In 1716, a year after Fénelon's death, Ramsay settled in Paris, where he circulated amongst the high aristocracy and became tutor to the young Duke of Château-Theirry. At the same time Ramsay befriended the powerful Philippe d’Orléans, nephew of Louis XIV and regent of France. The latter was the head of the Order of St. Lazarus, an old crusading order, akin to the Knights Templar, that had been founded in Jerusalem in the 12th century. Soon Ramsay was dubbed a knight of the Order of St. Lazarus by Philippe.
We know that Ramsay was initiated into Freemasonry by the Duke of Richmond at the Horn Lodge at Westminster18 during a visit that he made to London in 1730. On his return to Paris, Ramsay joined Charles Radclyffe's Masonic lodge St. Thomas, and soon was appointed as Orator for the Grande Loge of France. It was in this capacity that he prepared a landmark speech in 1737, one that would have reverberations throughout the world in decades to come.
An ancient order and a dangerous whiff of Republicanism
Legend has it that Ramsay's speech, which is better known as Ramsay's Oration, was delivered on 21 March 1737 so that it would coincide with the spring equinox. There may be a reason for this date, as we shall see. However the evidence suggests that the Oration was not ‘delivered’ to an audience at all; instead, Ramsay had it printed and distributed to the lodge's members. By 1740 it was published in Paris, where it was widely and avidly read.19
Knowing that Ramsay was both a member of the Royal Society and a Freemason helps to put his Oration into context – for this remarkable document is resonant of ‘republicanism’ and of an ideal of global unity based on a new world order. Of particular note is the fact that the Oration was put before the general public as early as 1740 – a full 36 years before the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1776 and 49 years before the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. We suspect that Ramsay's carefully-chosen words must have struck a worrying note with the French monarchy and royalists in general: The world is nothing more than a huge Republic, of which every nation is a family and every individual a child. Our society [i.e. Freemasonry] was at the outset established to revive and spread these essential maxims borrowed from the nature of man. We desire to reunite all men of enlightened minds, gentle manners and agreeable wit, not only by a love for the fine arts but much more by the grand principle of virtue, science, and religion, where the interests of the Fraternity [Freemasonry] shall become those of the whole human race, whence all nations shall be enabled to draw useful knowledge … Our ancestors, the Crusaders, gathered together from all parts of Christendom in the Holy Land, desired thus to reunite into one sole Fraternity the individuals of all nations …20
The last sentence gives an interesting and novel spin on the Crusades, or rather on those ‘crusaders’ who, we're told, desired ‘to reunite into one sole Fraternity the individuals of all nations …’ Since it is safe to say that ‘a universal brotherhood of nations’ was not uppermost in the minds of the vast majority of crusaders – who believed their job was to win the Holy Land for Christendom and to steal as much booty as possible – it is legitimate to ask which ‘crusaders’ Ramsay is talking about here?
We can only think of one group who might have been motivated by such an ideology and they are, almost inevitably, the Knights Templar – who are, moreover, frequently cited by Freemasons as their ‘ancestors’. That it was indeed the Templars who Ramsay had in mind (though he did not wish to name them) is also made clear by several indirect allusions in the Oration: Because a sad, savage, and misanthropic Philosophy disgusts virtuous men, our ancestors, the Crusaders, wished to render it lovable by the attractions of innocent pleasures, agreeable music, pure joy, and moderate gaiety. Our festivals are not what the profane world and the ignorant vulgar imagine. All the vices of heart and soul are banished there, and irreligion, libertinage, incredulity, and debauch are proscribed.21
It was well known throughout Europe that the Templars had been dissolved by papal decree and French military force after accusations of vice, debauchery and heresy. Here Ramsay is obviously defending the Templars and their alleged ‘descendants’, the Freemasons, against such accusations by claiming that what appeared as debauchery and heresy to the ‘profane’ was in reality nothing more that the display of innocent pleasures and moderate merry-making.
Ramsay also tells us that the order once enjoyed special royal protection in England: After the deplorable mishaps in the Crusades, the perishing of the Christian armies, and the triumph of Bendocdar, Sultan of Egypt, during the eighth and last Crusade, that great Prince Edward, son of Henry III, King of England, seeing there was no longer any safety for his brethren in the Holy Land, from whence the Christian troops were retiring, brought them all back, and this colony of brothers was established in England. As this Prince was endowed with all heroic qualities, he loved the fine arts, declared himself Protector of our Order, conceded to it new privileges, and then the members of this Fraternity took the name of Freemasons, after the example set by their ancestors.22
The ‘great Prince Edward, son of Henry III’ evoked by Ramsay as the ‘Protector of our Order’ was the celebrated Edward I – famously nicknamed ‘Longshanks’ on account of his unusually tall stature. King of England from 1274, Edward I is best known for his war of oppression against the Scots first under William Wallace and later under Robert the Bruce – the latter long suspected to have been a patron of the Templars in the years after their persecution. But Ramsay's clear implication here is that Edward was also their patron. Presumably, therefore, he would have remained so until his death on 7 July 1307, three months before the mass arrests of Templars in France which, the reader will recall, took place on 13 October 1307.
In the years that followed it is notable that Edward I’s son, Edward II, continued to favour the Knights Templar despite increasing pressure from the pope and King Philip IV of France as late as 1312, when Philip convinced the pope to issue his infamous Vox in excelso papal bull of 22 March (the spring equinox) officially suppressing the Templars. It seems that Edward II’s compliance was only half-hearted. He made a few token arrests while allowing most of the knights simply to melt into other chivalrous orders, such as that of the Knights Hospitallier.
Bearing this in mind, let's recall the legendary ‘official date’ of Ramsay's Oration – i.e. 21 March 1737, the spring equinox. Surely this must be a deliberate allusion to the papal bull that had suppressed the Templars on the spring equinox? Masonic historian Alexander Piatigorsky, who has made a special study of the Oration, notes how Chevalier Ramsay subtly managed to pack it with quite a number of controversial claims: The first places the origin of Masonic rituals ‘at the time of the Crusades’ and associates them with … the Knights Templar and the esoteric traditions of other medieval Christian Orders. The second asserts that after the suppression of the Templars in the beginning of the fourteenth century and the decline of the other Orders, their esoteric traditions were originally grafted onto, or found shelter among, some Scottish Masonic Lodges e.g. the Mother Lodge of Kilwinning. And the third maintains that those Scottish Traditions (or Orders), which are Christian by definition … were still continuing in Scottish Masonry, and that he [i.e. Ramsay] himself represented them in France as well as in England.23
It is interesting that Ramsay also goes on to state in his Oration that ‘the famous festivals of Ceres at Eleusis, of Isis in Egypt, of Minerva at Athens, of Urania among the Phoenicians, and Diana in Scythia, were connected to ours [i.e. to the rites and festivals of Freemasonry].’ He pauses to recognise that some fellow Freemasons attribute great antiquity to the brotherhood by ascribing ‘our institution to Solomon, some to Moses, some to Abraham, some to Noah and some to Enoch who built the first city, or even to Adam.’ But ‘without making any pretences of denying these origins’ Ramsay chooses to pass on ‘to matters less ancient’: This, then, is a part of what I have gathered in the annals of Great Britain, in the Acts of Parliament, which speak often of our privileges, and in the living tradition of the Eng
lish people, which has been the centre of our Society [Freemasonry] since the 11th century.
At the time of the Crusades in Palestine many princes, lords and citizens associated themselves to restore the Temple of the Christians in the Holy Land … and to employ themselves in bringing back their architecture … Our Order [which was amongst them] must … be considered … as an Order founded in remote antiquity, and renewed in the Holy Land by our ancestors in order to recall the memory of the most sublime truths …
[After the Crusades were over] the kings, princes and lords returned from Palestine to their own lands, and there established diverse Lodges. At the time many Lodges were already erected in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and from thence in Scotland, because of the close alliance between the French and Scots. James Lord Steward was Grand Master of a Lodge established at Kilwinning, in the west of Scotland … This lord received as Freemasons into his Lodge the Earls of Gloucester and Ulster, the one English the other Irish.
By degrees our lodges and our rites were neglected in most places. This is why of so many historians only those of Great Britain speak of our Order. Nevertheless it preserved its splendour among those Scotsmen [the Scots Guards] to whom the kings of France confided during many centuries the safeguard of their royal persons.24
Whatever Ramsay's motives, and regardless of the vexed issue of the veracity of the Oration, most Freemasons agree that it was soon after its publication that the so-called additional or higher degrees of Freemasonry first began to appear. Ramsay may not have been involved directly in formulating any of these degrees but there can be little doubt that his ideas about the past – and future – of Freemasonry played an important role in bringing them into existence. These degrees are still very much part of the Masonic world today. They represent a set of goals towards which most Freemasons aspire, which may be attained by the right candidates through ever higher levels of initiation. Before returning to the story of Freemasonry in the years leading up to the French Revolution it will be useful to make a short excursion into these airy realms.
Excursion to the higher degrees (1) Schisms
When the Grand Lodge of England was founded in 1717, not all Freemasons wanted to accept its authority as a centralised Masonic body.
Even within Britain a powerful opposing faction eventually emerged which considered itself the ‘true repository’ of ancient Freemasonry. Those adhering to it called themselves the Antients and labelled all who joined the Grand Lodge of England disparagingly as Moderns. After nearly half a century of feuding between the Antients and the Moderns, both factions were finally ‘united’ in Britain under the banner of the ‘United’ Grand Lodge of England – a sort of Masonic mini-version of the ‘United States’. This happened in 1813 when 21 articles of union were signed by both groups, the most important declaring and pronouncing that: … pure Antient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more i.e. those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft and the Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch. But this article is not intended to prevent any Lodge or Chapter from holding a Meeting in any of the Degrees of the Orders of Chivalry, according to the constitutions of the said Orders.25
What this means in practice, as we shall see, is that ‘higher’ or ‘additional’ degrees are available to Freemasons in English lodges exclusively through the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch. However, in the world as a whole, there are other Masonic orders which also offer ‘higher’ or ‘additional’ degrees. Two that are particularly popular in the US are the so-called York Rite, and the Ancient And Accepted Scottish Rite, descended from Andrew Ramsay's original Scottish Rite. The York Rite offers three extra degrees, namely the Royal Arch Masons degree, the Royal and Select Masters degree and the Knights Templar degree. The Ancient And Accepted Scottish Rite, by far the largest and most important, offers a total of 33 degrees and is considered by many as the most influential and supremely elitist of all the Masonic orders.
It is these rites that offer the ‘degrees of the Orders of Chivalry’ mentioned above. An important factor contributing to their formation and rapid proliferation was again the desire on the part of Freemasons not to be under the jurisdiction of United Grand Lodge of England – in this case often because they lived in countries that were in conflict with Britain. Since France remained Britain's traditional foe well into the 19th century, French Freemasons were determined to have a separate identity. While developing a completely independent type of Freemasonry of their own they also began to nourish close ties with Freemasons in the colonies during the build-up to the American Revolution.
This is why we find many of the higher ‘degrees of the Orders of Chivalry’ still enjoying active support in the US today. Moreover even the most cursory examination of the Scottish Rite and the York Rite leaves little doubt that the degrees they offer are heavily laced with Templar associations.
In the York Rite, which some Masons in the US call the ‘American Rite’, the symbolism, iconography and regalia used are all unambiguously ‘Templar’, and Templar symbols and links are openly flaunted. As noted above, the third ‘additional’ degree of the York Rite is called the Knights Templar degree.
As for the Scottish Rite, the chivalrous element of the Knights Templar is clearly seen in the names given to the various degrees offered – such as Knight of the East, Knight of Jerusalem, Knight of Rose Croix, Knight Commander of the Temple, Knight Kadosh, and so forth. In the US, the Scottish Rite also sponsors the very popular para-Masonic fraternity for young men, generally for sons of Freemasons, known as the ‘International Order of DeMolay’, so named in memory of Jacques de Molay, last of the true Grand Masters of the Knights Templar.26
Excursion to higher degrees (2) Holy Royal Arch
Regular or Craft Freemasonry, meaning that type of Freemasonry which is regulated by the united grand lodges and their various warrants around the world, offers three levels of initiation to the new recruits. These are often referred to as ‘symbolic’ or ‘blue’ degrees and are, respectively, Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason.
Most Freemasons complete their Masonic education when they obtain the Master Mason degree. There are, however, a few others who want to take their initiation further and thus proceed to what are generally referred to as the ‘additional degrees’ or ‘higher degrees’. These can be considered as emanating from Craft Freemasonry and can only be entered by those who have completed the third ‘blue’ degree of Master Mason. In Britain the only additional degree that is regulated by United Grand Lodge is the so-called Royal Arch. This is how the United Grand Lodge introduces the Royal Arch: Under the English Constitution, basic Freemasonry is divided into two parts, called the Craft and the Royal Arch. For Freemasons who really want to explore the subject in more depth there is a host of other ceremonies, which, for historical reasons, are not administered by the United Grand Lodge of England. All English Freemasons experience the three Craft (or basic) ceremonies unless they drop out from Freemasonry very early on. These three ceremonies (or degrees as we call them) look at the relations between people, man's natural equality and his dependence on others, the importance of education and the rewards of labour, fidelity to a promise, contemplation of inevitable death, and one's duty to others. A fourth ceremony – the Royal Arch emphasises man's dependence on God.27
The United Grand Lodge of England has its headquarters at Freemasons’ Hall in London. This huge neo-classical edifice is located at the crossroads of Great Queen Street and Drury Lane. But few initiation ceremonies are conducted there, with most of the three degrees being ‘worked’ in the 8,000 or so ‘lodges’ or ‘temples’ across the country. As one recent Grand Master pointed out, there is an even wider ‘spread from English origins throughout the world’ if we consider all the so-called overseas warrants.
Any Master Freemason, i.e. third degree Mason, can further his Masonic career by taking one or more or all of the ‘additional’ or ‘higher’ degrees. In England, this usually entail
s taking the supplementary degrees recognized by the United Grand Lodge, meaning those administered by the Holy Royal Arch under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Grand Holy Royal Arch Chapter of Jerusalem instituted in 1766. Higher Royal Arch degrees are ‘worked’ not in lodges but in chapter lodges. There are some 3,000 or so chapter lodges in Britain alone, with an estimated combined membership of 150,000.
Excursion to higher degrees (3) Warrior-Masons of Zerubbabel
In Craft Freemasonry the themes of the rituals revolve around pseudo-biblical events concerning the construction of Solomon's Temple. More specifically, the third or Master Mason degree deals with the death and raising of one Hiram Abiff, a pseudo-biblical character probably modelled on the legendary Phoenician architect, Hiram of Tyre, who supposedly designed or participated in the construction of Solomon's Temple around 950 BC.28 In this ritual, the apotheosis is reached when the Master Masonelect is ‘raised’ from a symbolic death supposedly mimicking the death and ‘raising’ of Hiram Abiff who was himself brutally murdered by three ‘Fellows’ for refusing to impart to them the ‘secret’ of the Master Mason's ‘word’. Presumably one of the messages of all this is that a Master Mason chooses death rather than to break his Masonic oath – an act of ultimate loyalty which is rewarded by him being ‘raised’ as a resurrected new Master.