booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

Moreover, according to a masonic tradition, an alliance definitely took place between the Templars and
the masonic guilds at this period. During the proceedings taken against the Order of the Temple in France it
is said that Pierre d'Aumont and seven other Knights escaped to Scotland in the guise of working masons
and landed in the Island of Mull. On St. John's Day, 1307, they held their first chapter. Robert Bruce then
took them under his protection, and seven years later they fought under his standard at Bannockburn against
Edward II, who had suppressed their Order in England. After this battle, which took place on St. John the
Baptist's Day in summer (June 24), Robert Bruce is said to have instituted the Royal Order of H.R.M. (Heredom)
and Knights of R.S.Y.C.S. (Rosy Cross).(36) These two degrees now constitute the Royal Order of
Scotland, and it seems not improbable that in reality they were brought to Scotland by the Templars. Thus,
according to one of the early writers on Freemasonry, the degree of the Rose-Croix originated with the Templars
in Palestine as early as 1188 (37); whilst the Eastern origin of the word Heredom, supposed to derive
from a mythical mount on an island south of the Hebrides(38) where the Culdees practised their rites, is indicated
by another eighteenth-century writer, who traces it to a Jewish source.(39) In this same year of 1314
Robert Bruce is said to have united the Templars and the Royal Order of H.R.M. with the guilds of working
masons, who had also fought in his army, at the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, founded in 1286,(40) which
now added to its name that of Heredom and became the chief seat of the Order.(41) Scotland was essentially
a home of operative masonry and, in view of the Templar's prowess in the art of building, what more natural
than that the two bodies should enter into an alliance? Already in England the Temple is said between 1155
and 1199 to have administered the Craft.(42) It is thus at Heredom of Kilwinning, " the Holy House of Masonry
"-" Mother Kilwinning," as it is still known to Freemasons-that a speculative element of a fresh kind
may have found its way into the lodges. Is it not here, then, that we may see that " fruitful union between the
professional guild of medival masons and a secret group of philosophical Adepts " alluded to by Count Goblet
d'Aviella and described by Mr. Waite in the following words: The mystery of the building guildswhatever
it may be held to have been-was that of a simple, unpolished, pious, and utilitarian device; and this
daughter of Nature, in the absence of all intention on her own part, underwent, or was coerced into one of
the strangest marriages which has been celebrated in occult history. It so happened that her particular form
and figure lent itself to such a union, etc.(43)?
Mr. Waite with his usual vagueness does not explain when and where this marriage took place, but the
account would certainly apply to the alliance between the Templars and Scottish guilds of working masons,
which, as we have seen, is admitted by masonic authorities, and presents exactly the conditions described,
the Templars being peculiarly fitted by their initiation into the legend concerning the building of the Temple
of Solomon to co-operate with the masons, and the masons being prepared by their partial initiation into ancient
mysteries to receive the fresh influx of Eastern tradition from the Templars.
A further indication of the Templar influence in Craft Masonry is the system of degrees and initiations.
The names of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason are said to have derived from Scotland,
(44) and the analogy between these and the degrees of the Assassins has already been shown. Indeed, the resemblance
between the outer organization of Freemasonry and the system of the Ismailis is shown by many
writers. Thus Dr. Bussell observes: " No doubt together with some knowledge of geometry regarded as an
esoteric trade secret, many symbols to-day current did pass down from very primitive times. But a more certain
model was the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo " - that is to say the Dar-ul-Hikmat.(45) Syed
Ameer Ali also expresses the opinion that " Makrisi's account of the different degrees of initiation adopted
in this lodge forms an invaluable record of Freemasonry. In fact, the lodge at Cairo became the model of all
the Lodges created afterwards in Christendom."(46) Mr. Bernard Springett, a Freemason, quoting this passage,
adds: " In this last assertion I am myself greatly in agreement."(47)
It is surely therefore legitimate to surmise that this system penetrated to Craft Masonry through the Templars,
whose connexion with the Assassins-offshoot of the Dar-ul-Hikmat-was a matter of common knowledge.
The question of the Templar succession in Freemasonry form perhaps the most controversial point in the
whole history of the Order, British Freemasons in the main rejecting it in favour of the Roman Collegia theory,
Continental Masons more generally accepting it, and even glorying in it.(48) Mackey, in his Lexicon of
Freemasonry, thus sums up the matter: The connexion between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons has
been repeatedly asserted by the enemies of both institution and has often been admitted by their friends.
Lawrie, on the subject, holds the following language: " We know that the Knights Templar not only possessed
the mysteries but performed the ceremonies and inculcated the duties of Freemasons," and he attributes
the dissolution of the Order to the discovery of their being Freemasons and their assembling in secret to
practise the rites of the Order.(49)
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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