usual understanding of the early English Craft. Conditioned as we like many others for much of our Masonic careers regard the events of 1723 in London as the starting point for all Freemasonry, it is a revelation to discover that what a Dr. Plot had said about the spread of Freemasonry across England in the 17th century was apparently based on fact. In Chester, York in Chichester and Staffordshire, to name but a few places, there was clearly an ancestry of Freemasonry that was associated with both working and non-working masons during the previous century. In York we have definite evidence of a Masons’s Guild lodge in 1663 and persons connected with that Grand Assembly are linked by family with the Lodge whose continuous Minute books are known to have existed from at least 1705. What is more the Lodge that then emerges is also no longer a Lodge associated only with the stonemasons’ trade though members of that trade continue as members of it.
When, in fact, we read the first extant minutes of the Grand Lodge at York two things immediately strike us as odd. The first is that this Lodge is headed not by a Master but by a President who is a non-regular attendee, and this President is provided with a Deputy whose task is to rule over the Lodge in his absence. The other feature is that already, after 1705, this Grand Lodge is acting as more than merely a private lodge. It possesses its own collection of Old Charges and claims the right to authorize men, albeit gentlemen, to form themselves into attached extensions of the York Lodge in the towns of Bradford and Scarborough. In effect this Assembly at York is acting as did the previous operative Grand Lodge North of the River Trent, which exercised authority over units of working stonemasons in that area. It is features such as these, which illustrate the Lodge’s claim to be also a Grand Lodge even before its overt proclamation of such a status at a later date. What is also clear is that this Grand Lodge does not derive its existence from any other body than itself. It is sui generis and sui juris. It is also going to persist for most of the 18th century. With that brief background let us begin to address the main theme of my paper, the ritual form and spirit of this Grand Lodge of All England, and the natural starting place has to do with the 2 principal days of its regular meeting. During its lifetime, and prominently marked with special decoration in the Minutes, are the arrangements made for the two Saints Days of St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist. These two traditional holy days of the Masons’ Craft are chosen, to the precise dates, as those on which either the Installing or Re-Installing of the President of the Grand Lodge should take place or as a day of special commemoration and festival.
Not only are the days marked with worship in the church in Coney Street, where a sermon was to be preached by the Grand Chaplain, but a solemn procession was formed of the members in their Lodge regalia with their banners, the President walking behind, flanked by the clergy present. They all processed later to a larger guildhall where a banquet was provided with representatives of York’s daughter lodges also being requested to be in attendance for these sacred days. It is also worth remarking that ladies and non-masons also came to the banquet.
It might be contended that there is nothing really unusual in what has just been said for many other lodges in 18th century England are known to have followed such a practice. Yet it is the Grand Lodge of All England that maintains the double festival. The inference of this is that in York an earlier form of Masonic Guild usage was considered to be essential. It was one that ensured allegiance to the Craft’s ancient and saintly patrons.
This observation leads us on to another. Because the York Grand Lodge was the product of development from a Guild Lodge but no longer had a parent Guild since the working masons had created another York Company for their trade in 1671, it had to recreate a basis for its authority and activity as a lodge of Masons. The way to do this was to take over the Old Charges that had hitherto served as the ground for holding a trade company and apply them ‘symbolically’ to their new situation.
That is why, when the request for each new lodge elsewhere in the North was addressed to York, the first requirement was for the Assembly to be willing to abide by, and swear the allegiance of its members on, a copy of the Old Charges. We even know that when any such lodge ceased to work their copy of the Old Charges was returned to York.
This is significant because of what we know happened in London in 1722. George Payne, the then Deputy Grand Master of the London organization, produced the Old Charges in the copy called the Cooke MS. that had been used in his native city of Chester in the 17th century. He charged Dr. Anderson to take careful notice of such a document and those like it because on such documents and their contents any new Constitutions ought to be based. They were, he implied, essential if we were to be true descendants of Ancient Masonry.
What we find in York right up to the end of the 1790s is that it was the York Charges, of which we still have 5 extant original copies, that were used in the ritual of this Grand Lodge. Yet their use was distinctive as I will now explain. When there was a 17th century Guild Lodge in York attached to the Masons’ Company every person who was admitted to the Lodge had to belong to one of two categories.
Either they were working stonemasons who were Freeman of their Trade or they were Freemen of some other Trade who were ‘accepted’ as members of the Freemasons’ lodge. When they were admitted to the Freemasonry of a Lodge they were acknowledged as those who had already passed through the ‘apprenticeship’ of their Trade and so they were at once made Fellows. If they were not of the stonemasons’ trade they would first be asked to assent to the Craft Old Charges, which the working masons would have done already in their Guild Court. Both they and the working mason members would then have to take another solemn obligation regarding the secrets of Freemasonry to which initiation would introduce them. This obligation was taken on the Bible open at the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel, another pointer to one of the Craft’s patron Saints. Initiation was first effected by exchanging a word, grip and token, robbing the candidate in a symbolic apron. The ceremony then continued by conveying the history and esoteric meanings of the items used to illustrate Masonic principles by question and answer, the R.W.M. addressing the Lodge members in turn.
When the Trade Company and its attached Lodge were separated before the end of the 17th century certain new practices began to be required. As the lodge was no longer attached to a recognised Trade Guild it could not insist that all its applicants for initiation were of the same civic status as before. The astonishing thing is that in the case of the Grand Lodge of All England at York this status of Freeman in some trade was still the norm throughout its whole existence, save for one new category. That was the
inclusion of the gentry or of the lesser nobility. The result was clearly demonstrated in the address of 1725 by Dr. Francis Drake when he alluded to three types of members in the Grand Lodge. The first were the working stonemasons, the second were the other trades or professions and the third were the gentlemen.
Because there were now those seeking entry to Freemasonry who had not been apprenticed in any trade a form of admittance to that status had to be introduced. Non-Freemen and the gentry were now made apprentices symbolically but initially, up to 1770, this was not done on a separate evening. Such candidates for Masonry were made an apprentice and a Fellow on the same occasion. What is more, even when there was pressure at last to make someone an apprentice on a separate evening the lodge was still opened in the Fellow grade. For York there was never a separate opening or closing in an Apprentice degree. The old Masons of York were maintaining their ancient usage. When you joined Freemasonry you were a Fellow and I must add that the Scottish term ‘fellowcraft’ never entered the York working. Conservatism also revealed itself in the fact that if men could apply to join Freemasonry in the Grand Lodge at York this did not automatically entitle them to membership of the Lodge. What happened at their initiation was that they became Freemasons. Another vote on another evening decided whether they were fit and proper persons to be admitted as full members of the Lodge. The old distinction between men being made ‘Masons’ and being ‘accepted’ into a specific Lodge was retained.
As the 18th century progressed the extent of the information that was to be imparted steadily grew. It became so extended that two things happened. A new degree of Master Mason was formed but on a different day, with a separate vote for admission and with the use of new lectures expanding older material. After 1760 this was developed further and instead of their mention in the catechisms separate degrees of Royal Arch and Knights Templar were introduced but again with strict rules for their conferral. These latter steps were only available for those who had passed through the Craft chair. Again the lectures or catechisms which formed the main core of the ceremonies became so complex that a special jewel was donated to this Grand Lodge for the Past Master who gave the best rendition of these lectures each year.
We note that the spiritual ethos of this Premier Grand Lodge was clearly conservative in tone even if that was not the political outlook of its several members. What we know from a careful examination of its membership lists is that so orthodox was its Christian orientation that Anglicans felt quite at home there but Non-Jurors and Catholics were also quite happy to be numbered in its ranks. When we look at the names of Vavasour, Stapleton, Fairfax, Gascoigne and Tempest we are in the presence of local gentry whose family roots straddle the Reformation era as well as determining their social and political viewpoints. In the content of the ceremonies as also in the acknowledged antiquity of the institution they and the brethren they met there shared a common respect for Tradition. That is why, despite the growing influence of the new organization at London as the century developed, the York brethren insisted on retaining a format and substance of work, which was truly Ancient.
Nothing so defines the Grand Lodge of All England at York as the lectures or catechisms to which it so zealously conformed. When, bending to some influence from the age, it was felt more useful to categorize the teaching contained in what York regarded as the whole Craft system in a series of 5 degrees known as the York Rite it was still by using the catechetical method that it worked.
Here are three passages from what we know were the Lectures’ contents after 1760. Such extracts will best convey the spirit of what is a somewhat better known 18th century Masonic institution.
1st Degree:
“Q. What are the ornaments of the Lodge?
A. The mosaic pavement, the blazing star and the indented or tasselated border.
Q. Why the blazing star or glory?
A. Because it refers to that grand luminary the sun which enlightens the earth …. is also the emblem of prudence, which is the first and most exalted object that demands our attention …. though we apply this emblem to a still more religious import. It may be said to represent that star which led the wise men from the East to Bethlehem, proclaiming to mankind the nativity of the Son of God and here conducting our spiritual progress to the author of our Redemption.”
2nd Degree:
“Q. Please inform me how the names of the 2 great Pillars originated?
A. After Noah had built the pillar or altar of sacrifice upon his coming out of the Ark, and received the blessing of God on the spot he called it ‘Jakin’ which signifies ‘Established’ in commemoration of the rainbow which God established in the Heavens, and 3 times declared It to be so established… Some years after this the noble and godly Boaz erected 2 famous pillars on his own estate in the land of Bethlehem, the one he called J. after the name of the famous pillar and the other he called by his own name, being that of the great grandfather of K.S.
Q. What enriched them? The network, which from the connection of its meshes denotes unity and furthermore alludes to a saying of our Saviour’s to Simon Peter and Andrew, his brother, ‘Leave your
nets and follow me and I will henceforth make you fishers of men’.”
3rd Degree:
“Q. What was the Grand Secret that the noble Prince Adoniram, nephew to King Solomon and brotherin-law to Hiram Abi, communicated to the perfect Master Masons at Jerusalem?
A. The Grand Word that Moses engraved on the triple triangular plate of gold in Hebrew characters on the sacred mount. From this Grand and Sacred Word proceed the nine names by which the Almighty was pleased to distinguish himself and everyone of those names has a reference to the 9 attributes which serve as the distinguishing characteristic of Free and Accepted Masons …. (and finally reverting to an older, verse form of presentation):
Q. Who laid the foundation stones of Faith? (The names of first, Abraham on Mount Moriah, and second, Jacob asleep at Bashan, are mentioned and then this section closes with the third & fourth:)
A. “On the Jebusite’s threshing floor
David erected an altar pure,
Calling upon the Lord Most High
That he to him would show mercy.
Q. Since you have explained me Three
Pray tell me whom the fourth may be?
A. Christ the Lord for lo, t’is said
Before the Jews from Egypt’s land were led
A Saviour unto them was promised
That who believed in him should happy be
Both in this world and in eternity,
Then brethren, all pray celebrate his name,
He is our Saviour and Zion’s Mighty King.”
Do you now wonder why the old Grand Lodge of All England at York Masons never really thought the Mystery Plays had finished? They were still being played here.
