TEN
Secrets and lies
What makes people so especially paranoid about secret societies? Is it because there are those amongst us who seriously believe that they are being excluded from something they would like to be part of? Or is it simply fear of the unknown?
In February 2002 members of the reinstated Scottish parliament were asked to reveal their links with Freemasonry. By October, members of the Scottish judiciary were being called upon to set up an independent judicial appointments board to flush out any of their number who might have links with anything considered to be vaguely subversive. To some degree this situation was instigated by Robbie the Pict, a Dunvegan-based political activist undergoing prosecution for recurrent nonpayment of Skye Bridge tolls.
The Scottish law officers who presided over his judicial hearing, Robbie maintained, were all members of the Speculative Society, a shadowy brotherhood entrenched in the Scottish Establishment. The Speculative Society, he alleged, was an unelected, secretive body of men that conspired behind closed doors to undermine the governance of the land.1 His exposé caused widespread indignation in the media, but came as something of a revelation to members of the society, who, at the time, included the author Alexander McCall Smith, the Scotch whisky writer Charles Maclean, and the maverick yachtsman Sir Maxwell Macleod, son of the founder of the Iona Community. Up until then, none of them had been aware of the immense influence they wielded.
In the 246 years of its existence, membership of the Speculative Society, an arcane all-male debating club attached to Edinburgh University, has included the writers Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, but to suggest that it was ever anything more sinister than a postgraduate forum for refugees from Edinburgh’s gin-and-bridge set was patently absurd. For those who are interested, a full list of members of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh – ‘members who have been admitted to extraordinary privileges, 1947–2000’ – is published on www.firstfoot.com/scotchmyth/ssoemembers.htm. However, back in 2002, the claims of the self-styled last Pict in Scotland were taken sufficiently seriously by certain senior opposition members of parliament, who really should have known better, for them to demand a public enquiry. When the accusations proved to be unfounded, and indeed mildly comical, the media and attendant politicians retreated into an embarrassed silence.
It was ever thus. Much of the mystique that so doggedly surrounds Rosslyn Chapel is based on similar hyperbole. Some of it inevitably originates from the St Clair family’s unlikely association with the ancient Order of Knights Templar, the clues to this allegedly being found among the carvings of the chapel’s interior; the remainder relates to the involvement of certain St Clair family members in Freemasonry, a secretive member organisation that surfaced in Scotland and Ireland during the late seventeenth century and made extensive usage of archaic Templar ritual and symbolism. From such ritual and symbolism springs a widely held theory that the cult of Freemasonry has its origins in the fourteenth century, having been devised as a vehicle to disguise the identity of the persecuted, and finally dispersed, Order of Knights Templar. The fact that such links are impossible to prove one way or the other makes the argument on the one hand all the more intriguing, but, on the other, potentially totally misleading.
So what exactly is Freemasonry? As early as 1599 collectives of artisans existed, providing a loose countrywide support network for one another. Only in the early eighteenth century, however, was the concept of a hierarchical Christian brotherhood of craftsmen spawned, culminating in the creation of a Grand Lodge. The basic underlying principle of Freemasonry today is that it is a worldwide association whose members, from many different vocations, are bound together by shared ideals of both a moral and metaphysical nature; in other words a Christian fellowship. This sounds harmless enough, but three centuries ago, when it first began to evolve into its present form in Scotland, its recruits were predominantly middle and upper class and, following the death of Queen Anne in 1714, supporters of the Jacobite cause, which inevitably gave its members a more clandestine image. Think of all those Jacobite toasts to ‘The King over the Water’.
To lend such an organisation the kind of authenticity required for it to be taken seriously, an ancient provenance was required. What more potent symbolism could there be for an exclusive Christian brotherhood to adopt than that of the creators of the Temple of Solomon? And, given that the founders of modern Irish and Scottish Freemasonry were, in many cases, military men2 – a far cry from the original membership base of humble stonemasons and carpenters that is so often claimed – what better role model could they have found than the ancient defenders of Christendom, the vanquished Order of Knights Templar?
Thus was spawned the mythology of Freemasonry, with its attendant secret handshakes, passwords and eccentric rituals. What began as an up-market, clannish social club for aristocrats and skilled individuals, perhaps not dissimilar to the Round Table movement, or the Livery Companies of the City of London, began to be seen, through the quality of its membership, as an all-powerful lobbying elite, with charitable status and international ramifications. Which, of course, was much in the tradition of the Knights Hospitaller, the Teutonic Knights, and the Knights Templar.
In the early eighteenth century, an age when knightly chivalry was still admired but rapidly making way for modern weaponry, there were those who felt a desperate need to identify with the romance of an altruistic and distant past. In modern terms, masonry, with its associations with trade skills, seems an odd hook upon which to hang the cloak for such an affiliation, but in knightly circles skill was ever of the essence, be it in the production of armoury, strategy in battle, or the creation of a fine piece of architecture. Furthermore, craft agencies flourished throughout Europe and stonemasons were in constant demand. They travelled freely, gaining employment wherever they chose to roam, and hence the term ‘free mason’ came to be employed. Indeed, in Scotland, no finer example of the skills of free masons is to be found than in the interiors of Rosslyn Chapel.
Here, however, Father Hay, as the official publicist of the St Clairs of Rosslyn, throws in a red herring, maintaining that for centuries the St Clairs of Rosslyn were recognised as hereditary Grand Masters of the Crafts and Guilds and Orders, and, finally, of the Masons of Scotland. Thus, he implies, through the influence of these various guilds, with annual meetings held at Kilwinning, the sanctity of Rosslyn, especially when under attack during the Reformation, was subtly protected.
Hay’s evidence relies on two manuscripts, which he describes as charters, but which are, in fact, letters to the 14th and 16th St Clair barons from the Freemen of the Masons and Hammermen of Scotland: the first is dated as around 1601, the second, around 1628. Both letters acknowledge the lords of Rosslyn as patrons and protectors of the deacons, masters and freemen of the masons, the second asserting that ‘whereby they [the lords of Rosslyn] had letters of protection and other rights granted by His Majesty’s most noble progenitors of worthy memory, whilk with sundrie uthir of the Lairds of Roslin, his wreats, being consumed in ane flame of fire, within the castle of Roslin’. This is an unmistakable reference to the house fire of two centuries earlier,3 and confirms that Rosslyn’s chaplain was not entirely successful in saving the family papers. However, in his 1835 introduction to Genealogie of the Sainteclaires of Rosslyn, the historian James Maidment casts doubt on the interpretation from this source that William St Clair was, in fact, the hereditary Grand Master of Scottish Masons, pointing out that ‘throughout history there has been an inability to differentiate between stone masons and freemasons, leading to a belief that the two terms are interchangeable’. On the one hand, you have skilled tradesmen; on the other, anyone from a peer of the realm to a travelling salesman. You do not have to be a stone-cutter to become a Freemason.
In his foreword to the 2002 reprint, Robert LD Cooper, Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum and Library, endorses this view. ‘Maidment considered Hay to be a propagandist’, he writes. ‘When one turns to Hay for information regarding the hypothesis mentioned earlier in this Introduction there is little or nothing in its support. When one realises that Hay had nothing whatsoever to say about the Knights Templar, Scottish Freemasonry and the Sinclair [St Clair] family’s alleged involvement with either of these bodies then it seems that he found nothing either in the family’s written history or oral traditions to substantiate such a connection.’
From a Masonic point-of-view, however, Cooper writes that Hay’s revelations were significant because they provided a connection between the St Clairs and not Freemasonry but stonemasons. Every mediaeval town had its own local craft guild, the membership of which embraced all of the town’s male inhabitants. It goes without saying that Roslin’s feudal superior, in the person of the Lord of Rosslyn, would have been Guild Patron. Cooper goes on to argue that ‘The subsequent use to which the two letters sent to Sir William by the Masons and Hammermen were put, at the founding of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736, gives an insight into the desires and aspirations of those instrumental in establishing one of the oldest existing Scottish institutions. Whilst their actions are understandable, and many would argue laudable, the consequences for Scottish Masonic history are more problematic given that subsequent writers have failed consistently to understand that those Freemasons in 1736 were intent on creating a suitable pedigree and were not concerned with historical accuracy.’ The appointment of Sir William St Clair of Rosslyn, a man of ancient and impressive lineage, as the Lodge’s first Grand Master, was a stroke of genius on the part of the innovators.
Freemasonry, already flourishing throughout Ireland, England and mainland Europe, is particularly well documented in Scotland between 1599 and the establishment of the Scottish Grand Lodge of Scotland in the eighteenth century. As early as 1600, the attendance of John Boswell, Laird of Auchinleck, is entered in the minutes of the Lodge in Edinburgh. Many noblemen joined this ancient Order, notably Sir Alexander Strachan, the King’s Master of Work. James Neilsone, Master Sklaiter – a fitter of roof slates – to ‘His Majestie’ was ‘entered and passed’ in the Lodge of Linlithgow. The minute books of a number of Scottish lodges, which are still in the Register of the Grand Lodge, go back to the seventeenth century and confirm the frequent admission of ‘speculatives’ as members and officers, especially of the venerable Mother Lodge Kilwinning, of which the Earl of Cassilis was deacon in 1672. Freemasonry thus seems to be a fairly open organisation.
There were three Head Lodges according to the Scottish Code of 1599, of which Edinburgh was ‘the first and principall’, Kilwinning, ‘the secund’, and Stirling, ‘the third ludge’.4 The Aberdeen Lodge has records dating from 1670 and notes forty-nine members. The earls of Finlater, Erroll and Dunfermline, Lord Forbes, several ministers and professional men were among them, indicating that prominent members of Scotland’s aristocracy were significantly involved. The formation of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and election of its Grand Master took place on 30 November 1736 at Lodge Canongate-Kilwinning in Edinburgh. Thirty-three lodges from all over Scotland were represented, and Sir William St Clair of Rosslyn, although not previously enrolled as a Freemason, was invited to become the Grand Lodge’s first Grand Master. The association thereafter was to become a family tradition. When Sir William died in 1778, Sir William Forbes, the then grand master paid him the following tribute, the transcript of which is to be found in the archives of the Grand Lodge of Scotland:
Of this laudable spirit on the part of our worthy Brother, no society can afford a more remarkable instance than our own. Among other marks of royal approbation conferred on his ancestors, for their faithful and valuable services, they enjoyed the dignity of Grand Master Mason, by charters of high antiquity, from the Kings of Scotland. This hereditary honour continued in the family of Roslin under the year 1736; when, with a disinterestedness of which there are a few examples, he made a voluntary resignation of the office into the hands of the Craft in general; by which from being hereditary, it has ever since been elective: and in consequence of such a singular act of generosity it is, that, by your suffrages, I have now the honour to fill this chair. His zeal, however, to promote the welfare of our society, was not confined to this single instance: for he continued almost to the very close of life, on all occasions where his influence, or his example, could prevail, to extend the spirit of Masonry, and to increase the number of the Brethren. It is, therefore, with justice that his name should ever be dear to the Craft, and that we lament the loss of one who did such honour to our institution.
But after this, the St Clair family merged with the Erskines, who inherited the St Clair lands through the marriage of Sir William’s only surviving child, his daughter Sarah, and the marriage of her daughter Janet to Sir Henry Erskine, his cousin Katherine St Clair’s son. Their son, James St Clair-Erskine, 2nd Earl of Rosslyn, became Acting Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland from 1810 to 1812, during which time a Grand Masonic feˆte was held at Rosslyn, attended by over 1,000 masons. Similarly, the 4th earl served as full Grand Master from 1870 to 1887.
The 5th Earl of Rosslyn was initiated into Lodge 520 Dysart early in 1890, and was passed and raised on the same occasion, a rare privilege. In connection with this, he wrote in his memoirs, ‘It is not generally known that the great William St Clair of Roslin, whose memory is always toasted on St Andrew’s Day, was with his heirs made hereditary Grand Master of Scotland by James VI, but he with just prudence, asked to be elected by his brethren, an act readily accorded to him.’ In his capacity of Junior Grand Warden, the 5th earl, in 1896, laid the foundation stone of the North Bridge of Edinburgh. The following year, on 19 June, he was installed at Rosslyn Chapel as Provincial Grand Master of Fife. For the 5th earl, however, Freemasonry represented ‘speeches, song and conviviality’, activities which, towards the end of his life, were largely curtailed by his financial collapse. To assume that there was anything more involved, some sinister, self-promoting brotherhood or such like, is extremely self-deluding, especially given his ruin.5
Following this, earls of Rosslyn appear to have become distanced from the Grand Lodge of Scotland, with a succession of Scotland’s landowning and aristocratic families – Bruce, Baillie, Charteris, Ramsay, Douglas and Orr-Ewing – being elected grand masters in their place. But the ongoing involvement of Scotland’s nobility is all part of the camouflage. Clubs, by the very nature of their continuing existence, require to be equivocal to the outsider. When all is said and done, the association between Freemasonry and the Order of the Knights Templar is nothing more than an inspired marketing fiction, the links with the St Clair family of Rosslyn a failure to distinguish between stonemasons and Freemasons, the nature of whom, aside from the degree of elitism they seek to perpetuate, is fairly innocuous.
However, in this regard, much can be and is made of the Masonic degree of Knight Templar, which became popular in the lodges of the British Army during the eighteenth century and hints at some underground network of control. But then again, Freemasonry is a code of practice and loyalty, and RF Gould, author of Military Lodges, was of the opinion that the degree of Knight Templar originated from the ‘Strict Observance System’ that was in practice on the Continent. The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, and their loyalty to one another, regardless of their fate, were seen as suitable role models, but that was all.
Far from being part of a continuing tradition from the start, it was in fact as late as the 18th century that office bearers of Lodge St Stephen in Edinburgh became the first to be initiated as Masonic Knights Templar in Scotland. Choosing a name that reflected an embodiment of commitment and duty was part of the fun. The image undoubtedly suited them, and in 1811 the Royal Grand Enclave of Scotland began issuing charters for the working of the Knight Templar Degree in Scotland. Since then, of course, a veritable forest of unverified fascination has surrounded an association which, the truth be known, simply seeks to harness the nobility of the past for the benefit of the present and the future.
Like it or not, Freemasonry remains a significant social force in Scotland, but there are no bogeymen. Old boy networks operate on all levels of social interaction. Who you know inevitably opens doors, but to suggest that the top jobs are always occupied by, and, when they become vacant, exclusively allocated to Freemasons shows a disturbing lack of self-confidence on the part of those who perpetuate such nonsense. The Grand Priory of Scotland was formalised in 1907, and united with the Grand Encampment of the Temple and Malta in Scotland in 1909. The Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in Scotland has its headquarters in Edinburgh’s New Town. The premises are open to the public and the staff work office hours. There is nothing to suggest that it is anything other than a long-established membership organisation dedicated to the betterment of mankind, a purpose which would undoubtedly have won the approval of the founder of Rosslyn Chapel.