How the two opposing Craft bodies came to unite in 1813 is a story that cannot here be dwelt upon at length. The present purpose is merely to show how the Craft Union affected the status of Royal Arch masonry and, together with the Royal Arch Union four years later, settled for all the years that have since elapsed the somewhat anomalous position occupied by the Royal Arch in the English jurisdiction.
By the end of the eighteenth century there was in general an assimilation of ritual between the two Craft bodies and, on the part of wise and zealous masons, an ardent wish that these bodies should unite in peace and harmony under one Grand Lodge. There was much going and coming of moderate men between the lodges and Grand lodges of the two persuasions, and a great many Brethren were undoubtedly doing their best to minimize differences and smooth the path to union.
The passage of the years had done much to make union possible, for though between extreme lodges of the two persuasions there still remained considerable differences in working, it is equally sure that between the moderate lodges the differences were tending to become few. It is known that a few lodges made Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master Masons by both systems‑that is, they put every Candidate in each degree through the separate ceremonies of both the Antients’ and the Moderns,’ while a regiment stationed at Lewes, Sussex, just a few years before the Union had two Craft lodges, one of each kind, working at the same time. Between moderate lodges there was quite an amount of visiting, and it was possible, for instance, for Benjamin Plummer, Grand junior Warden of the Antients,’ to be admitted into a meeting of the Moderns’ Royal Lodge, Barnstaple, and occupy the Master’s chair for the evening. In some extreme lodges re-makings were still insisted upon, but in the more moderate ones visitors were accepted on taking the Obligation, and it is known that both Antients’ and Irish Royal Arch masons were admitted to the English Grand Chapter on that basis.
Behind the scenes the movement to unite the two Craft bodies certainly started at least a generation before union was achieved. In the background worked many worthy masons, and the pity is we know so very little about them. We should like to know all their names and do them honour. A great figure working for peace was Lord Moira, who held the respect and confidence not only of his Moderns’ Brethren, but, to a remarkable extent, of his Brethren in the opposite camp; this happy condition was easier in his case than in many others owing to his Grand Mastership in 1806‑7 of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, with which and the Irish Grand Lodge the Antients’ had maintained close accord all through their history. Undoubtedly the best men on both sides wanted and worked for peace; undoubtedly, too, the Royal Arch was a factor to be most seriously borne in mind both in the preliminary negotiations and in the final settlement.
One absurd anomaly still continued. The leading Moderns’ Grand Officers were, almost to a man, members of chapters, but the official opposition to the Royal Arch still continued, and evidence of this is provided in the correspondence passing between a former Provincial Grand Master, the Rev. Prebendary Peters, and his deputy, the Rev. Matthew Barnett, Vicar of Market Rasen. In a letter written in 1813 the Prebendary says:
As I have known some very respectable and good characters in the Royal Arch, I do not suppose that there is anything wrong connected with it. It is not known, however, to the National [premier] Grand Lodge. That power from which I am delegated, and of which you are my deputy, knows no other denominations of Masons than Enter’d Apprentices, Fellow Crafts and Master Masons. It is dangerous to proceed further, and I have reason to believe that beyond the Royal Arch, it is impious, and when carried to the length of some weak and deluded men, approaches the Infernal.
Six years earlier, in a letter to the same correspondent, he said that the Antients’ had had the “impudence to enter into the Witham Lodge with all their Harlequin Aprons and Badges, but Mr. Thorold much to his honour instantly closed the Lodge and went away.” The available minutes do not disclose that the Antients’ Grand Lodge was concerned in advancing the cause of the Royal Arch in their early exchanges with the Moderns.’ The Antients’ proceeded cautiously, seeking for every step the full accord of the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland, and insisted in the early negotiations that all their Masters and Past Masters then constituting their Grand Lodge should be members of any new and united Grand Lodge; ultimately they gave way on this point, but not until they had been made to realize that there was not a building in London large enough to hold a Grand Lodge based on such a generous qualification.
As we read through the Antients’ Grand Lodge minutes from 1797 to December 23, 1813, which was the date of the last meeting of that body before the union, we do not light upon a single indication that the Royal Arch was a consideration in the proposed union. And yet we know it must have been. We find the Antients’ resolving in June 18io that “a Masonic Union … on principles equal and honourable to both Grand Lodges and preserving inviolate the Land Marks of the Craft would be expedient and advantageous to both,” and that this be communicated forthwith to the Antients’ Grand Master, requesting his sentiments thereon, and also to the Earl of Moira (Moderns’), with a declaration of their readiness to concur in such measures as might assist that most desirable end.
It seems clear that, so far as preliminary resolutions of the two bodies are concerned, it was not thought necessary to bring the Royal Arch into the immediate discussion. The reason seems to be easily forthcoming. To the Antients’ the three Craft degrees and the Royal Arch comprehended essential masonry, and it is doubtful if it would occur to them that there would be any more purpose in mentioning one than the other in the early negotiations. It is to be expected that insistence on defining the exact position and status of the Royal Arch came from the Moderns,’ though they, as we have shown over and over again, were in a ridiculous state of division on the subject, officially opposing ‑ perhaps, towards the end of the time, pretending to be opposing ‑ a degree which as individuals they may have regarded zealously and with affection.
Taking a common‑sense view of the matter, we must assume that the Antients’ went into the negotiations with the expectation that the degree would be fully acknowledged. Opposed to them were some who had other ideas‑but only some, far from all. There is much significance in a minute of the senior Grand Chapter of December 10, 1811, when the First Grand Principal worked the sections of the Lectures and in his report on approaching union stated that four degrees were to be acknowledged. At this very late date the Grand Chapter seems still to have been working as a Chapter as well as a Grand governing body. Negotiations spread over a considerable time, and it is in November 1813 that the immediately approaching union of the two Grand Lodges was announced in the senior Grand Chapter by the Duke of Sussex, M.E.Z., who was invested by Grand Chapter “with the fullest powers to negotiate a union of the Grand Lodges” in such a way as might appear to be “most conducive to the general interest of Masonry.” In the actual negotiations it can be safely assumed that the Antients’ contended for the full recognition of the Royal Arch Degree, and that any attempt on the part of the Moderns’ to eliminate that degree would have brought the negotiations to an end, but it may well be argued from the known result that, while the Moderns’ were prepared to retain the Royal Arch, officially they were not prepared for it to rank in parity with the three Craft degrees. We see in the result a compromise to which the superior negotiating ability of the 閃oderns’ must have contributed.
A. R. Hewitt contends that there was no real R.A. Union comparable with the Union of the two Grand Lodges. He states:
For the Union of the Grand Lodges a number of representatives from each had met and negotiated. In the case of the Royal Arch Union’ only Sussex was appointed to negotiate. What, if any, negotiations were carried on is not known. No formal document was executed and signed for ratification by a joint meeting. For union there must be two or more bodies willing to unite but there was in fact only one sovereign independent Royal Arch body, the Grand and Royal Chapter of 1766. The so‑called Grand Chapter of the Antients had no existence separate from the Grand Lodge of the Antients, no independence of action. It was a part of its Grand Lodge, and when that body disappeared at the Craft Union in 1813 its Grand Chapter must of necessity have disappeared with it. With whom then did the Grand and Royal Chapter or its representative, the Duke of Sussex, negotiate? Remembering that the Duke was authorised to negotiate with the Grand Lodge it seems obvious that the original Grand Chapter did not acknowledge the existence of any other Grand Chapter. The minutes of the meeting held on March 18th, 1817, at which the Supreme Grand Chapter came into being, record that “The Members of the two former Grand Chapters having been summoned to meet this day they assembled in separate apartments.” The occasion could more truthfully be described as a meeting not between two independent bodies about to unite but between one independent body and a number of Royal Arch Masons who had been members of the Antients’ Grand Lodge which had disappeared four years earlier.
If this is accepted then it is misleading to refer to the Royal Arch activities of 1817 as a Union’ of Grand Chapters and to have called the new body by the style and title of the United Grand Chapter, a title soon to be dropped (at the end of 1821) for that of Supreme Grand Chapter. True, at the first meeting reference was made to the “two former Grand Chapters” and to the “United Grand Chapter”, expressions which it may have been thought expedient to use as a compliment to the eminent members of the former Antients’ Grand Lodge present and about to become officers and members of the new body. That there were protracted discussions about the future of the Royal Arch during the Craft Union negotiations there can be no doubt for it is obvious that the Antients’ Grand Lodge insisted on recognition of the Order by the Moderns’ as an integral part of masonry, hence the inclusion in the Articles of Union of the much quoted phrase that masonry consists of three degrees and no more, viz., those of the entered apprentice, the fellow craft and the master mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch. Such discussions were between brethren who, although meeting as representatives of the two Grand Lodges, were also Royal Arch Masons of distinction in their respective systems.
The Phrase “Pure Antient Masonry”
“What may have been meant by ‘Pure Antient Masonry’ in 1813 can only be guessed at, but one thing is clear ‑ it included the Holy Royal Arch.” Probably that is about the shortest and the wisest statement that has been made by the many students who have written on the subject (it is Roderick H. Baxter’s), but it will not satisfy the reader seeking enlightenment, and some comments may therefore be offered in the hope of helping him.
It must be admitted that all through the nineteenth century the declaration relating to “Pure Antient Masonry” was treated by most Masonic writers not as a statement of a fact, but, as Douglas Knoop remarks, “as a mythical claim, not to be taken seriously.” Hughan, Gould, Findel, and others asserted that the Royal Arch was an extra or additional degree, and they could hardly have held that it was, in truth, a part of “Pure Antient Masonry.” Gould asked why, if one Grand Lodge could add to the system of Ancient Masonry, another could not, and he hinted that discussion on the subject might centre upon another vexed question, that of the landmarks. G. W. Speth thought that the term “Pure Antient Masonry” could apply only to the system that was universally accepted up to 1729.
Redfern Kelly, whose lengthy paper in A.Q.C, vol. xxx, is among the more important and controversial commentaries on the subject, elaborates Speth’s argument that nothing beyond the Third Degree had been generally accepted before 1740, that being the approximate date when the Royal Arch first appeared in Great Britain; by the time it became generally worked by the Antients,’ it could not, he thought, be “pure freemasonry’,” because the Premier Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland had not yet acknowledged it in any way. When in 1813 the Grand Lodge of England officially recognized the Royal Arch it was much too late for that Grand Lodge to pretend to have any authority over universal freemasonry, says Redfern Kelly, at the reference above given, inasmuch as independent Grand Lodges now existed with as much right to a hearing as England herself; he thought that the limit of development in 1729 was the Third Degree, and that the only system that has ever been universally accepted is that of the Three Craft Degrees, which alone constitute Pure and Antient Freemasonry. But to a large body of freemasons Redfern Kelly’s conclusion is hurtful and far from being necessarily correct; such Brethren do not believe that when the United Grand Lodge declared that Royal Arch masonry was part of “Pure Antient Masonry,” it was offering an empty, not to say an untrue statement.
The happiest view of the matter has been offered by Douglas Knoop, who, in agreeing that it is difficult to take the declaration literally, yet says that the only way is to recognize that “Pure Antient Masonry” can be identified, not with the Three Craft Degrees alone, but rather with the esoteric knowledge associated with them, irrespective of the presentation of that knowledge in one, two, or three instalments. He holds that the claim of the Royal Arch to be part of “Pure Antient Masonry” can be judged, not by trying to trace the Royal Arch back to 1’71’7 or so, but by considering whether the principal esoteric knowledge associated with the Royal Arch can be shown to have existed when the Premier Grand Lodge was founded (1717). If that can be shown to be the case, he says, then the Royal Arch can claim to be part of “Pure Antient Masonry” with as much justification as the Three Craft Degrees.
The crowning anomaly in the history of the Royal Arch, which is a series of anomalies, is the one implicit in the declaration of 1817 that Royal Arch masonry does not constitute a degree. It is said that the Moderns’ Brethren were most favourably disposed to the preservation in its entirety of the Royal Arch Degree. As Brethren no doubt many were, but it is a curious reflection that there must still at that late date have been an amount of official opposition to complete recognition, for otherwise the Royal Arch would have kept its pre‑Union status of a full degree. Nominally it failed to do that, although in effect it remains a degree, as it always was and always will be, for we must ever remember that a degree is but a step and that nobody can question that the Candidate in an Exaltation ceremony takes a step of high Masonic importance. Is it not odd that what was held in 1813 to be merely the completion of a Craft degree should have been allowed to remain under the jurisdiction of a non‑Craft body, even granting that the personnel of the Grand Chapter is closely identified with that of the Grand Lodge? Such an anomalous condition could come only as a result of compromise arrived at after hard bargaining‑a compromise possible only in the English way of thought‑but it must be admitted that the compromise, illogical as it is, has worked. Outside the English jurisdiction the Royal Arch is a separate degree.
After the Craft Union
There is no mention of the Royal Arch in the Craft Constitutions of 1815‑47. Only in 1853 was the preliminary declaration as we have it in the Constitutions to‑day printed by way of a preamble. The Lodge of Promulgation (1800‑11), whose special and temporary task was to promulgate, actually “restore,” the old landmarks and to prepare masons of the Moderns’ Craft lodges for the coming alterations in ceremonial, made plain the way for another temporary lodge, the Lodge of Reconciliation 1813‑16), whose special duty was to reconcile existing Craft ceremonials and to produce what was in effect an agreed ritual.
With the object of entering into an International Compact, representatives of the Grand Lodges of Ireland, Scotland, and England met together in London in July 1814, and, but for uncertainty as to the position of the Royal Arch, obliging the Irish and Scots representatives to report back to their respective Grand Lodges, an agreement of lasting benefit to freemasonry would have been cemented. But at least one good thing came out of the conference: at its conclusion, at a meeting of the Restauration Chapter (the private chapter within Grand Chapter) held at Kensington Palace, four of the conference members were exalted ‑ namely, the Duke of Leinster, Grand Master of Ireland; Lord Kinnaird, Grand Master ‑ Elect of Scotland; the Earl of Rosslyn, Past Grand Master of Scotland; and Lord Dundas, Deputy Grand Master of England.
Royal Arch masonry was in a difficult position in the period intervening between the Craft Union and the so‑called R.A. Union’, in 1817. Indeed, it remained in an uneasy state for some few years afterwards, as, for reasons which are not properly understood, the Supreme Grand Chapter found difficulty in getting down to its work. The chapters, and those lodges working the R.A., were left to fend for themselves following the Craft Union. If there was still uncertainty in the Craft ‑ and there was, of course, for some few years ‑ how much more must there have been in the Royal Arch, left wondering from 1813 as to what exactly would happen! In support of this suggestion turn to the Twelve Brothers Lodge, meeting at the Blue Anchor Tavern, Portsea, Portsmouth, an Antients’ lodge founded in 1808. An existing copy of its original by‑laws has attached to it a letter revealing that while the lodge in 1816 was still, after the Union, holding Royal Arch meetings without a warrant from any Grand Chapter, the Provincial Grand Superintendent would not allow of admissions of Royal Arch masons made in an Irish military lodge, where the working must have been very much the same. Such anomalies as this would remain until a United Grand Chapter could bring thought to bear on the problems.
Supreme Grand Chapter, 1817
The Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England, following the example of the United Grand Lodge, was formed by the union of the two Grand bodies, the Grand Chapter of 1766 and the Antients’ so‑called Grand Chapter of 1771. This union was the natural consequence of the Craft Union, and must have been envisaged by those taking part in the earlier discussions. We know very little of the negotiations, if any, but it is on record that Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge and M.E.Z. of the premier Grand Chapter, had been given full power to conclude a union with the Antients’ so‑called Grand Chapter, and that the union was carried through after some delay. On March 18, 1817, members of the two former systems met, opened in separate chapters, and proceeded to a third chamber, where the M.E.Z. received them; they were then joined as one, officers of the combined Grand Chapter were elected, and a committee was formed to consider questions relating to laws and regulations, procedure, clothing, and so on.
The Anno Lucis date of the Union was, under the old system, 5821, but in that year the method of arriving at the year Anno Lucis was altered. Previously 4004 had been added to the year A.D., but in 1817 some little confusion was ended by substituting 4000 for 4004. On April 15, 1817, new Constitutions were adopted, but it was some little while before they were published. In the meantime the reconstitution of the R.A. had been formally reported to the Grand Lodge of England, which on September 3, 1817, passed the following resolution:
That the Grand Lodge having been informed that the two Grand Chapters of the Order of the Royal Arch, existing prior to the Union of the Craft, had formed a junction, that rank and votes in all their meetings had been given to all the Officers of Grand Lodge, and that the Laws and Regulations of that body had been, as far as possible, assimilated, to those of the Craft, it was Resolved Unanimously That the Grand Lodge will at all times be disposed to acknowledge the proceedings of the Grand Chapter, and, so long as their arrangements do not interfere with the Regulations of the Grand Lodge, and are in conformity with the Act of Union, they will be ready to recognize, facilitate, and uphold the same.
Among the most important regulations made by the United Chapter are those acknowledging all chapters registered before December 27, 1813, and one requiring every regular chapter existing prior to that date unattached to any regular lodge to unite itself to a regular warranted Craft lodge, take its number, hold meetings at separate times from the lodge, and keep its records and accounts apart from those of the lodge. It follows that a Royal Arch chapter cannot exist under the English jurisdiction except it be attached to an existing Craft lodge itself warranted by Grand Lodge (Supreme Grand Chapter Regulation 45), though in Scotland, Canada, and the United States chapters continue to have a wholly independent existence under their own Grand Chapters. The idea behind this regulation did not have its origin in the United Grand Chapter. In the very earliest days it was understood by some that the chapter was either itself a part of the lodge or should be attached to it. It has already been shown that the earliest chapters warranted by the senior Grand Chapter were called in each case a lodge or chapter, although it is known that one of them, the Lodge of Hospitality or Chapter of Charity, probably comprehended two distinct bodies ‑ a 閃oderns’ lodge dating from July 22, 1769, and a chapter dating from December 8 of the same year. The Caledonian Chapter, out of which grew a new chapter that developed into the first Grand Chapter, was itself in association with the Caledonian Lodge, and this at such an early date as 1763.
The attachment of a chapter to a lodge was occasionally referred to early in the nineteenth century as the “grafting of the chapter on the lodge warrant.” The custom by which an individual lodge (or some of its Royal Arch members) applied for a charter as from the late 1760s must have fostered the very proper idea that the chapter was the natural complement of the lodge.
It is clear that the Act of Craft Union did not extend to any lodges the right to work the Royal Arch; this right had been enjoyed by the Antients’ lodges up to that time, although an effort had been made in the 1790s to restrict the making of Royal Arch masons to the chapters, of which a considerable number had been founded in the decades immediately before the Craft Union.
It appears that some chapters must have had disinclination or difficulty in complying with the requirements of the United Grand Chapter, for there was considerable delay on the part of many of them in naming the lodges to which they had attached themselves. We find the quarterly communication of Grand Chapter in May 1821 requiring that such chapters As were existing prior to May 1817, and had not yet made known to which lodge they were attached, be allowed until the Grand Chapter in May 1822 to supply the information, each of them to receive a new charter free of expense. By February 1822 no fewer than ninety chapters were still in default.
Failure either to anchor the chapter to a lodge or return the information to the Grand Chapter (such failure had a way of happening in remote districts) sometimes had a most unfortunate sequel; a chapter unable after the lapse of years to satisfy Grand Chapter in a formal manner of its continuity of existence was unable to obtain a centenary warrant, although there had been no break in its meetings. There is the case, for example, of the Concord Chapter, No. 37, Bolton, actually founded in 1767, unable to qualify for its centenary warrant until 1936.
For a marked example of a chapter that met with trouble of this kind let the reader refer to the entry in the Masonic Year Book relating to Chapter No. 339, at Penrith, dating back to 1830. Officially it achieved its centenary in 1930, but the centenary charter then granted refers in a preamble to the foundation of the chapter in 1788. According to Grand Chapter records its first warrant was cancelled in 1809 and, following the R.A. unification in 1817, no new warrant was issued. The chapter, however, has a minute‑book dating back to January 25, 1818, and showing a succession of somewhat irregularly held meetings until the year 1823; then there comes an account of the “re‑opening of the Chapter under a new Charter of Constitutions” on December 30, 1830. It then became the Chapter of Regularity, anchored to the Lodge of Unanimity, now No. 339, Penrith, the last lodge to be warranted by the Moderns’ before the Craft Union in 1813. Although the chapter was erased in 1809, it was functioning in 1818, but officially its existence earlier than the latter year could not be acknowledged by Grand Chapter. The above details are taken from a valuable contribution to A.Q.C., vol. lxvi, by Robert E. Burne, P.Z. of the chapter (who states, by the way, that there were Sunday meetings as late as 1847). In 1845 the minutes of the lodge to which the chapter was anchored show that Brother Wickham, a Doctor of Medicine, “passed the chair” in the lodge, and was proposed and seconded in the lodge to be exalted “to the Most Excellent Degree of Royal Arch Mason.” At the next chapter meeting he was again proposed and seconded before Exaltation. Then, on April 10, 1848, again in the lodge, “in the Third Degree, it was proposed that Brother Percival be exalted to the degree of a Royal Arch Mason at the next meeting of the Chapter.” Against this entry, in other writing, is the word “Irregular,” and that, says Brother Burne, was “the end of proposals in the Lodge.” In 1854 the janitor of this chapter had held his office for twenty‑six years, but his name had never been registered with Supreme Grand Chapter.
A chapter attached to a lodge that has become suspended or erased may be transferred to another lodge on request, subject to the approval of Grand Chapter and that of the lodge concerned; indeed, any chapter may in this way transfer to another lodge, but shall take the number and may be required to take the name of the second lodge; it thus follows that not more than one chapter may be attached to any one lodge at the same time. An example of chapters that have changed attachment is the St George’s Chapter, which, attached to the Lodge of Friendship, No. 206, transferred in 1872 to the St George’s Lodge, No. 140.
It is by no means unique to have a lodge and its associated chapter meeting in different towns. For example, Lodge of Freedom, No. 77, meets at Gravesend; the chapter of this number ‑ the Hermes ‑ meets at Sidcup. Lodge No. 1768 meets in Central London; the chapter of that number meets at Sutton.
It is obvious from the foregoing that every chapter carries a number that may have little relevance to the date of its founding, its place on the Register being determined not by its age, but by the number of the lodge to which it is attached. Whereas, after the Craft Union, the Antients’ and the Moderns’ Craft lodges ‘took turns’ or alternated in seniority in the list, an arrangement that looks fair but produced some startling anomalies, when it comes to chapters the confusion is often considerably worse. Thus the first five chapters in the list (other than the Grand Master’s Chapter founded in 1886) include three going back to the eighteenth century, but not until a much later place do we reach another of that age. As examples, the Chapter of St James (year 1778) is No. 2; Chapter of Fidelity (year 1786), is No. 3; St George’s (year 1785) is No. 5; Union Waterloo (year 1788) is No. 13; and then not till the twenty‑eighth place comes another of the eighteenth century, the Jerusalem Chapter, No. 32 (year 1792). And so forth!
A few chapters working in Scotland under English charters that had been granted prior to the Royal Arch unification could not attach themselves to any Craft lodges in Scotland, and were permitted to continue their meetings and remain unattached. It is worth while recording their names: Land of Cakes, Eyemouth, Berwickshire (chartered 1787), became No. 15 in the Scottish Grand Chapter list in the year 1817. Similarly, Royal Bruce Castle Chapter, Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire (chartered in 1817), passed into the Scottish list in 1817 and is there No. 521. Seven others are now extinct‑namely, Royal Caledonian, Loyal Scots, Mount Sinai, Mount Lebanon, Royal Gallovidian, Royal St John’s, and St Andrew’s, the first‑named dating from 1796 and the last‑named from 1817.
It has Been already remarked that for some years following the Union, Royal Arch masonry was in a somewhat chaotic condition. The records of a great many minute‑books go to show that letters addressed to Grand Chapter were neglected, returns often unacknowledged and, perhaps as a result, failing to be made punctually in later years. There was throughout the country, particularly among the former Antients,’ a decline in interest, leading in some cases to the (technical) lapsing of chapters and, at a much later date, to serious disappointment when a chapter sought confirmation of its continuity of existence. As from 1817, and before the new system got into working order, the Antients’ lodges that had been conferring the degree in lodge continued to do so. Many chapters were carrying on under separate Royal Arch warrants from both Moderns’ and Antients,’ mostly granted many years before, and undoubtedly some bodies were working without warrants of any kind, blame for which could not always be laid upon their shoulders. Some Lancashire lodges ‑ including Beauty,
No. 334, of Radcliffe; St John, No. 191, of Bury; and St John’s, No. 348, of Bolton ‑ petitioned repeatedly for a Royal Arch warrant (Norman Rogers remarks), and were nearly twenty years in getting it. Their failure was due in part to confusion at headquarters and also to a new policy that had come into existence with the Royal Arch Union, that of keeping the number of chapters below the number of Craft lodges, a policy which led to grievances. Cecil Adams has stated that of the eighteen chapters meeting in London in 1824 some were reported as meeting only occasionally; even so, many London petitions were rejected during the next fifty years, and even when the Royal Arch masons of the Grand Master’s Lodge, No. 1, petitioned for a Charter in 1839 they failed to get one, and had to wait until 1886.
By 1823 about two hundred chapters had attached themselves to lodges, thirty‑eight of them in Lancashire, seventeen in London, sixteen abroad, fourteen in the West Riding of Yorkshire and five (total) in North and East Ridings, nine in Cheshire, eight each in Devonshire, Hampshire, and Kent, six each in Somerset, Suffolk, Sussex, and Scotland, and fifty‑three in other English counties. (Lodge charters had frequently been sold in preUnion days, but as from 1823 the charter of a dissolved chapter could not be transferred without Grand Chapter’s consent, and if sold or procured irregularly was forfeited and the chapter erased.) The difficulties and delays in obtaining charters added to the bad feeling in some parts of the country where memories of the old quarrel were still fresh. Here is a typical instance, details of which have been provided by Norman Rogers. St John’s Lodge, No. 348, Bolton, wrote on October 15, 1816, to the Grand Secretary saying that some of their Brethren had been made Royal Arch masons in a chapter, and others, under the Antients’ system, in a Craft lodge. The former group looked upon the latter as illegal. The lodge asked for advice, wanted to know whether it would be justifiable to make Royal Arch masons on the Antients’ system or whether it could have a dispensation until such times as a chapter warrant could be issued. Grand Lodge quickly pointed out that no arrangement had yet been entered upon and that, until then, former regulations should be observed. In reply to a letter sent late in 1821 the lodge was told that, owing to the unhinged state in which the Royal Arch had been for some time past, the meetings of the Grand Chapter had been temporarily suspended. Five years later the lodge asked for instructions on the manner in which it should obtain a dispensation to hold a Royal Arch chapter! It is understandable that such unfortunate delays created exasperation in many quarters. Adding to the trouble was a suspicion of bias in appointing Provincial Officers. The practice of the Provincial Grand Master of Lancashire (suspended in 1826) of selecting his officers from what had been the Moderns’ lodges and the failure of the Grand Chapter to issue warrants to the late Antients’ lodges led to a bad feeling and played a part in the coming into being of the so‑called Wigan Grand Lodge; this was formed by four lodges erased by Grand Lodge in 1823, was centred in Wigan and called itself “The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England according to the Old Institutions.” Its career was not successful. After its second year or so it was in abeyance until 1838 and did hardly anything, although it continued to have an independent existence until 1913, when the only lodge surviving of the six constituted by it received a warrant from the United Grand Lodge and is now Lodge No. 3677 (Sincerity), meeting in Wigan.
The regulations of the United Grand Chapter published in 1823 did away with the Installed Master qualification in Candidates for Exaltation, and required merely that the Candidate should be a Master Mason of twelve months’ standing. (The original minute is dated May 8, 1822.) In the course of time arose an arrangement by which the twelve months could be reduced to four weeks by dispensation, and in November 1893 the qualification was definitely made four weeks’ standing as a Master Mason, and so it remains to this day.
Today’s Constitution of Grand Chapter
The last revision of the Royal Arch regulations was in 1955, the new regulations coming into force on January 1, 1956. The chief object of the revision was to make the regulations more compatible with modern Royal Arch conditions and also with the Craft Constitutions, in conjunction with which they may require to be read. The following notes are based on the new regulations.
The interests of the Order are governed by a general representation of all private chapters on the register and the Grand Officers, present and past, with the three Grand Principals at their head. This collective body is styled the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England, and meets in convocation at quarterly intervals. First Principals, present and past, represent the private chapters, and retain membership of Grand Chapter as long as they continue to be subscribing members of a chapter. The regulations applying to Principals and their Installation are given in a later section of this book.
The Committee of General Purposes (consisting of the Grand Principals, Pro First Grand Principal, a President, and eight First Principals, present or past) meets at least four times each year; two of the eight members are annually appointed by the First Grand Principal, the six others being elected by Grand Chapter. Among its duties are to control the finances of Grand Chapter, examine and report on applications for charters, and, in general, act as a Board of General Purposes.
Regarding the appointment and election of Grand Officers, their essential qualification is that they must be the First Principal, present or past, of a chapter. The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, if an Installed First Principal, shall be the First Grand Principal, but if he is not so qualified a First Grand Principal shall be elected annually and installed in May. Similarly, and if qualified, the Pro Grand Master is the Pro First Grand Principal, and the Deputy Grand Master is the Second Grand Principal; whom failing, then the First Grand Principal appoints the second, and, in any case, he also appoints the Third.
The Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge, the Grand Treasurer, and the Grand Registrar occupy, if qualified, corresponding offices in the Royal Arch. Other Officers are appointed by the First Grand Principal. Grand Superintendents and Grand Inspectors are Grand Officers.
London Grand Chapter rank may be conferred on Past Principals of London chapters by the First Grand Principal. In the Provinces and Districts the Grand Superintendents are appointed, and their appointment is a prerogative of the First Grand Principal. Provincial or District Grand Chapters consist of the Grand Superintendent and other Provincial or District Grand Officers and Principals of Chapters. The appointment of the Grand Officers of a Province or District is in the hands of the Grand Superintendent.
A petition to Grand Chapter for a charter for a new chapter must be in approved form, signed by not fewer than nine Royal Arch masons, and be accompanied by a majority recommendation by the Master, Wardens, and members of the regular lodge to which the proposed chapter is to be attached. The precedence of the chapter is that of its Craft lodge.
Each chapter must be solemnly constituted according to ancient usage by a Grand Principal or some one appointed to that duty, and the chapter acts under the authority of its Charter of Constitution, which must be produced at every convocation.
A complete chapter consists of the Three Principals (considered conjointly and each severally as Master), two Scribes, Treasurer, Principal Sojourner and his two assistants, and other officers and Companions, making up the number of seventy‑two. In excess of this number members may not hold the staff of office or be considered as Councillors when more than seventy‑two are present. The officers of a chapter are appointed by the Principals if so resolved, or may be elected by ballot, except that the Three Principals and the Treasurer must be so elected. (In some chapters, even as late as the 1870痴 or so, the Principal Sojourner personally appointed his two assistants.)
The Installation and Investiture of officers must be as laid down in the chapter by‑laws, and these, of course, must be in accord with Grand Chapter regulations. Every officer of a chapter, except the Janitor, must be a subscribing member of that chapter.
The precedence of officers is as follows: the Three Principals, Scribe E., Scribe N., Treasurer, Director of Ceremonies, Principal Sojourner, Assistant Sojourners, Assistant Director of Ceremonies, Organist, Assistant Scribe E., Stewards, and Janitor. It will be noted that the Treasurer, following an old Craft custom, ranks in precedence below the Scribe E. or Secretary, whereas in the Craft as from early in the nineteenth century the Treasurer ranks before the Secretary.
A regular convocation may not be cancelled or held otherwise than laid down in the chapter by‑laws, except by dispensation, although Principals may call emergency convocations at any time. Every chapter must have by‑laws, which must accord with regulations, and must make formal returns, at stated intervals, of the names of its Principals (this rule dates back to 1814) and of its members (a rule first encountered in the 1769 period).
A Candidate for Royal Arch masonry must have been a Master Mason for four weeks at least, and must produce his Grand Lodge certificate and also a certificate, from his Craft lodge showing that he is a member and clear of all dues. Three black balls (less if the by‑laws so provide) exclude. A member whose subscription to his chapter is three years in arrears (less if the by‑laws so provide) shall cease to be a member, and can regain membership only by regular proposition and ballot. Suspension from privileges in, or expulsion from, the Craft by Grand Lodge or other competent authority applies equally to the individual’s status and position in the Royal,Arch, unless the proper authority declares otherwise. Regulations relating to regalia are noted in a later section.
The Quorum
The Antients’ had a rule “that no Chapter shall be convened and held for the purpose of exalting any person to the degree of Holy Royal Arch Mason unless six regular and registered Royal Arch Masons be present.” In Bristol in the early days three Principals could open, but six more Companions had to be present to make an Exaltation regular. In 1894 the Grand Scribe E. said, in a letter, that he knew of nothing to prevent the ceremony of Exaltation being performed by the Three Principals with the assistance of two or three other Companions‑strictly three. Back in 1765 and, of course, for long afterwards a quorum rather depended on the number of officers required to be present for the regular opening of the chapter, plus any Companions present after “the procession” had begun. It is understood that in Bristol no Exaltation can take place unless at least nine Companions are present, and that the Bristol Obligation includes a plain reference to the rule. Inasmuch as under Grand Chapter’s Regulations of 1956 a petition to erect a new chapter must be signed by at least nine Companions, it is to be presumed that nine is the quorum.
Chapters of Instruction or Improvement
A Chapter of Instruction, often called a Chapter of Improvement, is held under the sanction of a warranted chapter or by the licence and authority of the First Grand Principal. The chapter sanctioning the Chapter of Improvement must see that its proceedings are in accordance with the regulations of the Order, and in every case an annual return to Grand Chapter must be made.
Chapters of Improvement have a long history. The first Grand Chapter arranged in 1783 for special chapters to be held for the purpose of instruction, and in the 1790s such chapters were sometimes convened by newspaper advertisements. Thus the first number of the Morning Advertiser, February 8, 1794, carried an advertisement of such meetings in connexion with “a Grand and Royal Chapter of this Sublime Degree” to be held on the second Thursday of every month at the King’s Arms Tavern, Old Compton Street, Soho, London; it is proper to say that these meetings were probably in connexion with a non‑regular chapter.
Prefixes and Styles of Address
In the minutes of Grand Chapter of December 24, 1766, the First Principal is described as the “M.E. & R.H. Lord Blayney.” The early chapters were often inconsistent in these matters; one, the Chapter of Knowledge, meeting at the Dog and Partridge, Middleton, Lancs., used to conclude its summons with the words “By Order of the Eminent.” Until 1811 the regulations of the premier Grand Chapter provided that the Three Principals and all Past Masters (actually Past Principals) should be styled “Most Excellent,” other officers being “Excellent,” the rest of the members, as well as visitors, being styled “Companions.” By the then Rule VI the M.E.Z. had a casting vote. The statement relating to the Three Principals was omitted from the rules of 1817, but Rule VI was retained, and all rules issued since that date, including the revised rules of 1956, confirm that the M.E. the First Grand Principal has a casting vote.
The Three Principals in the earliest chapters were often called the Master and Wardens, and even the First Grand Principal was at times known as the Grand Master. It has long been held, and is expressly laid down in to‑day’s regulations, that the Three Principals of a chapter are to be considered conjointly and each severally as Master; they are equal in status and, although only one of them signs the minutes, that is purely a matter of convenience and no indication of priority. The status of the Second and Third Principals does not correspond in any sense to that of Wardens in a Craft lodge, and any one of the Three Principals can be spokesman.
The prefix ‘Most Excellent’ (M.E.) is nowadays accorded only to the Three Grand Principals and Pro First Grand Principal (all of them present and past). It is attached to the titles of Grand Superintendents and First Principals of private chapters, but not to the names of Companions holding such offices. In printed lists of attendances at Grand Chapter only the presiding Grand Principal is described as M.E.
The prefix ‘Excellent’ (E.) distinguishes Grand Officers and Principals of Chapters (all of them present and past). All other Royal Arch masons are ‘Companions.’ There are no salutes in Royal Arch masonry.