As to Cromwell, the only circumstance that lends any colour to the possibility of his connexion with Freemasonry is his known friendship for Manasseh ben Israel, the colleague of the Rabbi Templo who designed the coat-of-arms later adopted by Grand Lodge. If, therefore, the Jews of Amsterdam were a source of inspiration to the Freemasons of the seventeenth century, it is not impossible that Cromwell may have been the channel through which this influence first penetrated.
In the matter of the Stuarts we are, however, on firm ground with regard to Freemasonry. That the lodges at the end of the seventeenth century were Royalist is certain, and there seems good reason to believe that, when the revolution of 1688 divided the Royalist cause, the Jacobites who fled to France with James II took Freemasonry with them.[343] With the help of the French they established lodges in which, it is said, masonic rites and symbols were used to promote the cause of the Stuarts. Thus the land of promise signified Great Britain, Jerusalem stood for London, and the murder of Hiram represented the execution of Charles I.[344]
Meanwhile Freemasonry in England did not continue to adhere to the Stuart cause as it had done under the ægis of Elias Ashmole, and by 1717 is said to have become Hanoverian.
From this important date the official history of the present system may be said to begin; hitherto everything rests on stray documents, of which the authenticity is frequently doubtful, and which provide no continuous history of the Order. In 1717 for the first time Freemasonry was established on a settled basis and in the process underwent a fundamental change. So far it would seem to have retained an operative element, but in the transformation that now took place this was entirely eliminated, and the whole Order was transformed into a middle-and upper-class speculative body. This coup d'état, already suggested in 1703, took place in 1716, when four London lodges of Freemasons met together at the Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street, Covent Garden, "and having put into the chair the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a lodge), they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge, pro tempore, in due form." On St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24 of the next year, the annual assembly and banquet were held at the Goose and Gridiron in St. Paul's Churchyard, when Mr. Antony Sayer was elected Grand Master and invested with all the badges of office.[345]
It is evident from the above account that already in 1717 the speculative elements must have predominated in the lodges, otherwise we might expect to find the operative masons taking some part in these proceedings and expressing their opinion as to whether their association should pass under the control of men entirely unconnected with the Craft. But no, the leaders of the new movement all appear to have belonged to the middle class, nor from this moment do either masons or architects seem to have played any prominent part in Freemasonry.
But the point that official history does not attempt to elucidate is the reason for this decision. Why should the Freemasons of London--whether they were at this date a speculative or only a semi-speculative association--have suddenly recognized the necessity of establishing a Grand Lodge and drawing up a ritual and "Constitution"? It is evident, then, that some circumstances must have arisen which led them to take this important step. I would suggest that the following may be the solution to the problem.
Freemasonry, as we have seen, was a system that could be employed in any cause and had now come to be used by intriguers of every kind--and not only by intriguers, but by merely convivial bodies, "jolly Brotherhoods of the Bottle," who modelled themselves on masonic associations.[346] But the honest citizens of London who met and feasted at the Goose and Gridiron were clearly not intriguers, they were neither Royalist nor Republican plotters, neither Catholic nor Lutheran fanatics, neither alchemists nor magicians, nor can it be supposed that they were simply revellers. If they were political, they were certainly not supporters of the Stuarts; on the contrary, they were generally reported to have been Hanoverian in their sympathies, indeed Dr. Bussell goes so far as to say that Grand Lodge was instituted to support the Hanoverian dynasty.[347] It would be perhaps nearer the truth to conclude that if they were Hanoverian it was because they were constitutional, and the Hanoverian dynasty having now been established they wished to avoid further changes. In a word, then, they were simply men of peace, anxious to put an end to dissensions, who, seeing the system of Masonry utilized for the purpose of promoting discord, determined to wrest it from the hands of political intriguers and restore it to its original character of brotherhood, though not of brotherhood between working masons only, but between men drawn from all classes and professions. By founding a Grand Lodge in London and drawing up a ritual and "Constitutions," they hoped to prevent the perversion of their signs and symbols and to establish the Order on a settled basis.
According to Nicolai this pacific purpose had already animated English Freemasons under the Grand Mastership of Sir Christopher Wren: "Its principal object from this period was to moderate the religious hatreds so terrible in England during the reign of James II and to try and establish some kind of concord or fraternity, by weakening as far as possible the antagonisms arising from the differences of religions, ranks, and interests." An eighteenth-century manuscript of the Prince of Hesse quoted by Lecouteulx de Canteleu expresses the view that in 1717 "the mysteries of Freemasonry were reformed and purified in England of all political tendencies."
In the matter of religion, Craft Masonry adopted an equally non-sectarian attitude. The first "Constitutions" of the Order, drawn up by Dr. Anderson in 1723, contain the following paragraph:
Concerning God and Religion
A Mason is obliged, 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 charged 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 Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry becomes the Centre of Union and the Means of Conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remained at a perpetual Distance.