The Knights of St. John had also been introduced into Scotland by King David the First, and had a charter granted to them by Alexander the Second, two years after that to the Templars. The Preceptory of Torphichen, in West Lothian, was their first, and continued to be their chief residence, and by the accession of the Temple lands and other additions, their property at the time of the Reformation came to be immense. When that event took place, the chief dignitary or Grand Preceptor of the Order in Scotland, with a seat as a Peer in Parliament, was Sir James Sandilands, a cadet of the family of Calder, whose head, as is well known to readers of Scottish History, was the private friend of John Knox, and one of the first persons of distinction to embrace the reformed religion. We might suspect, that even before the promulgation of the statute 1560, prohibiting all allegiance within the realm to the See of Rome, the former personage had become indifferent to the charge confided to him by the Order; for a rescript from the Grand Master and Chapter at Malta, dated so early as the 1st of October 1557, and addressed to him, is still on record, wherein they complain "that many of the possessions, jurisdictions, &c. were conveyed or taken away from them contrary to the statutes and oaths, and to the damnation of the souls, as well of those who possessed them, as of those who, without sufficient authority, yielded them up; producing thereby great detriment to religion and the said Commandery;" but be this as it may, we are certain that the conversion of Sir James Sandilands, or as he was termed, the Lord of St. John of Jerusalem in Scotland, was followed by his surrender to the Crown of the whole possessions of the combined Templars and Hospitallers, which having been declared forfeited to the State on the ground that "the principal cause of the foundation of the Preceptory of Torphichen, Fratribus Hospitalis Hierosolimitani, Militibus Templi Salomonis, was the service enjoined to the Preceptor on oath to defend and advance the Roman Catholic Religion," were by a process of transformation well understood by the Scottish Parliament of those days, converted into a Temporal Lordship, which the unfortunate Queen Mary, then only twenty years of age, and newly established amongst her Scottish subjects, in consideration of a payment of ten thousand crowns of the Sun, and of his fidele, nobile, et gratuitum, servitium, nobis nostrisque patri et matri bonæ memoriæ, conferred on, or rather retransferred to the Ex Grand Preceptor himself and his heirs with the title of Torphichen, which, although the estate is much dilapidated, still remains in his family.[46] All this was transacted acted on the petition of Sir James Sandilands himself, with the formal approbation of the National Legislature; and after renouncing the profession of a soldier-monk, we find that the last of Scottish Preceptors of St. John became married and lived to a good old age, having died so late as 1596 without issue, when the title of Torphichen passed to his grand nephew, the lineal descendant of his elder brother, Sir John Sandilands of Calder.
We shall not pause to consider whether a body of Masonic Templars unconnected with the Hospitallers, and representing the Royal Order which Bruce is said to have instituted from the relict of the Ancient Knights, has been perpetuated in Scotland since the days of Bannockburn, having no means of illustrating so obscure a subject; but, with all due respect to the learned French writer, whose authority we have already quoted, we may observe, that the Masonic Tradition of the country does not connect the Templars with Bruce's Order in any way whatever, but, on the contrary, invariably conjoins those Knights with the Hospitallers, and consequently points to the period of the renunciation of Popery, as the time when they first sought refuge, and a continuance of their Chivalry among the "Brethren of the Mystic Tie." The Chevaliers also of the Rosy Cross of Kilwinning in France, own no alliance with Masonic Templary, which they consider a comparatively modern invention; nor do there exist, so far as we know, any authentic records anterior to the Reformation, to prove a connection between the Knights Templars and Freemasons in any part of the world, though we must not omit to mention, that a formal document in the Latin language is said to be deposited in a Lodge at Namur on the Meuse, purporting to be a proclamation by the Freemasons of Europe, "of the Venerable Society sacred to John," assembled by representatives from London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Venice, Brussels, and almost every other Capital City, at Cologne on the Rhine in 1535; and signed, amongst others, by the famous Melancthon, in which, after declaring that "to be more effectually vilified and devoted to public execration, they had been accused of reviving the Order of the Templars," they solemnly affirm, that "the Freemasons of St. John derive not their origin from the Templars, nor from any other Order of Knights; neither have they any, or the least communication with them directly, or through any manner of intermediate tie, being far more ancient," &c.—all of which would imply, that some sort of connection was understood in those days to exist between certain of the Masonic Fraternities and the Knights Templars. A Copy of this document was sent to Edinburgh in 1826, by M. de Marchot, an Advocate at Nivelles, and a translation of it has been inserted under the attestation of a Notary Public in the Records of the Ancient Lodge of Edinburgh, (Mary's Chapel); but we have little faith in German documents on Free Masonry, unless supported by other testimony; and as no Historian of the Craft makes the slightest allusion to the great Convocation of the Brethren at Cologne, in the sixteenth century, rather than ask the reader to believe that it ever took place, we shall presume that M. de Marchot may have been deceived.[47]
From the era of the Reformation, the combined Order appears in Scotland only as a Masonic body; but there are some records to indicate that, so early as 1590, a few of the brethren had become mingled with the Architectural Fraternities, and that a Lodge at Stirling, patronised by King James, had a Chapter of Templars attached to it, who were termed cross-legged Masons; and whose initiatory ceremonies were performed not in a room, but in the Old Abbey, the ruins of which are still to be seen in the neighbourhood. The next authentic notice we can find on this subject, is in M. Thory's excellent Chronology of Masonry, wherein it is recorded, that about 1728, Sir John Mitchell Ramsay, the well-known author of Cyrus, appeared in London, with a system of Scottish Masonry, up to that date, perfectly unknown in the metropolis, tracing its origin from the Crusades, and consisting of three degrees, the Ecossais, the Novice, and the Knight Templar. The English Grand Lodge rejected the system of Ramsay, who, as is well known, along with the other adherents of the Stuart Family, transferred it to the Continent, where it became the corner-stone of the hauts grades, and the foundation of those innumerable ramifications into which an excellent and naturally simple institution has been very uselessly extended in France, Germany, and other countries abroad.[48]
In pursuing the very curious subject of the hauts grades, we may observe, however, that they never obtained much consideration during the lifetime of Ramsay, although they are invariably traced to him and to Scotland, the fairy land of Foreign Masonry,[49] but gathered their chief impulse from the disgraceful dissentions in the Masonic Lodges at Paris, about the middle of last century, which induced the Chevalier de Bonneville, and other distinguished persons at the Court of France, to form themselves into a separate institution, named the Chapitre de Clermont, in honour of one of the Princes of the Blood, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Clermont, then presiding over the Masonic Fraternities. In this Chapter they established, amongst other degrees, Ramsay's system of the Masonic Templars, which, along with other high grades, was soon conveyed into the Northern Kingdoms of Europe, by the Officers of the French Army, but especially, by the Marquis de Bernez, and the Baron de Hund, the latter of whom made it the ground-work of his Templar Regime de la Stricte Observance, which occupied, for several years, so prominent a place in the Secret Societies of Germany. This adventurer appeared in that country with a patent, under the sign-manual of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, appointing him Grand Master of the seventh province; but although he had invented a plausible tale in support of his title and authority,—both of which he affirmed had been made over to him by the Earl Marischal on his death-bed,—and of the antiquity of his order, which he derived, of course, from Scotland, where the chief seat of the Templars was Aberdeen,[50] —the imposture was soon detected, and it was even discovered that he had himself enticed and initiated the ill-fated Pretender into his fabulous order of Chivalry. The delusions on this subject, however, had taken such a hold in Germany, that they were not altogether dispelled, until a deputation had actually visited Aberdeen, and found amongst the worthy and astonished brethren there, no trace either of very ancient Templars or Freemasonry.[51] From some of the Continental States, it is conjectured that Masonic Templary was transplanted into England and Ireland, in both of which countries it has continued to draw a languid existence, unconnected with any remnant of the Knights of St. John, whose incorporation in the Scottish Order, is one of the most remarkable features of that Institution. We are happy to add, nevertheless, that the most fraternal feelings and intercourse subsist between the Scottish brethren and the Templars of the sister kingdoms, and we can ourselves testify to the cordiality with which the former are received in the encampments of London.
During the whole of the eighteenth century the combined Order of the Temple and Hospital in Scotland can be but faintly traced, though I have the assurance of well-informed Masons that thirty or forty years ago they knew old men who had been members of it for sixty years, and it had sunk so low at the time of the French Revolution, that the sentence which the Grand Lodge of Scotland fulminated in 1792 against all degrees of Masonry except those of St. John, was expected to put a period to its existence. Soon after this, however, some active individuals revived it, and with the view of obtaining documentary authority for their chapters, as well as of avoiding any infringement of the statutes then recently enacted against secret societies, adopted the precaution of accepting charters of constitution from a body of Masonic Templars, named the Early Grand Encampment, in Dublin, of whose origin we can find no account, and whose legitimacy, to say the least, was quite as questionable as their own. Several charters of this description were granted to different Lodges of Templars in Scotland about the beginning of the present century, but these bodies maintained little concert or intercourse with each other, and were certainly not much esteemed in the country. Affairs were in this state when, about 1808, Mr. Alexander Deuchar was elected Commander, or Chief of the Edinburgh Encampment of Templars, and his brother, Major David Deuchar, along with other Officers of the Royal Regiment, was initiated into the Order. This infusion of persons of higher station and better information gave an immediate impulse to the Institution, and a General Convocation of all the Templars of Scotland, by representatives, having taken place at the Capital, they unanimously resolved to discard the Irish Charters, and to rest their claims, as the representatives of the Knights of old, on the general belief of the country in their favour, and the well-accredited traditions handed down from their forefathers. They further determined to entreat the Duke of Kent, who was a Chevalier du Temple, as well as the chief of the Masonic Templars in England, to become the Patron Protector of the Order in North Britain, offering to submit themselves to His Royal Highness in that capacity, and to accept from him a formal Charter of Constitution, erecting them into a regular Conclave of Knights Templars, and Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The Duke of Kent lost no time in complying with their request, and his Charter bears date 19th of June 1811. By a provision in it, Mr. Deuchar, who had been nominated by the Brethren, was appointed Grand Master for life.
These wise and vigorous measures rescued the Order from obscurity; and in its improved condition, we find that it continued rapidly to flourish, numbering, in the course of a few years, no less than forty encampments or lodges in different parts of the British dominions holding of its Conclave. In 1828, the Order seemed to have received a fresh impulse, and assumed a novel and interesting aspect by the judicious introduction of the ancient chivalric costume and forms. Dissentions, however, unfortunately occurred, from 1830 to 1835, tending to impede the further progress of the Order; and for a while it may be said to have again almost fallen into abeyance. In the end of the latter year, a committee of ten gentlemen was appointed to settle all differences, as well as to frame proper regulations for the future government of the Order. Under their arrangement and arbitration, the present statutes were established, and a reconciliation effected between the contending parties. In January 1836, Admiral Sir David Milne, K. C. B. was unanimously elected Grand Master, and at a general election in the same month, Lord Ramsay (now Earl of Dalhousie) was appointed his Depute, the various other offices in the Order being filled by gentlemen, generally well known, and of a respectable station in society. In the course of three months after the re-union, not fewer than a hundred persons, chiefly men of fortune, officers, and members of the learned professions, had been received into the Order in the Edinburgh Canongate Kilwinning Priory or Encampment alone. Since then, other Priories have been established in the country, and the Institution has assumed an importance and dignity worthy of the highest class of gentlemen connected with the Masonic Institutions of Scotland.
