HERE'S MORE INFO ON FREE MASON SOURCE:
http://watch.pair.com/MasonicPlan.htmlHISTORY OF BRITISH FREEMASONRY
The Knights Templars
(c. 1100-1600)
The precursors of the Freemasons are identified by authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail as the medieval Knights Templars:
"By the eighteenth century various secret and semisecret confraternities were lauding the Templars as both precursors and mystical initiates. Many Freemasons of the period appropriated the Templars as their own antecedents. Certain Masonic 'rites' or 'observances' claimed direct lineal descent from the order as well as authorized custody of its arcane secrets." (21) (17)
In his newly released volume, The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, Prince Michael Stewart of Albany also identifies the Knights Templars as the precursors of the Freemasons:
"The Stewart kings, the Setons and the Sinclairs were all hereditary Knights Templars, and Scottish Rite Freemasonry was later created as a substructure of the organization." (22)
In 1118, the Order of the Temple was formed after the first Crusade in which Roman Catholic Church had seized the Holy Land. They were supported by Baudouin, the King of Jerusalem, whose brother, Godfroi de Boullion, had captured the city in 1099. The ostensible employment of the Knights Templars was the protection of pilgrims in the Holy Land. However, this religious-military order of warrior-monks and soldier-mystics, under the leadership of Grand Master, Hugues de Payen and patronage of St. Bernard, became a highly disciplined "militia of Christ" which blasphemously claimed to be Guardians of the Holy Grail, the Sang Raal or "royal blood" of Jesus Christ.
After the Saracens captured Jerusalem in 1187, the unemployed Templars returned to Europe and settled in the Languedoc in France. In 1312, the Order of the Temple was officially dissolved by Pope Clement V and the Inquisition commenced proceedings against the Knights. The last Grand Master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, was martyred in 1314. Knights Templars who survived Roman Catholic persecution either went underground on the Continent or sought refuge in the British Isles where the Inquisition was resisted by King Edward I. Biagent and Leigh write:
"Scarcely had the Order of the Temple been destroyed than it arose again, phoenix-like, from the flames of its own pyre, to assume a new mythic guise. Within a quarter of a century of the Temple's dissolution, a spate of neo-Templar orders began to appear -- and would continue to do so for centuries afterwards." (23)
Biagent and Leigh mention the Order of the Garter in England "the world's premier order of chivalry" (1348), the Order of the Star in France (1352), the Order of the Golden Fleece in Burgundy (1430), the Order of St Michael in France (1469). Under the subtitle "The Inquisition," they state:
"In Portugal, the Templars were cleared by an inquiry and simply modified their name, becoming Knights of Christ. They survived under this title well into the sixteenth century, their maritime explorations leaving an indelible mark on history. (Vasco da Gama was a Knight of Christ; Prince Henry the Navigator was a Grand Master of the Order. Ships of the Knights of Christ sailed under the Templars' familiar red patte' cross. And it was under this same cross that Columbus's three caravels crossed the Atlantic to the New World. Columbus himself was married to the daughter of a former Grand Master of the Order, and had access to his father-in-law's charts and diaries)." (24)
Prince Michael Stewart also notes: "The hereditary right of the Stewarts came by virtue of Robert the Bruce having granted the Knights asylum in Scotland." (25) (21)
Biagent and Leigh state that in Scotland there formed an extensive network of families which provided a conduit for the Templar tradition in a military formation. In defiance of British rule, Scotland under Robert the Bruce, had formed an alliance with France in 1326, after which it supplied Charles IV with an elite military, political and diplomatic cadre...
"...the Scots Guard, perhaps the most genuinely neo-Templar institution of all. Through the Scots Guard, moreover, and through the families who staffed the Guard with their sons, a new energy was to be imported to Scotland from the Continent. This energy - expressed originally through a spectrum of 'esoteric' disciplines, as well as through stonemasonry and architecture - would fuse with the residue of Templar tradition and breathe fresh life into it. And thus, from the pyres of the old religious-military Order, modern Freemasonry was to be born." (26)
In 1612, it seems the future Charles I of England commanded the Scots Guard, which had aligned itself with the Stuart interests. Biagent, et al, state that this royal corps "was thus to pave the way for the refuge which the last Stuarts found in France, and for the kind of Jacobite Freemasonry - specifically Templar-oriented Freemasonry - which coalesced around them..." (27)
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
(c. 1550-1660)
It is proudly alleged by many New Age authors, such as Laurence Gardiner in Bloodline of the Holy Grail, that the Stuart dynasty of England was responsible for the establishment of the Orders of the Rose Croix and Freemasonry in Great Britain.
"In Britain, and during their later exile, the Stuart kings were at the very forefront of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, which was founded on the most ancient of all arcane knowledge and Universal Law. Their Breton heritage was closely allied to the noble families of Boulogne and Jerusalem, and their background was largely Templar-inspired. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that it was under Charles I and Charles II (who posed such a problem to the narrow-minded Puritans and the Anglican Church) that the Invisible College of the Royal Society emerged - a college that within a brief period of Stuart patronage revealed some of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time." (28)
At this point, a brief history of the Stuart dynasty is in order. Under the Tudor King Henry VIII, England formally severed allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. Queen Elizabeth I, his daughter, established the Church of England around 1570 and, according to Rosicrucian literature, also formally employed the Order of the Garter "as a means of drawing noblemen together in common service to the crown." (29)
King James I
The virgin Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and, James VI of Scotland (son of Elizabeth's cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots), became King James I of England. Upon his accession to the throne, England and Scotland were united. Also, James received a petition signed by 1,000 Puritan clergymen for a new translation of the Bible. It seems that the King James' Authorised Version of the Bible was the result of conflict between the Episcopalians and the Puritans:
"King James was confronted with two religious parties - the Episcopalians and the Puritans - each seeking to dominate the course of the English reformation. Though raised in Presbyterian Scotland, James preferred the episcopal notion of the 'divine right of kings,' a dogma based on Scripture such as Proverbs 16:10. ('No bishop - no king!') For this reason he despised the Geneva Bible with its republican notes. (e.g., a note at Exodus 1:19 commended the Hebrew midwives for their disobedience to Pharaoh.) But it was this conflict between the two religious parties which Providentially led to the publication of the King James Version." (30)
According to Frances Yates, author of The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, King James I (James VI [Stuart] of Scotland), who succeeded the childless Queen in 1603 and also approved the translation and selection of translators of the 1611 Authorised Version of the Bible, participated in the investiture of his future son-in-law, Frederick, with the Order of the Garter.
Frederick and James' daughter Elizabeth II returned to Heidelberg where he became associated with the Protestant League, which it seems was infiltrated by the Rosicrucians in order to more effectively oppose their common enemy, the Hapsburg Dynasty/Roman Catholic Church alliance. In 1619, King James opposed the occupation of Bohemia by the Protestant League which, led by Frederick - his own son-in-law - overthrew Catholic / Hapsburg King Ferdinand. According to Yates, James acted for political reasons, however, there is evidence that the King recognized the Rosicrucian foothold within the Protestant League.
While revisionist historians like Gardiner are eager to enlist King James I among the Stuart affiliates and supporters of the Rose Croix, Frances Yates makes clear that King James was no friend of the leading occultists of his day -- Rosicrucian Grand Master Francis Bacon, John Dee, Sir Walter Raleigh and others. Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica had influenced the Rosicrucian Manifestos written by Johann Valentin Andrea of Wurtemburg, Germany and ultimately generated the Rosicrucian movement in England. Yates, the most respected historian of the Rosicrucian Enlightenment wrote:
"There has never, I think, been suggested that James's doubtful attitude towards Baconian science might be connected with his very deep interest in, and dread of, magic and witchcraft. These subjects had a fascination for him which was tied up with neuroses about some experiences in his early life. In his Demonology (1597) James advocated the death penalty for all witches, though he urges care in the examination of cases. The subject was for him a most serious one, a branch of theology. Obviously James was not the right person to examine the - always rather difficult - problem of when Renaissance Magia and Cabala were valuable movements, leading to science, and when they verged on sorcery, the problem of defining the differences between good magic and bad magic. James was not interested in science and would react with fear from any sort of magic.
"It is not surprising that when old John Dee appealed to James for help in clearing his reputation from charges of conjuring devils, James would have nothing to do with him. Dee's fruitless appeal to James was made in June 1604. The old man to whose learning the Elizabethan age was so infinitely indebted was disgraced in the reign of James and died in great poverty in 1608. Bacon must have taken good note of James's attitude to Dee, and he must also have noted that survivors from the Elizabethan age of mathematics and magic, of navigational boldness and anti-Spanish exploits, were not sure of encouragement under James as they had been under Elizabeth." (31)
William T. Still, author of New World Order: Ancient Plan of Secret Societies, sheds new light on the famous historical character reputed for chivalry:
"British exploration in America began in 1585 when Sir Walter Raleigh, an adventuring British nobleman, mounted an expedition to colonize Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The twenty-four year-old Raleigh was already a member of a secret society which would later become known as the Baconian circle. This circle, of course, believed that America was to be the glittering 'New Atlantis' promised for centuries by secret societies." (32)
The authors of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Speech from the Scaffold state:
"Hugh de Selincourt, one of Raleigh’s many biographers, has called him ‘the most romantic figure of the most romantic age in the annals of English history.’ It is hard to dispute that characterization. David Quinn, another biographer of Raleigh, calls him ‘a representative figure, an originating rather than dominating one … in the history of the beginning of British overseas enterprise.’ An originator of such an empire places Raleigh as a foundation stone in what he hoped would become ‘an English nation’ in America."
The Encyclopedia Britannica records Raleigh's treason and demise under King James. He was beheaded in 1618:
"Accused of treason by... James I, he was imprisoned in the tower of London and eventually put to death... In 1603, he and others were accused of plotting to dethrone the king... In 1616, he was released but not pardoned." (33)
King James' Daemonologie
In 1597, King James I authored a book titled Daemonologie to denounce in no uncertain terms and to instruct his subjects concerning the rampant witchcraft of that era, whose practitioners he then prosecuted. On the Watch Unto Prayer web site is now posted the first treatise of Daemonologie .
This is a most important book, which vindicates the character of King James I, whom many New Age writers now claim was an occultist not unlike B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort. Daemonologie by King James I may be obtained from Border's and other bookstores for $6. (ISBN 0-9630657-9-3) It was reprinted in 1996 by Godolphin House of the School of Wicca. The Wiccans explain their reason for its recent publication:
"This book was used by many as an excuse to torture, maim and kill many thousands of women. James became convinced at the Danish court that Witchcraft was real and that the central source of the Witch's power was the demonic pact. James focused attention on Witchcraft, because his underlying fear was that magical means might be used to end his life as the divinely ordained king of Scotland.
"After his return from the Continent in 1590, he became intensely interested in sorcery and Witchcraft trials and particularly the trial of his political enemy, Bothwell (1590-1591). Witches were vigorously hunted and persecuted - to such an extent that some villages had no females left in them. The period ends with the publication of this Daemonologie in 1597. Because of the impact of the Daemonologie on the ruling classes, more trials were now held with the Kings' approval, and very many more convictions were obtained.
"This book should therefore be in every true Witch's library at the very least as a monument to those who died." (34)
His Majesty King James VI & I Page addresses many of the accusations circulated by the past and present enemies of King James I of Great Britain.
The Establishment of English Freemasonry
Frederick's acceptance of the crown of Bohemia and James I refusal to support, and active opposition to, his son-in-law's enterprise precipitated the Thirty Years War. The Catholic armies decimated most of Germany, whereupon the Rosicrucians were dispersed and ultimately fled to England. Biagent and Leigh wrote:
"Thousands of refugees - among them the philosophers, scientists and 'esotericists' who embodied the 'Rosicrucian Enlightenment' - fled to Flanders and the Netherlands, and thence to the safety of England. To facilitate the escape of these fugitives Johann Valentin Andrea and his colleagues in Germany created the so-called 'Christian Unions.' The Unions, which constituted a species of lodge system, were intended to preserve intact the Rosicrucian doctrine by organising its proponents into cells and smuggling them to safe havens abroad. Thus, from the 1620s on, German refugees began to arrive in England, bringing with them both 'Rosicrucian' ideas and the organisational structure of the Christian Unions.
"By James I's time, as we have seen, a lodge system had already been established within the guilds of 'operative' stonemasonry and had begun to proliferate across Scotland. By the end of the Thirty Years War, a system had filtered down to England. In its general structure, it seems to have coincided most felicitously with that of Andrea's Christian Unions; and it proved more than ready to accommodate the influx of 'Rosicrucian' thought. German refugees thus found a spiritual home in English masonry; and their input of 'Rosicrucian ideas' was the final ingredient necessary for the emergence of modern 'speculative' Freemasonry.
"In the years that followed, developments proceeded on two fronts. The lodge system consolidated itself and proliferated further, so that Freemasonry became an established and recognised institution. At the same time, certain of the individuals most active in it formed themselves into an English version of the "Invisible College' of the 'Rosicrucians' - a conclave of scientists, philosophers and 'esotericists' in the vanguard of progressive ideas. During the English Civil War and Cromwell's [Puritan] Protectorate, the 'Invisible College' - now including such luminaries as Robert Boyle and John Locke - remained invisible. In 1660, however, with the restoration of the monarchy, the 'Invisible College' became, under Stuart patronage, the Royal Society were not just to overlap, but virtually to be indistinguishable from one another." (35)
It is true that the Stuart dynasty, after James I, became deeply involved in Rosicruciansim. After the Puritan Protectorate of Cromwell, Charles I, James' son, patronized the Rosicrucians' Royal Society. "The Society was established under Charles I in 1645, and incorporated under Royal Charter by Charles II in 1662 after the Restoration [of the Stuart monarchy]." (36)
Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience corroborates the establishment of the Freemasons under the restored Stuart dynasty:
"Most Masonic historians consider Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), astrologer, solicitor, officer of the court of Charles II, and antiquarian, to be the first important nonoperative Freemason in England. For years Ashmole had dabbled in alchemy, Rosicrucian philosophy, and the Kabbalah ..." (37)
