history 14

HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

CHAPTER XIV

by H.L. Haywood

THE GREAT DIVISION

IT is a maxim of correct military strategy that no army invading

strange territory is safe when it leaves unreduced in its rear an

enemy stronghold. However sharply invested by besiegers, such a

focal point of opposition forms a constant menace, particularly

threatening if things should go wrong at the front of invasion. If

there are several of them in occupied territory, the slightest

relaxation of vigor or vigilance upon the art of the conqueror may

be the signal for an uprising of formidable proportions. Because it

over-looked this contingency, or at least was unable to provide

against it, the new Grand Lodge was compelled to enter into a

struggle for Masonic supremacy which covered practically the

whole of its first century, and from which it emerged half

victorious and half vanquished.

Speculative Masonry was in a real sense an invasion of territory

which Operative Masonry had occupied from time immemorial. It

was not invited into that field by general suffrage of the operative

bodies. By no stretch of the imagination could the Four Old

Lodges of London claim power of attorney to act for the whole

Craft, to sign away, devise or bequeath the rights of sister lodges.

When the Grand Lodge in 1717 drew up a decree forbidding

Masons to assemble as Lodges without its express license, it

arrogated to itself an empery which it could hope to maintain only

by the law of adverse possession and by the exercise of such moral

and spiritual forces as it could bring to bear against any and every

contender. Conceivably, what it had done others might do, and it

would be required to look to its own defenses whenever its

authority should be challenged.

It began, however, with great advantages. The four, original

constituent lodges were situated at the capita of the nation. They

were united for a common purpose and thus formed the strongest

Masonic unit then in existence. They left the door wide open for

other lodges to enter, whenever they might choose to do so. There

was, to be sure, an admittance fee to be paid at the gate. This was

nothing less than formal surrender of sovereignty to the Grand

Lodge, by the terms of which the petitioning body should

acknowledge itself as forever afterwards existing by means of the

Grand Lodge's warrant. But of far greater importance was the fact

that the Grand Lodge could create at the most considerable center

of population and influence in the Kingdom as many new lodges as

it pleased - create them, too, at a time when the popularity of the

institution was so great that throngs of eager applicants were

forever besieging its portals. By the simple expedient of refusing to

regard "regular" all lodges which refused to conform, and thereby

stamping their members with the stigma of clandestinism, the new

organization clothed itself in armor of steel. Having seized

sovereign power, it invited all Masons to submit thereto, but the

invitation was such as dictators habitually extend, since unpleasant

consequences were in store for all who refused to accept.

The first Grand Lodge was the creature of the Four Old Lodges,

but once created it in turn became creator. All regular Grand

Lodges since that time have come into existence in much the same

way. Stripped to essentials, a Grand Lodge is simply a piece of

machinery whereby the will of its constituent lodges is expressed.

Having brought it into being, those bodies voluntarily accept its

authority and acknowledge its sovereignty. That surrender once

made is irrevocable without the Grand Lodge's consent - a consent

which, by the way, is usually given only for the purpose of

allowing a member lodge to help establish a new Grand Lodge.

Henceforth each constituent lodge, whatever may have been its

previous character or the nature of antecedent allegiances,

continues to exist only by virtue of the charter or dispensation it

has received in return for its surrender. New lodges, of course,

come into existence only by its fiat and are its creatures from the

beginning. This is now a self-perpetuating system which has

worked admirably in practice, but in the first quarter of the

eighteenth century it was a hitherto untried experiment.

The position of the Grand Lodge in the years 1717-23 was

somewhat analogous to that of a revolutionary junta which has

seized the capital of a nation, run up its flag and invited the whole

country to come in or be shot. In this case, a very important section

of the country welcomed the enterprise as giving promise of a

stable and satisfactory government where all before had been

anarchy and confusion. But there were those who preferred the

confusion of the old regime to the orderliness of the new. Some of

these made a grudging, half-hearted submission which permitted

them to enter the new organization and at the same time to

maintain within it a faction of opposition and dissent. Still others

refused to have anything whatever to do with it. A few of both

classes waited in sullen silence until they might have opportunity

to raise under aggressive leadership the standard of counter-

revolution.

It was not possible for the prime movers to iron out all such

difficulties as they went along. The best they could do was to trust

to the counsels of expediency, feeling their way forward almost

from day to day, strengthening themselves as opportunity served.

When they encountered an obstacle they could not remove they

simply went around it. Of all obstacles the chief one was that

innate conservatism, that hostility change, which has always been

one of the most striking characteristics of Freemasonry.

The student who would get a true sense of what the movement

involved must bear that conservatism always in mind and,

furthermore, must remember that Operative Masonry was very

largely in the keeping of Britons of the mechanical trades,

traditionally stubborn and tenacious in respect of old privileges and

rights. The whole trend of the movement itself was toward taking

control of the institution out of their hands and giving it over to an

aristocracy of birth and learning. Moreover, in furtherance of that

tendency it was proposed to make radical alterations in the body of

Masonry itself - such alterations were, in fact necessary if the basis

was to be shifted from its operative to its philosophical phases and

if it was to be converted into a social organization for the

amusement and instruction of persons of culture. Although it was

never intended to do more than rearrange old customs to make

them adaptable to new purposes, a certain amount of innovation

was inescapable. Since every innovation was certain to encounter

resistance, the task the reformers had. set themselves was bound in

the nature of things to be exceedingly difficult.

So it proved in the event . They began by making full allowance

for the tender susceptibilities of the elder operative brethren. It was

perhaps this that led them to the choice of Anthony Sayer for the

first Grand Master, and to the selection of operatives, or at least of

mechanics, for the early Grand Wardens. From the difficulties in

which Sayer ultimately involved himself it is apparent that even he

was but a half-hearted convert. Only a few years after the Grand

Lodge had claimed exclusive authority for constituting new lodges,

Sayer was found disregarding that fundamental law of modern

Masonry to such extent that he was summoned to appear and make

satisfactory amends for contumacy. If Sayer, who had been

honored with the Grand Mastership, was so careless of Grand

Lodge discipline, it may be assumed that others were even more

contemptuous of it.

Maintaining discipline was indeed the hardest task with which the

new body was confronted. How hard was it is shown by the

remarkable course which the Duke of Wharton pursued in

obtaining the Grand Mastership. Montagu had been so successful

in his administration in 1721 that the more influential brethren

wished to keep him in office for the ensuing year. Accordingly the

annual feast at which a new choice was to be made was postponed.

But Wharton, recently made a Mason, although not a Master of a

Lodge, summoned a number of Masons to meet him at Stationers'

Hall on June 24, 1722. No Grand Officers were there, so this group

called upon the oldest Master Mason present to preside. Wharton

was then declared elected Grand Master of Masons.

These proceedings were so grossly irregular that many

distinguished brethren refused to have anything to do with the

pretensions of Wharton. Nevertheless Montagu, wishing to

preserve peace at any price, summoned the Grand Lodge to meet

on January 17, 1723, when Wharton, after he had promised to be

"true and faithful" was "proclaimed" Grand Master in proper form.

The Earl of Dalkeith was formally elected Grand Master on April

25 and was proclaimed on June 24, 1723.

By this time the Grand Lodge had been strengthened by the

adherence of not fewer than twenty-five lodges, since that number

sent representatives to the January convocation. Others there were,

however, which not only refused to acknowledge its authority but

actually flouted it. At least one of these set itself up in 1725 as a

Grand Lodge in its own right, with full power to license and

constitute new lodges. This was an immemorial body which sat at

York; an account of its action will appear more fully in another

part of the present narrative.

After the election of Montagu, no further attempt to have been

made to curry favor with operative brethren by appointing them to

high office. Indeed the institution was rapidly becoming an

aristocratic one in personnel as well as in ideals, and it felt itself

strong enough to go forward on the new course it had marked out

for itself. That was the year in which Anderson prepared the first

draft of his Constitutions and in which Desaguliers was busiest at

his revision of the ritual. The reception which Anderson's

manuscript met was a stormy one - so stormy, in fact, that after

receiving it the Grand Lodge seems to have been in no great rush

to print and circulate it. When finally it should appear in its 1738

form, it was to precipitate a greater conflict which for long had

been impending.

Whatever it was that Desaguliers, did to the ritual, there can be no

doubt that the changes then proposed were so drastic that a

majority of the lodges was inclined to hold aloof from them.

Although they may have been exemplified in Grand Lodge itself -

especially that part of them which comprised the Third Degree -

they do not seem to have been in common practice in the lodge

rooms for some eight or ten years. Nevertheless they must have

been widely discussed. Freemasonry had become so popular in

London that all sorts of men wished to identify themselves with it.

Those who could not get in by the door were strongly disposed to

slip in, if they could, by the window. Numerous clandestine lodges

were formed; there were "exposures" of the secret work and one

book, called Masonry Dissected, purported to disclose all the

secret work. It has been suggested that the revelations of this

publication were so near the truth that Grand Lodge took alarm and

hastened to change the ritual on that account. How much

plausibility can be attached to that theory it is now impossible to

say. Certainly there were alterations in the method of installing the

Worshipful Master; the Third Degree was rearranged; the

symbolical preparation of candidates was modified, there were

transfers of parts between the First degree and the Second and

operative practices were submitted to a general overhauling and

revision.

No doubt much of this remodeling was necessary, but it led to one

profound disadvantage. It subjected to the charge of innovation

those who had been responsible for it. Innovation is and always has

been an ugly word to Masonic ears. In a world of change

Freemasonry has always been proud of its stability. Its boast is that

it has always remained constant to its own inner light; that its

practices are hallowed by the undeviating course of the Craftsmen

as they have followed one another all down through the centuries.

What might be considered a trivial departure in almost any other

human institution would be regarded in Masonry as shaking the

very foundations upon which it is built. Upon this rock of faithful

adherence to what is tried and approved it has built its house and

woe unto that man or set of men who would try to pull one stone

out of its assigned place in that structure!

It was very well for the new Grand Lodge to say it had not in fact

brought novelty into the institution; that it had merely re-

interpreted what had always been there. The country was full of

elder brethren who would accept no such explanation; who would

be willing to follow any leader who raised the battle cry of "No

Innovation!" even though he might himself be as flagrant in

innovation as those whom he condemned. That cry soon was to be

raised and it was to throw the Craft into a convulsion from which it

would not recover in more than a generation. In the evolution of

Freemasonry changes had to come, but it was inevitable that there

should be trouble in store for those through whom they came.

Scarcely had it been discovered that the symbolism of the Third

Degree must be perfected to round out the complete cycle of

Masonic instruction when it was also discovered that the Third

Degree itself was incomplete. In simple truth, the Drama of the

Third Degree left things in a state of suspension. It had to do with

Something Which Was Lost and with a vague hint this something

at a future time might be red. What was that something? Had it

been recovered? Could it be recovered? Was the story forever to

go without a sequel? Such were the questions speculative brethren

asked themselves. Some of them in a way which is not at all clear

found the answer in the Royal Arch Degree, which began to be

practiced shortly. This practice for a long time the Grand Lodge

styled "irregular," but since lodges used it without imperilling their

Grand Lodge standing, the implied rebuke was not taken seriously.

As for other bodies without the official fold, it is reasonable to

suppose they paid little attention to a charge of "irregularity"

which could only mean they had gone a little further along the road

of innovation the Grand Lodge itself had pointed out to them.

A far more serious cause for dissension soon appeared. Operative

Masonry for as long a period as the Old Charges could indicate had

been fundamentally Christian and Trinitarian. It required of its

devotees not only belief in God but also adherence to orthodox

Christianity. That strict orthodoxy many of the eighteenth-century

liberals who were being drawn into the Fraternity could not wholly

support. Accordingly, the first paragraph of the Charges as drawn

up by Anderson appeared under the caption, "Concerning God and

Religion," and was as follows:

A Mason is oblig'd 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

charg'd 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 Denomination

or Persuasions they might be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry

becomes the Center of Union, and the means of conciliating true

Friendship among Persons that must have remain'd at a Perpetual

Distance.

No greater or more statesmanlike thing was ever written into a

Masonic document; this declaration has been the charter of

Masonic liberty and tolerance whereby it could make good its

claim of universality. Through it the orthodox and the heterodox,

the Christian, the Jew, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the

Confucianist, the Deist of the eighteenth century and the

Fundamentalist of the twentieth have been able to unite in human

service and in their common reverence for the Supreme Architect

of the Universe, however various their understandings of Him may

be. Anderson would deserve a place among Masonic immortals for

this one paragraph alone, even if he deserved it for nothing else.

Surely it must be said of him that in penning those words he caught

a truer glimpse of the inner spirit of Freemasonry than he did in all

the high-flown rhetoric of his legendary narrative.

So much of liberalism was nevertheless a bitter draught for the

conservatism of that day to swallow. Some brethren refused it

outright. The furore which arose when the document was first read

in Grand Lodge soon had the whole Craft in a state of excitement.

Historians who have ascribed the Great Division to it have gone

perhaps further than the f acts would warrant. It gave, however, a

crown to the dissent which had long existed and was still growing

and which was only awaiting the right leader to flame into open

defiance of the Grand Lodge. That leader was at hand in the person

of Laurence Dermott.

While Masonry had been developing in England under the ‘gis of

the Grand Lodge, it had been growing with almost equal popularity

in other parts of the British Isles, especially in Ireland and in

Scotland. Of the nature of the constitution of Irish lodges at that

time there is little authentic information. It is supposed, however,

that they were simple developments of the operative system,

somewhat paralleling those in England, differing in minor respects

as all operative lodges appear to have differed in different regions.

There was in London a considerable number of young Irishmen,

many of whom had no doubt been "made" in Irish lodges. It is not

unlikely that these gathered in their own Masonic organizations at

the nation's capital, and some of them no doubt were drawn into

bodies which looked askance at the course being pursued by the

lodges operating under the direction of the Grand Lodge. Among

these Irish refugees was Laurence Dermott, a painter by trade, a

man of ardent and flaming spirit, possessing literary gifts of no

mean order and withal a born organizer and leader of men.

Dermott was born in Ireland in 1720. He was made a Mason in

1740 in Lodge No. 26 of Ireland, and was installed as its Master on

June 24, 1746. Later he went to London, but he found little

fellowship among the leaders of Grand Lodge Masonry, with

whom he was soon to be in open conflict.

Kindred spirits there were in plenty, however, among the dissident

Masons who had long looked with hostility upon the trend of

Grand Lodge affairs. Some of these had already formed themselves

into Masonic groups, for which they no doubt felt they had full

authority under operative precedents. How numerous they were it

is impossible to say, but it is on record that in 1739, the year

following the publication of Anderson's revised Constitutions,

Grand Lodge too cognizance of the fact that "irregular" Masons

were being made, and warned the membership against intercourse

with these "private" lodges.

As Henry Sadler has so convincingly stated in his Masonic Facts

and Fictions, a considerable proportion of the "private" lodges was

undoubtedly made up of Irish Masons, working men for the most

part, painters, tailors, mechanics of various degrees, who were

instinctively drawn to the old operatives and as instinctively hostile

to the aristocratic tendencies then developing in Grand Lodge

circles. The customs of these bodies were closely akin to those of

the Irish lodges. They practiced the Royal Arch as a separate, or

fourth, degree; their colors, Craft warrants, Book of Constitutions,

by-laws and systems of registration differed from those used by

lodges under the English Grand Lodge, and there were numerous

other differences.

For the ten years after 1739 they seem to have grown slowly and

without a defined purpose of setting up organized opposition to the

English governing body as then constituted. They fell into a way of

alluding to themselves as York Masons, probably meaning thereby

to convey the idea that they were descended from that famous

assembly at York in the reign of Athelstan. It is quite likely that

some of the changes which had been introduced into the ritual by

Grand Lodge were designed for the purpose of making it

impossible for them to visit "regular" lodges. If so, this action

merely crystallized their opposition while it gave them the

opportunity to raise the cry, "No Innovation!"

In the year 1751 there were at least seven of these lodges in

London, acknowledging allegiance to a nebulous body which they

termed the Grand Committee. On July 17, 1751, they held an

Assembly at the Turk's Head Tavern in Greek Street, Soho, when

each Master of a subscribing lodge was authorized to grant

dispensations and warrants and act as Grand Master. By this it is

assumed that the Grand Committee exercised, as a collective body

and by majority vote, the principal functions of a Grand Lodge. It

chartered additional lodges and in 1752 Dermott was elected as its

secretary. Finally, on December 5, 1753, it met and proclaimed

itself The Grand Lodge of England According to the Old

Institutions, with Dermott filling the important post of Grand

Secretary. Thus fully organized opposition to the Grand Lodge of

England had come into being.

At the outset the new body possessed advantages which the older

Grand Lodge lacked. It was young, it was vigorous, it had no

internal feuds, and it had a rich field of discontent to exploit. It

worked four degrees instead of three and this was a lure to a degree

thirsty public. It very shrewdly attacked the old Grand Lodge for

its "innovations," although it had perforce to do so in a

Pickwickian sense, since it, too, had made innovations, if not the

same ones or to the same extent. But it cried in stentorian tones

from all the house tops that the brand of Masonry it supplied was

the only genuine Ancient variety; that what its rival offered was of

a Modern cast. It was not the first Grand Lodge in the English

field, but it was the more vociferous and more audacious in its

claims. Hence, by a truly remarkable twist of affairs, adherents of

the new Grand Lodge came to be known as "Antients" and the

supporters of the old one had to be content with being known as

the "Moderns" their opponents called them. In more dignified

Masonic parlance the new Grand Body is usually referred to as the

Atholl Grand Lodge, from the Dukes of Atholl - or Athol or Athole

as the name is variously spelled - who served it long and notably in

the Grand Master's chair.

Into the work of the new association Dermott threw himself with

the zeal of a crusader. One of the early tasks he set for himself was

the preparation of a hand book which should correspond to

Anderson's Constitutions. This he called Ahiman Rezon -meaning

Worthy Brother Secretary - with the long sub-title: or a Help to a

Brother, showing the excellency of Secrecy and the first cause or

motive of Freemasonry; the Principles of the Craft and the Benefits

from a Strict Observance thereof, etc., also the Old and New

Regulations, etc. To which is added the greatest collection of

Masons' Songs, etc. By Laurence Dermott, Secretary. It was first

published in 1756, and there were several later editions. The

Constitutions as set forth were afterwards adopted by many other

Grand Lodges, notably those of Maryland, Pennsylvania and South

Carolina. In the course of his "history," Dermott paid his respects

to the ritual of the rival Grand Lodge in the following sprightly

manner:

"About the year 1717 some joyous companions who had passed

the degree of a craft (though very rusty) resolved to form a lodge

for themselves in order (by conversation) to recollect what had

been formerly dictated to them, or if that should be found

impracticable, to substitute something new, which might for the

future pass for Masonry among themselves. At this meeting the

question was asked whether any person in the assembly knew the

Master's part, and being answered in the negative, it was resolved,

nem. con., that the deficiency should be made up, with a new

composition, and what fragments of the old order found amongst

them should be immediately reformed, and made more pliable to

the humours of the people."

Having been served by Robert Turner and Edward Vaughan as

Grand Masters from 1753 to 1756, the Antient Grand Lodge

elected the Earl of Blesington to that office in 1756. He served

until 1759 when he was succeeded by the Earl of Kelly, who

served until 1766. Thomas Mathew was Grand Master until 1771.

John, third Duke of Atholl, was Grand Master 1771 to 1774, when

he was succeeded by the fourth Duke of Atholl. From 1783 to

1791 the Earl of Antrim was Grand Master. The fourth Duke of

Atholl resumed the Chair in 1791 and served until 1813, when he

was succeeded, for a short space before the merging of the two

Grand lodges, by the Duke of Kent.

The Antients greatly strengthened their position by obtaining

Masonic recognition from the Grand Lodges of Ireland and

Scotland. Their greatest strength, however, lay in their own energy.

In 1753 they had approximately a dozen lodges but they doubled

the number in the next four years. By 1766 sixty-four others had

been enrolled and by the Union of 1813 the Atholl Grand Lodge

listed 359 supporting lodges, although some of these had become

inactive. Through the happy expedient of warranting movable

military lodges, the Antients spread their influence wherever the

British army might go. In this way Freemasonry became much

more widely distributed through the American Colonies than it

might otherwise have been. This practice was so successful that the

Moderns in time were obliged to adopt it in self -defense.

The Antients modeled their Constitutions upon those of Ireland.

The Ahiman Rezon drew heavily upon Irish Masonic literature,

although its historical account paralleled that of Anderson so

closely that no great discrepancies might be observed. The seals of

the Antients and of the Grand Lodge of Ireland were almost

identical. They used blue and gold ribbons for the seals of

warrants, a practice then employed by the Grand Lodge of Ireland

but not by the Moderns. They also employed the Irish system of

numbering loges. A record of the Grand Committee for August

1752, discloses that the by-laws of Dermott's mother lodge No. 26

on the Irish roll, were adopted by the Antients as the correct model

for Antient usage.

In the field of foreign relations, Dermott completely out-generalled

the Moderns. Not only was he instrumental in obtaining Scottish

recognition, but, with the powerful support of the third Duke of

Atholl, he secured exclusive recognition for his own body from the

Scottish Grand Lodge. Atholl was for a brief season Grand Master

of both the Scottish and the Antient Grand Lodges. Then, in 1782,

the Antients chose for their Grand Master the Earl of Antrim who

had been Grand Master of Ireland. By a diplomatic interchange of

notes it was arranged that the Irish Grand Lodge should recognize

as regular only those English Masons who could produce Antient

certificates. Later the English and Irish bodies rescinded these

actions and assumed a neutral attitude toward the contending

English factions, but meanwhile the Antients had profited

immensely by the favor shown them, since it was but reasonable to

expect that prospective Masons in England would prefer to cast

their lot with a body which could insure for them full Masonic

recognition when traveling in the sister Grand Jurisdictions.

Thus, side by side for threescore years, two Grand Lodges

continued to exist in England and to struggle for supremacy in

Scotland, Ireland and the Colonies. The differences between them

were actually not so marked as were the resemblances. On

occasion they cooperated in charitable exercises. But as time went

oil and as the harmful effects of the division became increasingly

apparent, a sentiment looking toward reunion began to grow. How

it operated to heal the breach must be reserved for another chapter.