A MASONIC CIVIL WAR

When in March, 1869, RW Little, ‘second clerk and cashier’ in the office of his uncle John Hervey, UGLE’s Grand Secretary, began editing The Freemason, he saw a call to arms.[i] The publisher, ‘with the sanction of the Earl of Zetland, MWGM of England’ was George Kenning, an ambitious printer and regalia-maker. On the surface the magazine was a remarkable departure for UGLE, but it was one which cost that body no effort, financial or other. Within a year it had doubled in size and claimed a circulation of half a million readers a year, and though this claim is impossible to verify, its success was obvious and its influence as the apparently sanctioned voice of UGLE was great. Whether Little, Hervey or Kenning together had initiated the venture is unknown but it had been launched to meet a threat and each believed the auguries were good. They were all, however, looking in the wrong direction. None saw the ground beginning to tilt under his feet.

A seemingly innocuous Masonic event had occurred in 1868. The Grand Orient of France (GOF) had recognised the ‘Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of the State of Louisiana’, a body in competition with and therefore not recognised by the ‘Grand Lodge of (Northern) Louisiana’ [GLL] already in operation. The GOF action constituted a violation of Masonic conventions relating to territorial jurisdiction, but the GLL was most upset by the new body admitting men ‘regardless of race or colour’ something it was not prepared to do. In 1869, the GOF ruled that no colour, race or religion should be used to disqualify a candidate for initiation. The GLL withdrew recognition from the GOF and called on other American Grand lodges to do the same. Racial discrimination in the US remained hugely-divisive in the wake of the Civil War, 1861-65. Numerous fraternities were splitting along ‘colour lines’.

Adherence to Enlightenment values might have put EF on the side of the angels but a complacent UGLE chose to maintain its backward-looking stance, and to deny reason and common sense. Was not its international reach proof that it was vitally alive and secure from competitors? Did it not have the support and mutual respect of the greatest empire the world had ever seen? The incongruous mix of Bible and Empire provided their rhetorical justification but strategic considerations and personal interests which were delivering increased amounts of colour and movement were accompanied by diminishing amounts of usable power.

UGLE was beset by a pincer movement for which it was unprepared. Internally, it was being pressured to re-define ‘Freemasonry’. Externally, its claim to be ‘the Mother Lodge of Freemasonry’ and therefore to be the adjudicator and guiding hand in disputes between ‘sub-branches’ was being threatened. In the Middle East its involvement with imperial policy meant it was having to wrangle feisty, recalcitrant ‘Freemasonries’ which it really didn’t want even to acknowledge. Jurisdictions in the colonies were claiming Masonic independence to match their political revolutions, while other more radical movements were arguing ‘Freemasonry’ was the only ideology they needed. UGLE’s response was to bind itself more tightly in the flag of Nationalism. The orchestrated progress of the Prince of Wales up the Masonic ladder sped up. Three of the royal princes were Masons after the Queen Victoria’s eldest son ‘took’ the twelve degrees of the Swedish Rite in Stockholm over two days in 1868. Subsequently, he involved himself in seven English lodges, but just one year after initiation he was ‘elected’ a Past Grand Master making him second to the GM. When he attended the December 1869 UGLE meeting, his first, he was reportedly greeted with ‘rapturous cheers’ by the ‘muster’ of 660 brethren, many of whom were no doubt reacting to his brother’s escape from an assassination attempt in Sydney in March the previous year.

EF was like the British Army which was now in the hands of a man whose contribution has been retrospectively summarised: ‘Deeply devoted to the old Army, he worked with the Queen to defeat or minimise every reform proposal, such as setting up a general staff. His Army became a moribund and stagnant institution lagging far behind France and Germany. Its weaknesses were dramatically revealed by the poor organisation at the start of the Second Boer War’ (1899-1902)’ [ii] Prescott has noted that The Freemasonwas closely linked to the more conservative wing of English Freemasonry’ and that: ‘The enthusiasms of the editors and publisher…are apparent from the long series of articles… (seeking) to demonstrate that the Anglo-Saxons were a lost tribe of Israel and that the British Empire was the fulfilment of the divine mission of the chosen people.[iii]

In 1871, the Prince and Carnarvon were made ‘honorary members’ of the Jerusalem Lodge. This provoked press commentary on anomalies in EF: ‘The Prince of Wales, for example, is a Past Grand Master and a Masonic Knight Templar; yet the degree of Knight Templar is not ‘recognised’; the Earl of Carnarvon is Deputy Grand Master, and Past Grand Master of the Mark Degree, yet the Mark Degree is not ‘recognised’, though no man can be a member of either Order who is not a Freemason first; what is called Mark Masonry furnishes perhaps the most curious anomaly of all, for while in Scotland and Ireland it is held to be an essential portion of Freemasonry, in England it has a separate jurisdiction and a separate Grand Lodge.’ [iv]

The 1813 Act of Union had set down a base definition of EF – ‘Freemasonry’ was to consist of three Craft degrees and the Royal Arch Degree [RA]. The RA was an inducement to ‘the Antients’ to agree to the settlement but it was also a favourite with many on the gentry-side of the EF negotiating panel. Even this compromise was impractical: the Act had a large loop-hole; and there were other degrees and Orders operating with highly influential members; and the demarcations between those defined ‘in’ and those defined ‘out’ were not clear. The Act did end over half a century of internal dis-union and it did seem to provide a clear-cut, enforceable situation, namely that UGLE was bound never to regularise any other Orders or degrees in the future. However, the loop-hole – that UGLE agreed it would not prohibit the continued working of chivalric degrees – meant the declaration was immediately undermined and was never stable. A half century on and it was clearly null and void. Brethren in the other Orders and Degrees were chafing under the euphemisms used to describe their ambiguous status –  terms like ‘unrecognised’, ‘irregular’ and ‘fringe’.

In 1860, the editor of the FM&MM declared: ‘We are astonished that any Mason should recommend a new degree to the brethren, and we sincerely hope that no attempt will be made to introduce such humbug into England.’ [v] He had in mind one particular ‘humbug’, a rite recently ‘invented’ in New York by a Bro Dr Horwitz and applauded by the editor of The Masonic Chronicle: ‘The rite…hails from Egypt, once the nurse of art and science. It is Masonic in character, elucidating to its votaries, who must be Masons, the principles which Masonry inculcates. This ‘Oriental Rite’ commences the work at the 34th degree, thus interfering in no way with those already established.’ Little and a friend, WJ Hughan, had thrown themselves into learning about as many of these variations as possible and had enthusiastically joined the agitation for their ‘regularisation’. Initiated an EF in 1863 at age 22, Hughan collected Bibles and quickly established a reputation around the magazine as ‘the expert’ historian. ‘(Within) 4 years of his initiation (he) had been advanced in the Mark (Degree), Perfected in the Rose Croix, Exalted in the Holy Royal Arch, Installed as a Knight Templar, Admitted into the Rosicrucian Society, Advanced and Promoted in the Royal Order of Scotland, and Installed in the Red Cross of Constantine.’ [vi] He does not appear to have been interested in the Rite of Memphis and Mizraim which was also of interest to Little. Allegedly created by Samuel Honis in Cairo in 1814, this Rite had been promoted by a father and son, Marconis de Negre, in France and Belgium, where it was worked until suppressed by police in 1848, the year in which uprisings swept across Europe. Revived again, French refugee ‘Freemasons’ brought the rite to London and formed La Grande Loge des Philadelphes which had its constitution ratified by the Conseil Supreme l’Ordre Maconnique de Memphis in January, 1851. Its members originally worked 95 ‘Memphis’ degrees but, in response to political developments, determined to work only the three Craft degrees from April, 1857. Charles Bradlaugh, prominent English freethinker and agitator joined this lodge in March, 1859, whereupon the Grand Secretary of the UGLE, in October, 1859, sent a letter to every lodge WM within the UGLE jurisdiction: “I am directed to inform you … that there are at present existing in London and elsewhere in this country, spurious Lodges claiming to be Freemasons.” He specifically named ‘Memphis’ Masons. Pressure was building and the barrier was about to break but who was to be admitted?

Little’s first editorial provided his full address as presiding ‘Sir Knight’ and President of the re-established but still ‘irregular’ Palatine Preceptory of Instruction, Order of Knights of the Red Cross and Constantine, an Order he is credited with having revived in 1865.  His publisher, Kenning was among the ‘Knight-Companions’ in his audience as he made his address, in the process provoking brethren from other chivalric Orders. In a tangle of distraught logic and fanciful assertions which, journalistically, ought to have resulted in his immediate sacking, Little claimed that he regarded ‘Freemasonry as a pure system of ethics which contains every element that can constitute real greatness and goodness in life…’ His major conclusion alluded to the crisis which had aroused him: ‘…I will not attempt to deny that designing men may have abused the privileges of Freemasonry by inventing pseudo Masonic degrees, which reflected disgrace upon Christianity by preaching a spirit of intolerance and fulminating anathemas on all who were outside the narrow boundaries of their belief. But that such an objection can be sustained against degrees originating in England amongst the founders of modern Freemasonry and now practiced by English Masons I cannot for a moment believe…’ [vii] [Emphases in original]

Hostility between purist ‘Craft’ brethren, who thought the 1813 agreement should be maintained, and advocates for a broader definition was intense. Greatest hostility was manifested by supporters of ‘the Scottish Rite’ who apparently believed that, at the very least, its significance would be diminished by acceptance of other rites into the circle. Hughan in response said: ‘…that no Supreme Council of the 33# [ie, the A&A Rite] would ever have been suffered in England during the life-time of the Duke [of Sussex, previous English GM], and accordingly, no such body was established – (until it came about)… under American authority (in) December 1845……The fact is, that the introduction of the fantastic degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Rite into England dislocated and destroyed the Ancient York working, which comprised everything that is really interesting in the pseudo-Scottish rite…’

To end the rising wave of unrest, Hughan and some others advocated amalgamation of all into a ‘Council’ but insisted that it was up to ‘the irregulars’ to come up with a resolution: ‘…There ought to be no antagonism between Orders which profess to have kindred objects, and which are supposed to be swayed by similar principles. We go further, we say there must not be – and if the degrees which are at present unrecognised in England cannot speedily arrive at a definite alliance between themselves, it will be the most remarkable proof of their inanity ever provided…’ [viii] [Emphases in original] No public guidance came from UGLE, but Hughan urged that ultimate power remain with that entity: ‘In order to prevent any subsequent institution or “revival” of other degrees, it would be well to secure from (Craft) Grand Lodge the power to prevent any other degrees being worked…than those sanctioned, on pain of certain penalties for disobedience…’ [ix]

Signed conventions rendering some of what previously had been ‘irregular’ into a new category of ‘not-irregular but not recognised Masonry’ were made public in July 1871. Under the arrangements, each of the constituent elements could claim to be standing alone while being actually dependent on UGLE in so far as the first three degrees were the mandatory requirement before enrolment in any of the others. There were immediate repercussions. John Yarker, Masonic scholar, was dismissed from the A&A ‘Scottish’ Rite for promoting un-named rites that had lost out in the scramble and were to remain ‘irregular’.[x] In a similar situation, Little used his more useful connections. In 1871, he conducted a rite, believed to have been the Rite of Misraim, in the GL building whereupon one of the purists charged him with having ‘a conflict of interest.’ UGLE’s political priorities included excluding rites which had a Gallic aroma, and this was one of those. UGLE’s own Board of General Purposes investigated and found only a minor charge proven against Little. Whether he was pushed or jumped is not clear but a loyalist, the Reverend Woodford then replaced him as editor of The Freemason.

In 1870 perhaps EF’s most controversial figure, George Robinson, became English GM. Born at 10 Downing Street in 1828 while his father was Prime Minister, in 1849 at age twenty-two, Robinson was initiated into the Christian Socialist movement. He was an MP from 1854 until 1859, when upon the death of his father, he was seated in the House of Lords as Lord Ripon. In 1859 he was Palmerston’s Under-Secretary of War and in 1863, was appointed Secretary of War. He succeeded Sir Charles Wood as head of the Indian Office in 1866 and under Prime Minister Gladstone in 1868 became President of the Privy Council.  His relations with Grand Secretary, Lord Carnarvon, et al, and his role in the compromise deal are not yet researched. On the face of it, he was kept well away from the decision-making process which now involved war across the Channel.

An 1869 contributor to The Freemason reflected on a Charles Bradlaugh lecture on ‘Freemasonry’ in the New Hall of Science. Bradlaugh, a member of an ‘irregular’ French lodge, was the leading free thought lecturer of his time. The motto of his newspaper, The National Reformer, was seen by his critic, ‘Cryptonomous’, ie KRH Mackenzie, ‘sufficiently plain and straightforward’ to be quoted in full: ‘I conceive it to be the duty of students in every science to uphold nothing dogmatically, but simply to find out what is true, no matter what existing theory they may demolish. For so only can science be built upon a firm foundation, and truth be glorified.’ [xi] ‘Truth’, unfortunately, is relative and subjective, and there is warning enough in Bradlaugh’s suggestion that it can be ‘glorified’, but MacKenzie wanted to make a different point. First, he allowed: ‘It is true, by the researches of modern Masonic historians, that the history of the order or Fraternity may be fairly shorn of its mythical glories…’ He then immediately negatived this optimistic aspiration with yet another version of the assumed ancient, pre-historic heritage: ‘…still, it has been superimposed and founded upon a much older system. In its essence it is no new invention, any more than the saint-worship of Papal Rome is other than a revival of the polytheism of Classical Rome…’

Denying Bradlaugh’s assertion that ‘Freemasonry’ was of little importance in England, he embraced the greatest illusion of all, the one which mixes the myths of imperial and Masonic grandeurs with ancient wisdoms: ‘The position of Freemasonry at the present day has an exact analogy with those ancient (Eleusinian) rites. The statesmen, warriors and philosophers – the leaders of action and thought – the poets and orators – show everywhere that they were affiliated to some great and secret body which inspired them with patience, hope, mutual forbearance and charity…’ He used the claim that ‘Masonry’ was non-political to link two unlikely Masonic allies and affirm the right to rebel in others: ‘I have frequently said…that in nations politically free, as England and the United States…(are) said to be, any admixture of politics becomes unnecessary. Not so among nations who have still their Freedom to achieve. Such nations have a sacred right to employ secret associations for the attainment of similar benefits…The Freemasons certainly inculcate love of humanity, national freedom, and individual justice. They would be unfit to exist as a powerful and growing body were this not the case…’ [My emphases]

He was immediately challenged by a writer maintaining that lodges which allowed ‘religious and social questions’ to be debated, allowed ‘rash utterances in favour of democracy and scepticism’ to be made, or allowed ‘political discussions’ to proceed, must be ‘communistic’ and their brethren must be bloodthirsty ‘anarchists and atheists’. This was previously-jailed, Chartist agitator, self-taught writer and editor, William Carpenter. He identified his ‘British’ race with ‘the lost tribes of Israel’ and believed he could map the latter’s epic journeys across Europe.  Masonic errors were, of course, only found on ‘the Continent’, ‘in French Lodges, Italian Lodges, aye, and even German Lodges.’ (My emphasis) In contrast, EF was true, divinely inspired and manifested ‘the harmony’ which naturally existed between ‘Masonic precepts and the broadest principles of free thought and action’. Those continentals, he insisted: ‘have lost the true essence of Freemasonry…they have wilfully severed themselves from that great family of brethren which, thanks to the vast increase of the Anglo-Saxon race, now encircles the earth, and…holds the future in its grasp.’ [xii]

In January, 1870, Hughan began a long series in The Freemason on ‘Masonic Historians’ with Brother Findel of Leipzig as ‘No 1’:‘(His) is the best, the fullest and most accurate History of Freemasonry extant.’ (Hughan’s emphasis)[xiii] Hughan lost a lot of friends when he agreed that ‘up to the commencement of the present century few but Germans’ wrote ‘intelligently’ on the origin of ‘the Fraternity’ and that ‘even to this very day, the most confused, ridiculous and discordant opinions prevail, utterly opposed to facts of history.’ [xiv]  Hughan also agreed with Findel that ‘what is now being generally admitted’, that the Craft originated in the ‘Building Fraternities of the Middle Ages’, was an assertion first made in Germany, and he approvingly quoted Findel’s assertion that Masonic history ‘has acquired of late years a sure foundation upon scientific principles’.[xv]

On an upward swing which would see their numbers double from 1862 to 1889, French ‘Freemasons’ were debating which form of democratic government suited their purposes. Their GM, an Army general, resigned at their 1870 Assembly and endorsed his successor, a school teacher, as a loyal and trustworthy man with government authorities, as was required. Together they supported the fraternity being asked to vote on a resolution that, if passed, would ‘suppress the office of Grand Master’, ie, declare the position to have no further relevance. Babaud-Laribier, the in-coming GM, emphasised the need for the brethren to seriously consider their decision, while making clear that he was personally in favour of the suppression. He emphasised two essential conditions which in the future should be non-negotiable, namely, the independence of lodges, and the simplicity of Masonic administration: ‘Is it not evident, my brethren, that there still exists a considerable amount of error, prejudice, injustice and misery?…preserve your liberty, your independence of thought, I do not advocate we form a clique or a party – we should not fall into the error of an enervating and brutal centralisation. Each lodge should progress the learning most appropriate to it – be it agricultural, a library, or lectures, or professional instruction…’ [xvi] On July 19th, 1870, the government of France, in order to bolster its sagging electoral support in Paris and other major towns, declared war on the Prussian Empire, only to suffer a humiliating defeat, whereupon the German army advanced at will and quickly surrounded Paris.

Early in 1871, Lord Carnarvon threatened ‘the masonic press’ with loss of all GL information if it continued to express ‘political opinions’ concerning the fighting in France, by which he meant commentaries favouring the defiant citizens who had declared the Paris Commune into being in March, 1871.[xvii] The French government  had ‘invited’ its conquerors into the city to help it put down the uprising. On 21 April, 1871, a number of French Freemasons made a last-ditch attempt at conciliation between their conservative government and the revolutionary socialists in the Commune who were pushing ahead with social reforms and lobbying for a republic to replace the monarchy. The brethren were received coldly by the President, Thiers, who assured them that, though Paris was already ‘given over to destruction and slaughter’, the law had to be enforced. Heavy fighting ensued but the poorly-armed citizens were no match for the disciplined soldiery and their cannon. Freemasons resolved to plant their ‘colours’ on the city’s ramparts in support of the Commune. On the 29th, 10,000 of the brethren representing 55 lodges, marched to the Hôtel de Ville, headed by Grand Masters in full insignia and with lodge banners. The procession then went, through the boulevards and the Champs Elysées, to the Arc de Triomphe, where the banners were raised. On the Porte Maillot the Versaillese [government] soldiers ceased firing, and the commander, himself a Freemason, received a deputation of brethren, and suggested a final appeal to Versailles. The Government, however, declined to further discuss the matter and ordered the fighting to continue which it did until the last communards were dead, imprisoned or had fled.

Grand Master Robinson, Lord Ripon, led a delegation of goodwill in 1870-71, not to France, or to Germany which might have been expected from the Anglo-Saxon and Royal connections, but to the USA where hand-picked delegates vigorously sought to cement friendship ‘on behalf of Queen Victoria…between the great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race’. [My emphasis] As the smoke cleared and the Parisian dead were carted away a banquet in the west of England celebrated with Carnarvon. He ‘took occasion to contrast the happy condition of England with the present lot of France. Alluding to the recent events in Paris, he characterised the proceedings of the insurgents as the most horrible and detestable conspiracy against law and order and everything that made human society good and noble and generous. (Cheers)...’ [xviii] This tickled the ego of his audience whose self-regarding glow increased as he continued: ‘…He thought these events had read us the melancholy lesson that however great our civilization, unless there were morals and religion, all that civilization failed. (Loud cheers) In conclusion, he advised them to cling to all our old institutions, and foremost among them all, the ancient and hereditary monarchy – the Queen and Crown. (Loud and enthusiastic cheers)’ In July 1871, the English Masonic press reported in full the address from the French GM, Bro L Babaud-Laribier to all lodges under his jurisdiction. In the midst of the dual crises, to his nation and his ‘Freemasonry’, he urged brethren to keep in mind that it was ‘Freemasonry’s strength and glory ‘to march in the advance guard of progress’ and to establish institutions which will be picked up later by ‘the outer world’, that the Order was ‘a refuge always open to free thought’ and ‘an ideal sociability’ for those with the welfare of human kind at heart. Following the example of ‘the Encyclopedia’ – ‘Didn’t the doctrines [of the Enlightenment] develop first in our Temples?’ – he reminded his audience that ‘universal suffrage’ was proclaimed in the Craft long before it was an issue ‘in the outer world’. Maintaining his righteous anger Carnarvon wrote in 1873: ‘…Thus it comes to pass within less than a century, almost every political buttress and institution in France has gone, and…Frenchmen stand on the naked howling plain of pure democracy.’ [xix]

GM Ripon had gone on to head an American/British commission to settle the claims resulting from the Civil War in the United States, the primary claims coming from attacks by United States and Confederate naval vessels upon British commercial ships. Upon completion of this work he was made Marquis of Ripon. When reciprocal delegations came to London, Hughan and Woodford advised US Templar Knights against publicly processing in England, not, they said, because their military look might be misconstrued at a time when Europe was again at war, but because EFs rarely if ever paraded in public.[xx] Woodford regarded US brethren more highly than local EFs and was euphoric: ‘We have frequently had occasion to refer to the splendid organisation of American Masonic bodies, and have even incurred the wrath of certain quidnuncs at home for the outspoken manner in which we have…Lord Ripon’s Masonic reception at Washington so strongly corroborated (our opinion) that thoughtful English Masons are beginning to enquire whether our English system is all perfection? Whether the want of cohesion – nay, the ill-disguised hostility unhappily existing – between some of the branches of English Freemasonry, is worthy of our ancient reputation and renown, or consistent with the progressive tendencies of the age?’ [xxi]

In September 1874, the Order and partisan journalists were convulsed with news that GM Ripon had resigned from EF after converting to Roman Catholicism. Rather than take the opportunity to prove its tolerance credentials, UGLE chose to publicly express regret that Lord Ripon had moved on and to thank him for his past services and, privately, to continue its fierce allegiance to the English/British political State. The brethren, at first shocked into silence, were confronted into a temper by organs of the RC Church exulting. One reaction from the brethren was to insist that his loss was of no account: ‘…Never has English freemasonry witnessed before such a spectacle of universal tranquility and contentment, of material prosperity and of universal development.’ [xxii] Leading articles exchanged abuse across the religious divide, some summarising Ripon’s allegedly undistinguished political career, his mental instability and predilection for ritual: ‘Lord Ripon’s religious views were of the Ritualistic school…and it is only logically following out that system for his Lordship to be landed in the Church of Rome.’ The Times shrieked to find that a man ‘in the full strength of his powers’ had renounced his ‘mental and moral freedom’: ‘To become a Roman Catholic and remain a thorough Englishman are – it cannot be disguised – almost incompatible conditions.’ [xxiii] The Catholic Westminster Review referred to the ‘cap, bells and motley’ of EF, otherwise known as ‘the Craft of the evil one’, while the Pall Mall Gazette joined in with: ‘(Englishmen) consider that a man who adopts such a creed [Roman Catholicism] cannot be a good Englishman, not because he has been disloyal to an English institution, but because he holds views which if carried out would injure the English nature.’ The Saturday Review described ‘Freemasonry’ as a ‘trifle’, contradicting a well-connected brother who hinted: ‘The political state of a country will always exercise a powerful influence on the form of its Masonic Government.’ [xxiv]

            UGLE and Carnarvon moved quickly on a replacement after what he called a ‘most unfortunate and…most astonishing secession.’ The PoW was offered the post, and in true English/British military style agreed to ‘step up and fill the gap’.[xxv] GM of ‘the Craft’ from then until he became King Edward VII in 1901, the PoW was also ‘made’ the highest officer in the ‘extra’ Orders – of the ‘Knights Templar’ in 1873, the ‘Royal Arch, 1874, of the Ancient and Accepted Rite in 1874, and of ‘the Mark’ in 1886. The Reverend Woodford argued that notice of the State visit of the Czar to London in May 1874 in The Freemason was permissible because EF obedience to civil authority extended to giving due reverence to a foreign ruler: ‘We English Freemasons are not politicians, and it never can be repeated too often, or remembered too carefully, that with politics…we have no concern whatever. Indeed so careful are we to maintain the golden mean of neutrality…we should not allow…political addresses on one side or the other, even as paid advertisements… But…there are some events in the world’s history which seem to lift themselves above the domain of mere party politics, and which we may fairly deal with…Now, it appears to us that the visit of the Emperor Alexander II to this country is just one of those events…For in truth, the Emperor Alexander II comes to us invested not only with that Sovereign rank which as loyal Englishmen, we have been taught to value and revere…’ [xxvi] Another editorial in The Freemason, of June, 1876, concerning ‘Whit-Monday’s Holiday’ argued for the social value of this holiday and berated the British Museum for refusing entry of women with babies. The text included: ‘…As Freemasons we rejoice in all that affects the social happiness, and comfort and welfare of the People…(We) have a right, and we mean to exercise it…to express our humble opinion on all matters which relate to the social progress of our own ‘good folk’ or of humanity at large.’ From its inception in 1875, another Masonic periodical, the short-lived Freemasons’ Chronicle, dealt with parliamentary politics, sympathised with trade unions and with education reform. Its editor believed that ‘…the occasional discussion of social questions, in a free and impartial style in the pages of a journal devoted to the interests of the Craft, cannot but be beneficial.’ [xxvii] Sufficient sales did not eventuate and it closed after a short life.

In 1877, Carnarvon led a UGLE Special Committee to report on the reasons for the changes in the declaration instituted by the Grand Orient.[xxviii] The subsequent Report formalised what became known as ‘The Great Schism’, a declaration by UGLE that the GOF was ‘irregular’, on the grounds that it allowed religious freedom of choice. On September 14th, 1877, the GOF had voted to eliminate from its constitution the article reading: “Freemasonry has for its principles the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and the solidarity of mankind” and to substitute the following: ‘Whereas Freemasonry is not a religion and has therefore no doctrine or dogma to affirm in its constitution, this Assembly has decided and decreed that the second paragraph of Article 1, of the Constitution (above quoted) shall be erased, and that for the words of the said article the following shall be substituted: 1. Being an Institution essentially philanthropic, philosophic, and progressive, Freemasonry has for its object, search after truth, study of universal morality, science and arts, and the practice of benevolence. It has for its principles absolute liberty of conscience and human solidarity. It excludes no person on account of his belief, and its motto is ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.[xxix] The A&AS Rite which was strong in France determined to retain the requirement that members swear belief in a supreme Deity.

At the next annual session of the GOF, in 1878 a move was made on the ritual. A committee was directed to report with recommendations for the following session. In September, 1879 a new ritual was adopted wherein all reference to the name and idea of God was eliminated, with liberty given to the Lodges to adopt the new or old rituals as they saw fit. In that year, Woodford responded to Findel’s published support for the GOF: ‘…Despite Bro Findel’s sneer at our “benevolence” [ie, charity, which had been threatened by a bank failure] we wish other Masonic bodies would do as much, for no one who studies the question can doubt for a moment that the last movement in France, despite its loud professions, is purely political and communistic…We are sorry to see an able brother like Bro Findel lose himself, as Sterne would put it, in the ‘sty’ of communistic and un-believing dirt. ‘ [xxx]

In 1884 a ‘Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees’ was set up by UGLE to take control of yet more, ‘irregular’ degrees and Orders. Its Rule 1 was: ‘In view of the rapid increase of Lodges of various Orders recognising no central authority and acknowledging no common form of government, a Ruling Body has been formed to take under its direction all Lodges of such various Orders in England and Wales and the Colonies and Dependencies of the British Crown as may be willing to join it.’ [xxxi] In 1902, UGLE extended its authority even further by claiming: ‘the superintendence of all such Degrees or Orders as may hereafter be established in England and Wales with, and by consent of, The Supreme Council 33^, Great Priory, Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons, Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters and Grand Imperial Conclave of the Red Cross of Constantine, but not under the superintendence of such governing bodies.’ Re-arrangement of the entities making up EF hardened its governance principles of hierarchy and centralisation, physically and symbolically. ‘The Mark’ established its head office in Great Queen Street and the A&A Rite did likewise, in Golden Square, neither far from UGLE’s temple.

Within the English establishment the enormous power and influence built up over two centuries was such that in the 1880’s a murderer could be protected and English courts massively corrupted. Bruce Robinson’s They All Love Jack published in 2015 sets out a convincing, if verbose account of the Jack the Ripper murders and its systematic cover up by initiated brethren in positions of power. At the same time ‘London’s Freemasonry’ and its Grand Lodge were far less globally influential. The carry-over of 18th century feasting and entertaining to formal banquets with long lists of designated speeches – the ‘dinner suit spectacle’ – was almost the only benefit loyalist brethren could offer a secularising audience. London’s UGL grudgingly allowed speciality research lodges in 1884-6 and though some are maintained today they then and since have had only limited success. Pragmatic power brokers still found the idea of ‘Freemasonry’ useful but by the end of the 19th century the ‘Scottish Rite’ had claimed ascendancy outside Britain and its colonies. Lodges which claimed continuity with the 1717-21 London Society were, in fact, having difficulty agreeing on a collective title and on what their Rite included. It was at times labelled ‘the York’, ‘the English’ and sometimes even ‘the American’. They embraced the three ‘Blue Degrees’ (A, W, MM) and a heritage going back to an alleged assembly of stonemasons in 10th century England. But they also included some from the Cryptic, Royal Arch and Templar ‘higher’ degrees/Orders invented during the 18th century. An important US scholar, Kuhn, wrote in 1916: The name “York Rite” is an inexcusable blunder; at least an unfortunate mistake. There never was a York Rite.’ (FW Kuhn, ‘The York Rite vs the English Rite’, The Builder, 1916 in Masonic Dictionary on-line, viewed 3/2018)

Known by then as the ‘Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite’ the ‘Scottish’ variant had more-or-less settled on its ancestry being entirely French another possible reason for the Papacy to shift its ground. The ‘Scottish Rite’ was singled out as the embodiment of the Illuminati’s alleged Satanic malignancy. Fortuitously or not, a Jewish politician and activist, Adolphe Cremieux, had been elected GM of the French Scottish Rite in 1868. (Kertzer, 2001, p.174; Encyclopeadia Britannica, Vol 7, 1911) The Catholic Church now argued that ‘English Freemasonry’ had been safely convivial when imported into New York in 1729, but that it had adopted ‘sinister schemes and unjust plans’ when the Scottish Rite of Perfection had arrived from France: ‘Adopted in 1782 and put into operation during and after the French Revolution this system was perfected by the American Supreme Grand Master Albert Pike, acclaimed “the greatest name in Masonry” who built up an autocratic government like the French Grand Orient…’ (Kenny, 1926, pp.8-9).)

Some saw other opportunities. Fraudsters ‘Leo Taxil’ and ‘Diana Vaughan’ profited from their published assertions that (Albert) Pike had been a Luciferian Pope and head of the very secretive Palladium Society through which he had claimed absolute control of ‘Freemasons’ everywhere – a big step towards a ‘New World Order.’ On April 19, 1897, ‘Leo Taxil’ called a press conference to supposedly introduce ‘Diana Vaughan’ to the press. Instead he announced that she was a fellow-hoaxer and that his ‘revelations’ about ‘the Freemasons’ were fictitious. He thanked the Catholic clergy for their assistance with publicity.

Pius IX’s successor from 1878, Leo XIII was imperious, aloof and preferred diplomacy over espionage. (Frattini, 2009, Ch 10) His lack of inside information was apparent when Bismarck ordered the expulsion of all Catholic orders from Prussia, when the newly-formed Italian government muzzled local papal influence and when crowned heads and leading politicians came under threat from radical nationalists. Nevertheless, in his twenty-five years as Pope he personally authored and issued over a thousand anti-Masonic and anti-Jewish publications and encouraged numerous like-minded editors: (Kertzer, 2001, Ch 8, fn 3) ‘The identification of a Jewish conspiracy with Freemasonry became a common theme of the anti-Semitic campaign in France and elsewhere.’ (pp.173-4). The orchestrated abuse was especially vitriolic in clergy-run newspapers where the loss of local authority was severe. The twice-monthly Jesuit magazine, La Civilta Cattolica, which was overseen by the Vatican, ‘attacked the Jews mercilessly’: ‘The Jews, eternal insolent children, obstinate, dirty, thieves, liars, ignoramuses, pests and the scourge of those near and far…managed to lay their hands on…all public wealth…and virtually alone they took control not only of all the money…but of the law itself in those countries where they have been allowed to hold public offices’. (Kertzer, 2014, p.11) Allegations of Jewish ritual-murder were revived in especially graphic forms in France: ‘By 1890, the [Assumptionist Order’s] parent newspaper, La Croix, was proudly billing itself as ‘the most anti-Jewish newspaper in France.’ (p.175) Pope Leo did become concerned with the aggressive anti-government stance taken by La Croix, but according to Kertzer made no attempt to reign in its anti-semitism.

A major anti-Jewish scandal which engulfed France from 1894 to 1906 has more recently been described as an example of mass hysteria, when virtually a whole country was convinced that black was white, evil was good (and) lies were truth: ‘It was for the first time in history that the diabolic orchestration of modern information media was deliberately employed to hypnotise a great nation and put her into a trance in which she refused to be guided by reason. In this respect, the Dreyfus Affair was a danger signal to our civilisation.’ In 1977, the commentator and Dreyfus historian, Nicholas Halasz, referred back to de Tocqueville’s early-19th century warning about ‘the perils of a new tyranny implicit in democracy’. He noted that de Tocqueville could not have foreseen how soon the threat would become real, when ‘total conformity of emotions could be generated by a few who rose to power on public trust and…efficiently (manipulated) a fabulous mass communication system’ so that a single voice, ‘the voice of the people’, ‘reverberates in each and every house and room, including the nursery.’  In his hyperbolic language, reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World among others, Halasz argued that the French people in the 1890’s preferred to believe anything other than that ‘la gloire’, the French Army, was corrupt. ‘(When) many eminent Protestants lined up in the vanguard of the party of Justice…the (alleged) enemy within grew to include a conspiracy of French Protestants with the Jews and freemasons (sic) (determined) to break Catholic France and deliver her to the mercies of Protestant Germany.’ (N Halasz ‘Introduction’, pp.15-25 in Five Years of My Life The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, Peebles, 1977) His argument does not explain why the division was so stark and the language so absolute. The papal nuncio, Archbishop Lorenzelli, told a French diplomat at the time The papal nuncio, Archbishop Lorenzelli, told a French diplomat: ‘The Jewish danger is universal, it threatens all of Christianity…and all means necessary must be used to crush it.’

On March 20, 1911, thirteen-year-old Andrei Yuschinsky was found stabbed to death in a cave on the outskirts of Kiev. Four months later, Russian police arrested Mendel Beilis, a thirty-seven-year-old father of five who worked as a clerk in a factory nearby, and charged him not only with Andrei’s murder but also with the Jewish ritual murder of a Christian child. Despite the fact that there was no evidence linking him to the crime, that he had a solid alibi, and that his main accuser was a professional criminal who was herself under suspicion for the murder, Beilis was imprisoned for more than two years before being brought to trial. As a handful of Russian officials and journalists diligently searched for the real killer, the rabid anti-Semites known as the Black Hundreds whipped into a frenzy men and women throughout the Russian Empire who firmly believed this was only the latest example of centuries of Jewish ritual murder of Christian children – the age-old blood libel. (This background from E Levin, A Child of Christian Blood, Schocken, 2014)

Power in the central circles of the Roman Church in the 20th century was increasingly in the hands of anti-modernists. In the decade after Pope Leo’s death in 1903 what Frattini has called ‘the black nobility’ of conservative intellectuals refurbished the Holy Alliance and established a new counter-espionage agency known as ‘SP’. Agents were employed specifically to locate and denounce Catholics in any part of the world suspected of reformist beliefs. (Frattini, 2009, pp.168-171) The Apostolic Delegate’s charge that ‘Freemasons’ were “the cause of our persecution and almost all our national misfortunes” was reiterated in countless bulletins, manifestos, and pastoral letters throughout third world countries: ‘During the 1920s and 1930s, devout Catholic peasants throughout Mexico repeatedly denounced the presumed link between government, school teachers, anticlericalism, and the masons.’ [xxxiv] The original manuscript of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, used to criticise Napoleon III in the mid-19th century, had been carried north by a fleeing soldier to meetings of the German National Socialists who had re-titled and re-focused it.[xxxv]  Its final transformation from local French satire to an allegedly authoritative record/account of a Jewish plot for global domination was effected by Russian secret police in the period before and after 1917. It was then reported as news and taken up by individuals like Henry Ford as proof of ‘the Jewish Threat.’ It sold in the millions and although it had quickly been shown to be a forgery it became the bible of the anti-Semitic movement throughout Europe and the United States. It was re-published in the 1920’s by Umberto Benigni, a little-known cleric who had access to the Papal ear, and made available to parish priests across Spain and Italy. (Kertzer, 2001, p.266)

In 1868, Alphonse Rothschild had taken over the management of the family bank and had begun actively seeking a solution to ‘the Jewish Problem’. His siblings were not all as politically committed as he was and continued to seek opportunities wherever they might be. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia described the family as “the guardians of the papal treasure” and Cecil Rhodes gained backing only from the family’s London office in his creation of Rhodesia, which then became the site of the Rothschild-owned Rio Tinto Mining Company. Rothschild money was directly involved in Japan’s success in the Russo-Japanese War in 1903-4. A redoubling of efforts to get ‘Jewish refugees from northern Europe to by-pass neighbouring countries and head for ‘the Holy Land’ began to move beyond a trickle. The ‘Balfour Declaration’ of 1917, whereby ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ was formally endorsed by Britain was addressed to Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild. Aarons and Loftus insist these were the years when European Powers and the US began their secret war against ‘the Jews’ while publicly appearing to support their ‘homeland’ efforts.

Legislation introduced in the 1930’s by the Nazis and by the Fascists to strip ‘the Jews’ of their rights as citizens were modelled on measures ‘that the Church had enforced as long as it was in a position to do so.’ (Kertzer, 2001, p.9) The Papacy preferred a Mussolini dictatorship and pederast priests as advisors than an Italian democracy. On the 1929 jerrymandered election for the Italian Chamber of Deputies Kertzer wrote: ‘(One) of the first things Mussolini h ad done to please the Vatican after coming to power was to declare Freemasons ineligible for membership of the Fascist Party. Now, the Pope [Pius XI] demanded that Jews and Masons be purged from the candidates list, and that Fascists of sure Catholic faith be added. Only after Mussolini had made the changes did the Vatican organise a massive church mobilisation for a yes vote.’ [xxxvi] Kertzer believes that Pope Pius XI tried to keep Mussolini from joining an alliance with Hitler but the damage was already done and Papal efforts at political compromise were increasingly subverted by the clerics around him. Even protection of the Pope’s own brethren had lower priority – German Catholics were persecuted by Nazi authorities and many went to their deaths in Auschwitz.

Contention still surrounds many of the details of this war due to the heavy use of dis-information techniques by all sides and by the explosion of speculation subsequently as authors and publishing houses ‘cashed in.’ Wikipedia has an account of Bernard Fay who wrote ‘Revolution and Freemasonry’ in 1935, and worked for the French Vichy Government under the Nazis:

At the beginning of the Second World War Fay was a professor at the College de France. During the occupation he (was made) general administrator of the Bibliotheque National and director of the anti-Masonic service of the Vichy Government…Lists of names of Freemasons were released to the official gazette…and many Catholic papers copied these lists in order to induce public opprobrium… During Fay’s tenure…989 Freemasons were sent to concentration camps, where 549 were shot…[xxxvii]

Markner has observed in private conversation that holocaust victims identified as ‘Freemasons’ may well have been targeted for other reasons:

To the chagrin of numerous history hacks there’s simply no evidence linking Hitler to a blueprint for genocide of some sort. You have to be aware of the fact that focusing on the war effort, he neglected domestic government to a very large degree. His cabinet would never meet again after 1939! A lot of things were going on that he wasn’t aware of, and there’s evidence that Bormann in particular shielded him from vital information. Ultimately, Hitler was of course responsible for what his underlings did, but that doesn’t mean he knew about it or was going along with it. There were plenty of cases where he intervened when he found out about something that he didn’t agree with. Concerning the so-called Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, while Hitler wanted to get rid of the Jews (by expelling them from Germany and territories under German influence), he only wanted to get rid of freemasonry. Hence he wasn’t targeting the freemasons themselves, at least not in Germany — he just made sure that their organisations were dissolved, just like any other esoteric association he deemed to be detrimental to the interests of the nation, Steiner’s anthroposophic movement for example.

Defeat in the 1914-18 War had seemed inexplicable to many Germans. Traitors were sought, scapegoats found. The War became a ‘Masonic War’, the hated Treaty of Versailles became a ‘Masonic Peace’, I imagine because the United States was identified with ‘Freemasonry’. The idea of a Masonic-Jewish conspiracy was imported from Catholic France and embraced. German ‘Freemasonry’, especially in the 1930’s disintegrated. Markner has insisted that ‘any study of the German propaganda effort has to take into account the Goebbels diaries, only a fraction of which have been translated.’ A Jewish jurist-turned historian, Hadassa Ben-Itto, published an extensive account of the legal history of ‘the Protocols’ in 2005. A contributor to that book, US District Court Judge Korman, quoted the Goebbels diaries of date 18 May 1943 to assert that even when Hitler knew that Germany was facing defeat he held that the Protocols were ‘absolutely genuine’ and that they remained useful to the Nazi propaganda program: ‘There is…no other recourse left for modern nations except to exterminate the Jew.’ [xxxviii]

Debates on ‘the Jewish Problem’ have not ceased. Theologians have variously explained the ‘when’ and the ‘how’ of their punishment for not being Christians and observers of global geo-politics have pondered the apparent intractability of Arab-Israeli conflict. In contrast, Paxton’s definitive book on 20th century fascism[xxxix] (he was not a Jew, a Jesuit or a Mason as far as I know) argued that Fascists were not intrinsically anti-Semitic and were not at all dispassionate: ‘(The) enemy does not have to be Jewish…each culture specifies the national enemy.’ (p.37) He has noted that the actions of Fascist governments often differed from their stated policies and were rarely internally consistent: ‘Even though in Germany the foreign, the unclean, the contagious, and the subversive often mingled in a diabolized image of the Jew, Gypsies and Slavs were also targeted. American fascists diabolized blacks and sometimes Catholics as well as Jews. Italian fascists diabolized their South Slav neighbours, especially the Slovenes, as well as the socialists who refused the war of national revival. Later they easily added to their list the Ethiopians and the Libyans…’ (p.37)

Hitler’s vision of national unity meant there was no place ‘for either free-thinking persons or for independent, autonomous communities’ such as churches, Freemasons, trade unions, political parties, or ‘the Jews’. Franco in Spain was virulently hostile to ‘democracy, liberalism, secularism, Marxism and especially Freemasonry’ because, Paxton suggests, he wanted to seal off his society from ‘economic exchange and cultural contamination from the democratic world.’. (Paxton, p.144, p.149) Paxton observed that fascist actions were shaped by ‘subterranean passions and emotions’ in the battle between dualities, between ‘us’ and ‘them’: ‘At bottom is a passionate nationalism. Allied to it is a conspiratorial and Manichaean view of history as a struggle between the good and evil camps, between the pure and the corrupt, in which one’s own community has been the victim.’ (p.41, p.218)

Allegations began to appear in 1982, so extraordinary they surely had been dreamed up by the maddest of Mad Hatters. Over time they achieved shape as a real-life conspiracy involving the Vatican, the Propaganda Due [P2] Masonic Lodge, the Mafia, anti-reformist governments, and the supposedly independent Ambrosiano Bank. After the body of the Bank’s Roberto Calvi was found hanging under London’s Blackfriars’ Bridge, leaked reports of police investigations transfixed readers everywhere and arrest followed arrest. But still, today, no-one has been found responsible for Calvi’s death. Drawing a line connecting all of this with ‘the Papal Treasure’ (above), the death of reformist Pope John Paul I in 1978, and the appointment of Vatican outsider Cardinal George Pell in the 21st century ‘to sort out the Vatican books’, indicates that there is more to come. It may or may not be relevant to note that a lodge of the Grand National Order of Freemasonry in 1800 Paris was named ‘Propaganda’, presumably this was P1.[xl] Among the many published speculations, Frattini’s account of five centuries of Vatican espionage and counter-espionage programs makes ‘the Calvi Affair’ just one more example of the lengths human players will go to in order to maintain power and wealth. Masonic infiltration of Vatican networks was regarded as a major problem over many years by the Pontiff and his staff but could not be simply demonised away – the brethren were themselves Vatican staff, often at very senior levels. Frattini’s account asserts that Calvi’s was only one of a number of ‘mysterious’ deaths around the same time.

Defending the Church against charges of responsibility for the Holocaust, a 1998 ‘Report from the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews’ argued that the Church had no responsibility of any kind. It postulated that ‘new intellectual and political currents associated with extreme nationalism‘ had emerged in the 19th century that were quite different to earlier ‘discrimination’ which involved ‘certain misguided interpretations of Christian teachings’. Far from supporting the racism of ‘an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious’ the Report labelled anti-Semitism a new ‘poisonous weed’ to emphasise the distinction. [xli] This is more mythic history:

(Its) argument, sadly, is not the product of a Church that wants to confront its history. If Jews acquired equal rights in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries [as the Report asserts] it was only over the angry, loud and indeed indignant protests of the Vatican and the Church. And if Jews in the nineteenth century began to be accused of exerting a disproportionate and dangerous influence, and if a form of anti-Judaism ‘that was essentially more sociological and political than religious’ was taking shape, this was in no small part due to the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church itself.’ (Kertzer, 2001, p.6)

Sand dedicated his 2014 book, The Invention of the Land of Israel (Verso) to the villagers of the obliterated Arab village, al-Sheikh Muwannis that once occupied the land where Tel Aviv University now sits, and quoted a memoir about the tragic events of 1948: ‘How easy it had been to be seduced, to be knowingly led astray and join the great general mass of liars – that mass compounded of crass ignorance, utilitarian indifference, and shameless self-interest.’ (Sand, 2014, p.279) Sand, Israeli professor of history at Tel Aviv University and author of The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso, 2009) detailed the ruthless tactics employed by Israeli militants to subdue, destroy and to remove not only the Arab populations but also all signs of their culture: ‘Immediately following the UN General Assembly vote of November 29, 1947, on the partition [of Palestine] plan, tensions spiked throughout the region. According to the resolution, al-Sheikh Muwannis, like all other villages on the coastal plain, would lie within the boundaries of the Jewish State…Most of the quiet villagers were almost certainly unaware of Zionism’s claim of historic ownership to the ‘ancestral land’ of the Jews, although it is safe to assume they had noticed the tendency of their uninvited neighbours to expand their landholdings…Although the British Mandate was still in force…and His Majesty’s forces were still in the area, their presence did not prevent the thirty-third battalion of the Alexandrioni Brigade [of the Stern Gang] from encircling the village during the daylight hours of March 20 and occupying a number of village homes From that point on, all Arab passage and movement required the authorisation of their enemy….’ And so on to the present day. (Sand, 2014, pp.265-9) Sand regretted the unwillingness of his university colleagues to acknowledge what had been done to achieve Zionist goals. He spoke of his shame at ‘…the 60 historians at Tel Aviv Uni who have written nothing about the culture, the people, the architecture – nothing ‘of the history of the land lying beneath the asphalt and cement on which their capital of prestige continued to accumulate’. (Sand, 2014, p.278)  

Returning to Trump and his argument that any criticism of him is fake news, there are many attempts to explain the blind faith in him which his supporters appear to have. Zaretsky in 2018 has urged a return to an older body of psychological thought which he believes ‘illuminates the kind of tight bond Trump has forged with a significant minority’:

Inspired by Freud this thought arose following the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe when Americans, too, had become wary of authoritarian elements in their society. Southern politics had been rife with race-baiting demagogues like Mississippi’s Theodore Bilbo since the 1890’s and the popularity of the pro-Mussolini radio priest, Father Coughlin, demonstrated the appeal of an authoritarian message to the immigrant north… (E Zaretsky, The Mass Psychology of Trumpism, London Review of Books, 18 September, 2018.) 

In brief, Trump’s supporters see themselves in Trump. It’s an idea well worth reading.

[i] D Clements, ‘A Masonic Emporium’, Freemasonry Today, 1 Sept, 2010.

[ii] Wikipedia, ‘Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, 1819-1904’, 4 August, 2015.

[iii] A Prescott, “‘The Cause of Humanity’: Charles Bradlaugh and Freemasonry”, AQC, Vol 116 (2003), p.25.

[iv] ‘Freemasons’, London Daily News, 5 July, 1871.

[v] ‘A New Order’, FM&MM, 17 March, 1860, p.210.

[vi]  K Jackson, ‘William James Hughan’, AQC, Vol 114, 2001, p.99.

[vii] ‘Address by Sir Knight RW Little…etc’, The Freemason, Vol 1, No 1, pp.6-7.

[viii] Editorial, ‘The High Degrees’, The Freemason, 11 Dec, 1869, p.6.

[ix] WJ Hughan, ‘Knight Templar Jottings’, The Freemason, 4 June, 1870, p.1.

[x] The Freemason, March and May, 1871.

[xi]  ‘A Lewis’, ‘Masonry and Secularism’, The Freemason, 2 Oct, 1869.

[xii] ‘At Home and Abroad’, The Freemason, Dec, 1869, p.6.

[xiii] W Hughan, ‘Masonic Historians No 1 Bro Findel’, The Freemason, 1, 8, 15 Jan, and 5 Feb, 1870.

[xiv] The Freemason, 8 Jan, 1870, p.1.

[xv] J Findel, History of Freemasonry from its Roots down to the Present Day, 2nd edn, translated into English and published in London, 1866, quote from p.6.

[xvi] ‘Freemasonry in France – Address of Bro L Babaud-Laribier’, FM&MM, 31 July, 1870, pp.84-88.

[xvii] FM&MM, Vol 24, March, 1871, pp.182-3.

[xviii] ‘Sanitorium at Weston-Super-Mare’, The Freemason, 3 June 1871.

[xix] (Carnarvon), ‘Lessons of the French Revolution’, Quarterly Review, Vol 135 No.269,  July 1873.

[xx] ‘Knight Errant’, The Freemason, 11 Feb, 1871.

[xxi] ‘The Mark Degree and the Cryptic Rite’, 26 Aug, 1871, p.8, and ‘A Contrast’, 14 Oct, 1871, p.6, both leading articles in The Freemason.

[xxii] The Freemason, quoted widely, eg, the Isle of Man Times, 19 Sept, 1874.

[xxiii] The Times, 8 Sept, 1874, quoted in J Daniel, ‘Anglo-American Relations’, in T Pope (ed), Masonic Networks and Connections,  ANZMRC, 2007, p.102.

[xxiv] Westminster Review quoted by Derby Mercury 16 Sept, 1874; ‘Religion and Politics’ in Pall Mall Gazette, 18 Sept, 1874, p.10;  The Saturday Review, quoted widely including at Royal Cornwall Gazette, 19 Sept, 1874; J Daniel, ‘ Grand Lodges in British Colonies’, in J Daniel, Masonic Networks and Connections, ANZMRC, Melbourne, 2007, p.169, and Ch 5.

[xxv] For Carnarvon and the military metaphor see The Hampshire Advertiser, 10 Oct, 1874 – he was presiding at the Annual Meeting of the Highclerc Agricultural Association at Newbury; for Catholic commentary see The Westminster Review, which described EF as ‘the ‘craft” of the evil one’, and response at The Derby Mercury, quoting the WR, 16 Sept, 1874; for summary of Ripon’s career see Nottinghamshire Guardian, 18 Sept, 1874,  which quotes The Liverpool Post, the London Post. See ‘Father Foy on Secret Societies’ for an EF response to a long RC article linking Disraeli’s unease with Ripon’s resignation – Masonic Magazine, 1 Dec, 1876, p.5

[xxvi] ‘The Visit of the Czar’, The Freemason, 23 May, 1874, p.4.

[xxvii] The Freemasons Chronicle, 2 Jan, 1875, p.1, quoted in A Prescott, ‘The Cause of Humanity’, AQC, Vol 116 (2003), p.25.

[xxviii] R Gould, ‘History of the United Grand Lodge of England, 1815-1885’, The History of Freemasonry, Vol III, Jack, Edinburgh, nd (1886?) fn.2, p.26.

[xxix] J Ramsey, “The Grand Orient of France and the Three Great Lights”, The Builder, Iowa : January 1918.

[xxx]  ‘Die Bauhutte’, The Freemason, 25 May, 1878.

[xxxi] Howe, AQC, Vol 85, p.243, and fn.1.

[xxxii] Kertzer, 2001, p.174; Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol 7, 1911.

[xxxiii] FW Kuhn, ‘The York Rite vs the English Rite’, The Builder, 1916 in Masonic Dictionary on-line, viewed 3/2018.

[xxxiv] B Smith, ‘Anticlericalism, Politics, and Freemasonry in Mexico, 1920–1940’, The Americas, Vol 65, No 4, 2009. See also P Willan, The Last Supper – The Mafia, the Masons and the Killing of Roberto Calvi, Constable and Robinson, 2007 – quotes from ‘Interview on 3 Monkeys with Willan; J Dickie, Cosa Nostra, Hodder and Stoughton, 2004, p.37, p.364.

[xxxv] K Heiden, Der Fuhrer, Gollancz, 1944.

[xxxvi] D Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini, Random House, 2014, p.118.

[xxxvii] ‘Bernard Fay’, Wikipedia, 2018.

[xxxviii] ‘Foreword’, H Ben-Itto, The Lie That Wouldn’t Die, Vallentine Mitchell, 2005, p.xi.

[xxxix] R Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, Vintage, 2005, pp.42-4, p.46.

[xl] Anti-Jacobin Review, 1800-01.

[xli] D Kertzer, Popes Against the Jews, Knopf, 2001, pp.4-5.