As well as the recurrent theme of ‘Light’ that seems to go right back to Manichean Gnosticism, the reader will note the similarity to Bacon's ‘House of Salomon’ with its learned fraternity that travelled the world and spoke many languages.61 The Rosicrucians likewise claimed to be fluent in many languages and, in addition, to possess their own magical language and writing.
But all the great utopian ideas and expectations generated by Hartlib, Comenius and Drury came to nothing. A year after Comenius's arrival in England it was pretty obvious to everyone that the differences between Charles I and Parliament were irreconcilable and that civil war was inevitable. To Comenius especially, it became clear that the reformation he had hoped to bring about in England was definitely not going to happen. In 1642, Comenius prepared to leave England for Sweden, and John Drury took his leave for Holland.
It was in this manner that the dreams the utopian reformers had for Britain went up in smoke on 19 August 1642 when the king's banners were raised by the Royalist army at Nottingham, effectively marking the beginning of the English Civil War …
The dashing cavalier of the Palatinate
At the start of the war, success for the Royalists – or Cavaliers as they were being called – seemed assured. Notable among the Cavaliers was the very dashing 23-year-old Prince Rupert, the younger son of the exiled Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart, the deposed king and queen of Bohemia. Rupert was to become the hero of the English Civil War, highly admired for his gallant cavalry charges against the parliamentarian forces, nicknamed the Roundheads. Rupert's heroic example did much to boost the morale of the king's forces, especially after he reclaimed Bristol in July 1643, relieved Newark and Nottingham in early 1644 and seized most of Lancashire by the summer of that year.
But his luck was soon to run out. The parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell, a ‘brawny, flushed-faced MP from Cambridge’, had trained an army of fanatics from the eastern counties and, with Sir Thomas Fairfax to command them by his side, Cromwell delivered the first serious blow to Prince Rupert's army at Marston Moor in Yorkshire on 2 July 1644.62 It was the beginning of the end for the Royalists. But despite this terrible defeat, Rupert was appointed commander-in-chief of the king's army, and managed to pocket one more victory by recapturing the city of Leicester in May 1645. The following month he was severely beaten again by Cromwell at Naseby in Northamptonshire. When Rupert surrendered at Bristol to the Roundheads, an angry Charles I stripped him of his command. An odd career was to follow for Rupert. After the defeat of the Royalists at Torrington in 1646, he was banished by the Puritan Parliament. Somehow he managed to take charge of a small Royalist fleet stationed in Holland and became a dashing pirate of the seven seas, first preying on parliamentarian ships and eventually taking his swashbuckling to the Azores and the West Indies.63 Only after the Restoration did Rupert return to England.
The end for the Royalists came in July 1646 when the king's stronghold at Oxford was surrounded and placed under siege by Cromwell and his Roundheads. Among those taken prisoner when the Royalists surrendered was a young man of 29 called Elias Ashmole, who had been serving as controller of the Ordnance Board for the king. Astrologer, alchemist and antiquarian extraordinaire, Elias Ashmole was destined to take a place of honour in the official history of Freemasonry …
‘I was made a Freemason’
Some four months after his capture by the Roundheads, Elias Ashmole made the following entry in his diary: 1646. Oct: 16. 4H 30’ P.M., I was made a Freemason at Warrington, in Lancashire …64
Most historians take this as the very first recorded Masonic initiation on English soil, but others reasonably argue that the honour should go to Sir Robert Moray. He was initiated into Freemasonry in 1641 at Newcastle-on-Tyne by members of the Edinburgh No. 1 Lodge who belonged to a Scottish regiment that had crossed into England. Thus the names of Moray and Ashmole are interlocked in Masonic history forever. And not only in Freemasonry. As we shall see, what also brings these two names together is the crucial role that both men were to play a few decades later in the conversion of the ‘Invisible College’ at Oxford into the very visible ‘Royal Society’ in London.
On 30 January 1649, amid an eerie silence followed by the roll of drums, Charles I was beheaded outside Whitehall Palace in London. England was renamed a ‘Commonwealth and Free State’, and, a few years later, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of this new and morose Puritan dominion. It was the nearest that Britain was ever to get to a full-scale ‘revolution’. But there was none of the wild jubilation that would be seen much later in France in 1789 to greet this odd and discomfited English ‘Republic’.
In those turbulent and despotic years of Cromwell's rule, the Invisible College organised by Wilkins was moved to Cambridge and remained in low-key, semi-secrecy oblivious of the glorious future awaiting it. As for Wilkins himself, he had been appointed warden of Wadham College at Oxford and later was to become warden of Trinity College at Cambridge – the first and only scholar ever to head both these illustrious institutions. In 1656, by one of those odd twist of fate, Wilkins fell in love with and eventually married a widow, Mrs. Robina French, who was none other that the sister of Oliver Cromwell.
Even though many had bitterly opposed Charles I’s tyrannical rule, the vast majority of the British population remained Royalists at heart and there was a deep nationwide yearning for a return to monarchy. In the autumn of 1658, less than ten years after the shocking regicide at Whitehall, Oliver Cromwell died in bed a much hated and despised man, and hopes were again raised for a full restoration of the monarchy. All eyes turned towards the English Channel, across which the legitimate heir to the British throne was somewhere roaming.
Restoration and the return to the promised land
When Oxford fell in 1646 Charles I had ordered his eldest son, Charles the Prince of Wales, to leave the country and take refuge in France. After a brief stay in the Scilly Islands Prince Charles headed for Paris, where he rejoined his mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, the sister of King Louis XIII of France. Louis XIII had died three years earlier, leaving the throne to his son, Louis, the future Sun King whose glorious reign, the reader will recall, had been predicted by the Hermetic magus-astrologer, Tommaso Campanella. The future Sun King was only eight years old when Charles arrived in Paris, and apparently did not much take to his older English cousin. Louis's mother, Queen Anne, and her trusted prime minister, the imposing Italian Cardinal Jules Mazarin, practically ran France, and it was widely believed that they were conducting an illicit romance, some even going as far as to suspect a secret marriage.65
The exile in Paris was to be a great disappointment and source of deep frustration for Charles, for not only was he completely dominated by his French mother, but also the French nobility snubbed him and ignored him. For several years he lingered in this state of limbo until the public execution of his father in London in 1649 jolted him back into action. Suddenly, at the French court, Charles was proclaimed Charles II, king-in-exile. Gradually he was lured to join and lead the Scottish Presbyterian forces in Perth who opposed Cromwell's regime. But this move proved to be disastrous, for the ill-organised Scots were no match for Cromwell's Roundheads and his parliamentarian cavalry, the Ironsides. When the two armies met at Dunbar on 3 September 1650 the Scottish forces under Charles II were decisively smashed. A final defeat at Worcester in 1651 was too much for Charles II, and he fled again to France. His life degenerated into a string of tempestuous love affairs,66 and the small and poverty-stricken English court-in-exile became the laughing stock of Paris.
To make things worse, Mazarin came to terms with Cromwell and Charles II was booted out of France, left to wander around Europe and eventually southern Germany, where he sank further into a life of debauchery and idleness, siring at least three illegitimate children in the process.67 Most of his time was spent hatching harebrained plots against Cromwell – on one occasion he even considered offering to marry the Lord Protector's daughter and to sh
are the realm with him.68 Finally, in the autumn of 1658 news was brought to Charles of Cromwell's death, and suddenly a new window of opportunity opened for him. He made haste for the port of Calais on the French coast and there waited to seize the moment.
At first it seemed as if the Protectorate and Puritan Republic left behind by Cromwell would prove too deep-rooted for the badly organised Royalists to wrench it back into their possession. But soon things began to fall apart for the Puritans, for Cromwell's son and successor, Richard, lacked the experience and character of his father. He was thus unable to contain the growing rift between the Roundhead army and Parliament, a conflict that quickly created a mood of uncertainty and discontent throughout the kingdom. The London taverns buzzed with talk of a possible ‘restoration’ of the Stuart monarchy and by early 1660 the whole country was fired up by Royalist supporters among the common folk.
An ex-Royalist soldier, George Monk, who was in control of Scotland for the Puritans, was now eager to avoid more anarchy and bloodshed, and decided to support the idea of a restoration. Monk arranged for an emissary, Sir John Grenville, to sail across the Channel in secret and meet with Charles II and his small court. A deal was struck that gave Charles full support from Monk and his powerful armed forces if he, Charles, would consent to certain conditions – mainly to uphold the Church of England but also to grant ‘liberty to tender consciences’ who practiced other faiths, and to leave important matters of state to Parliament. Charles II agreed, and Monk moved his huge army towards London. In April 1660 Charles issued his famous Declaration of Breda from Holland, where he promised a general amnesty to his enemies, ‘liberty of conscience’, equitable settlement to land disputes, full payment in arrears to the army and, most important of all, a free Parliament to run the affairs of the state. And on a breezy day in late May 1660, Charles II boarded the flagship Naseby, appropriately renamed the Royal Charles, and set sail for England.
The Royal Charles docked at Dover on 25 May. Monk was there on the quayside to receive Charles II in great pomp and in the midst of wild jubilation and emotional scenes. Huge spontaneous celebrations greeted the king all along the way to London, and the royal procession made a triumphal entry into the city on 29 May, the day of Charles II’s 30th birthday. John Evelyn, the famous diarist and horticulturist, who was an eyewitness to the event, vividly described the scene: 20,000 horse and foot, brandishing their swords, and shouting with inexpressible joy; the way strewn with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapestry, fountains running with wine … myriads of people flocking even so far as from Rochester … it was the Lord's doing, for such a restoration was never mentioned in any history, ancient or modern, since the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity …69
Also the poet Andrew Marvell drew inspiration from the Bible, and described Charles II as being ‘of a tall stature and sable hue, much like the son of Kish, that lofty Jew’.70
Such well-chosen analogies presenting Charles II as the ‘son of Kish, that lofty Jew’ and his restoration as a sort of ‘return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity’ are most revealing, for they signal the incredible mood that had enveloped the return of this prodigal royal son to his ‘Promised Land’ – England. Such analogies also have a distinct ‘Masonic’ ring to them, for as we have seen, the name ‘son of Kish’ (or ‘son of Cush’, i.e. the biblical Nimrod) appears in the Old Charges, where he is said to be none other than ‘Hermes the Father of Wise Men’ who finds the two pillars upon which all the sciences were written. Nimrod, who was dark in complexion71 like Charles II,72 immediately evokes the Tower of Babel, which is another important ‘Masonic’ symbol73 – one that was very significant to Comenius, Hartlib and Bacon in their search for a universal language. As for the ‘return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity’, this is one of the principle themes of Freemasonry, for it marked the events that lead to the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.74
And so here we have it, couched in symbolic language, the hope that London would soon become the epicentre of a far greater ‘restoration’ involving the ‘sciences’ and ‘ancient wisdom’ in a wonderful ‘New Jerusalem’ rising like a phoenix from the smouldering ashes of the Civil War. Little did anyone suspect that soon this euphoric vision would literally become true – not as they had intended but as a nightmarish satanic vision from the very gates of hell …
From Invisible College to Royal Society
It says something for the character of Charles II that he spent the evening of his triumphal entry into London triumphantly entering into Barbara Palmer, the beautiful young wife of the Royalist Roger Palmer who he had recently met at the Hague in Holland.75 She was the king's latest conquest, but many more were to follow. It was the start of an era of decadence at court that would soon disappoint those who had hoped for great things from the Restoration. Within four years England was again engaged in a disastrous and costly war, this time with Holland. And as if such a man-made calamity was not enough, London itself would receive two terrible blows in succession that would hit the city with such force that many came to believe they were witnessing divine retribution for the debauchery of Charles II. Meanwhile in these early days of the Restoration, with great changes and reformations still expected from the new king, the Invisible College decided to make its move.
In late November 1660 twelve members of this self-styled Invisible College met in a room at Gresham College in London. This was right after they had attended a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham professor of astronomy, who was one of their number. There and then it was decided to found a ‘College for the Promotion of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning’ which, very soon, would become the Royal Society. Among the twelve men that met at Gresham College were Robert Boyle, John Wilkins and Robert Moray. Christopher Wren was 28 at the time. John Wilkins, who had been in at the origins of the Invisible College with Theodore Haak, was appointed as chairman to this meeting. Robert Moray, the first Freemason to be initiated on English soil in 1641, advised the group that they should obtain a royal charter, and in early December Charles II gave his approval for the creation of the Royal Society. The society moved into premises at Gresham College, and it was decided immediately to draw up a list of suitable members.
A list of 40 was prepared, which included Elias Ashmole, Freemason par excellence and Rosicrucian enthusiast. Another on the list was the diarist and horticulturalist John Evelyn (1620 – 1706) who, as we will recall, had likened the return of Charles II and his court to the ‘return of the Jews’ to the Promised Land. According to Masonic historian and author Robert Lomas, John Evelyn was almost certainly a Freemason.76
Things were about to move very fast for many of these early members. Elias Ashmole was appointed by Charles II as Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary as well as Controller and Auditor of the Excise; Christopher Wren was made Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, although a far greater honour awaited him when later he shifted his career into the field of architecture. And the diarist John Evelyn was appointed to serve on several royal commissions. Robert Moray, possibly the most influential player in the formation of the Royal Society, acted as its first ad hoc president until the royal charter was granted by Charles II in 1662, after which Moray moved into permanent residence at the king's court at Whitehall.
Parallel developments in France
Although much praise and honour is bestowed on the Royal Society for being the first scientific academic body of its kind, it is often forgotten that another ‘royal’ society with even more illustrious royal patronage was already active in the city of Paris. In fact since the early 1640s, a group of scientists including the great mathematicians Blaise Pascal, Pierre Gassendi, René Descartes and Gilles de Roberval, had met informally in Paris, first at the residence of the famous theologian and mathematician Marin Mersenne and, after 1648, at the home of their sponsor Henri Louis Habert de Montmor.77 This small but very powerful elite group was eventually to serve as the nucleus of the Aca
démie des Sciences founded in 1666 under the patronage of Louis XIV.
Indeed, even earlier than the creation of this scientific body, the powerful Cardinal Richelieu, as ‘prime minister’ of France, had founded the Académie Française in 1638 under his own patronage and backed by letters of patent from Louis XIII. At the death of Richelieu in 1642 the patronage passed to the chancellor Pierre Séguier, the Count of Gien, and, after him, to Louis XIV – who himself became royal patron. Exactly like the Invisible College, the Académie Française sprung to life amongst a group of learned men who met informally. There were originally twelve members, then after the society was granted royal charter, the membership was expanded to 40. The reader will recall that the Royal Society in England was also to develop in the same way, with twelve informal founder members building up to 40 official members after December 1660.
The original objective of the Académie Française was to develop the French language into a format that would allow it to be understood by all, that is to become universalised into a lingua franca. This, of course, brings to mind the original ambitions of the Invisible College, with the universal-language schemes concocted by Hartib, Comenius and Wilkins. It also recalls the claim made by the Rosicrucian brotherhood, namely that its members could communicate with all the peoples of the world through a sort of ‘natural language’, appropriately dubbed the ‘silent language’ by modern Rosicrucian researchers.78
Had this natural, magical language anything to do with the Masonic secret sign language that also employs ancient symbols, particularly those used by Renaissance Hermetic-Cabalists and also Rosicrucian adepts? Whatever the answer to such a provocative question, it is nonetheless justified to a certain extent for us to wonder whether the developments of a philosophical-scientific group in Paris in the 1630s might not have had something to do with the Rosicrucian movement and, more particularly, the ‘poster scare’ of 1623 when it was alleged that emissaries of the Invisible College of the Rosicrucians had arrived in France, or were about to arrive, who could communicate in a universal or ‘natural’ language as a tool to reform and better the condition of the world.79