THE ASTROLOGERS AND THE FREEMASONS
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We have seen, in the preceding chapter, that Nicolai had sought to
trace the origin of Freemasonry to a society organized in 1646 by
a sect of philosophers who were contemporary with, but entirely
distinct from, those who founded the Royal Society. Though he does
not explicitly state the fact, yet, from the names of the persons
to whom he refers, there can be no doubt that he alluded to the
Astrologers, who at that time were very popular in
Judicial astrology, or the divination of the future by the stars,
was, of all the delusions to which the superstition of the Middle
Ages gave birth, the most popular. It prevailed over all
so that it was practiced by the most learned, and the predictions
of its professors were sought with avidity and believed with
confidence by the most wealthy and most powerful. Astrologers often
formed a part of the household of princes, who followed their
counsels in the most important matters relating to the future,
while men and women of every rank sought these charlatans that they
might have their nativities cast and secure the aid of their occult
art in the recovery of stolen goods or the prognostications of
happy marriages or of successful journeys.
Astrology was called the Daughter of Astronomy, and the scholars
who devoted themselves to the study of the heavenly bodies for the
purposes of pure science were often called upon to use their
knowledge of the stars for the degrading purpose of astrological
predictions. Kepler, the greatest astronomer of that age, was
compelled against his will to pander to the popular superstition,
that he might thus gain a livelihood and be enabled to pursue his
nobler studies. In one of his works he complains that the scanty
reward of an astronomer would not provide him with bread, if men
did not entertain hopes of reading the future in the heavens. And
so he tampered with the science that he loved and adorned, and made
predictions for inquisitive consulters, although, at the same time,
he declared to his friends that "they were nothing but worthless
conjecture."
Cornelius Agrippa, though he cultivated alchemy, a delusion but
little more respectable than that of astrology, when commanded by
his patroness, the Queen mother of
expressed his annoyance at the task. Of the Astrologers he said,
in his great work on the Vanity of the Arts and Sciences, "these
fortune tellers do find entertainment among princes and
magistrates, from whom they receive large salaries; but, indeed,
there is no class of men who are more pernicious to a commonwealth.
For, as their skill lies in the adaptation of ambigu ous
predictions to events after they have happened, so it happens that
a man who lives by falsehood shall by one accidental truth obtain
more credit than he will lose by a hundred manifest errors."
The 16th and 17th centuries were the golden age of astrology in
character of its professors from the autobiography of William
Lilly, himself an English astrologer of no mean note; perhaps,
indeed, the best-educated and the most honest of those who
practiced this delusion in
one of those to whom Nicolai ascribes the formation of that secret
society, in 1646, which invented Freemasonry.
It will be remembered that Nicolai says that of the society of
learned men who established Freemasonry, the first members were
Elias Ashmole, the skillful antiquary, who was also a student of
astrology, William Lilly, a famous astrologer, George Wharton,
likewise an astrologer, William Oughtred, a mathematician, and some
others. He also says that the annual festival of the Astrologers
gave rise to this association. "It had previously held ," says
Nicolai, "one meeting at
first firmly established at
Their meetings, the same writer asserts, were held at Masons' Hall,
in Masons' Alley,
the Masons' Company, and they all entered it and assumed the title
of Free and Accepted Masons, adopting, besides, all its external
marks of distinction.
Such is the theory which makes the Astrologers, incorporating
themselves with the Operative Masons, who met at their Hall in
and Accepted Masons as they exist at the present day.
It is surprising that in a question of history a man of letters of
the reputation of Nicolai should have indulged in such bold
assumptions and in statements so wholly bare of authority. But
unfortunately it is thus that Masonic history has always been
written.
I shall strive to eliminate the truth from the fiction in this
narrative. The task will be a laborious one, for, as Goethe has
well said in one of his maxims " It is much easier to perceive
error than to find truth. The former lies on the surface, so that
it is easily reached ; the latter lies in the depth, which it is
not every man's business to search for."
The Astrologers, to whose meeting in the Masons' Hall is ascribed
the origin of the Freemasons, were not a class of persons who would
have been likely to have united in such an attempt, which showed at
least a desire for some intellectual progress. Lilly, perhaps the
best-educated and the most honest of these charlatans, has in the
narrative of his life, written by himself, given us some notion of
the character of many of them who
lived in
the art in that city. (1)
Of Evans, who was his first teacher, he tells us that he was a
clergyman - of Staffordshire, whence he " had been in a manner
enforced to fly for some offences very scandalous committed by him
" ; of another astrologer, Alexander Hart, he says " he was but a
cheat." Jeffry Neve he calls, a smatterer; William Poole was a
frequenter of taverns with lewd people and fled on one occasion
from
Booker, though honest was ignorant of his profession ; William
Hodges dealt with angels, but " his life answered not in holiness
and sanctity to what it should," for he was addicted to profanity;
and John A Windsor was given to debauchery.
Men of such habits of life were not likely to interest themselves
in the advancement of science or in the establishment of a society
of speculative philosophers. It is true that these charlatans
lived at an earlier period than that ascribed by Nicolai to the
organization
(1) "The Life of William Lilly, Student in Astology, wrote by
himself in the 66th year of his Age, at Hersham, in the Parish of
Walton upon Thames, in the
of the society in Masons' Hall, but in the few years that elapsed
it is not probable that the disciples of astrology had much
improved in their moral or intellectual condition.
Of certain of the men named by Nicolai as having organized the
Society of Freemasons in 1646, we have some knowledge. Elias
Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary, and founder of the Ashmolean
Museum in the
wrote his own life, in the form of a most minute diary, extending
from July 2, 1633, to October 9, 1687. In this diary, in which he
registers the most trivial as well as the most important events of
his life-recording even the cutting of his wisdom teeth, or the
taking of a sudorific-he does not make the slightest allusion to
the transaction referred to by Nicolai. The silence of so babbling
a chronicler as to such an important event is itself sufficient
proof that it did not occur. What Ashmole has said about
Freemasonry will be presently seen.
Lilly, another supposed actor in this scene, also wrote his life
with great minuteness. His complete silence on the subject is
equally suggestive. Nicolai says that the persons he cites were
either already members of the Company of Masons or at once became
so. Now, Lilly was a member of the Salter's Company, one of the
twelve great livery companies, and would not have left it to join
a minor company, which the Masons was.
Oughtred could not have been united with Ashmole in organizing a
society in 1646, for the latter, in a note to Lilly's life, traces
his acquaintance with him to the residence of both as neighbors in
twenty nine years after his supposed meeting with Oughtred at the
Masons Hall.
Between Wharton and Lilly, who were rival almanac-makers, there
was, in 1646, a bitter feud, which was not reconciled until years
afterward. In an almanac which Wharton published in 1645 he had
called Lilly " an impudent, senseless fellow, and by name William
Lilly." It is not likely that they would have been engaged in the
fraternal task of organizing a great society at that very time.
Dr. Pearson, another one of the supposed founders, is celebrated in
literary and theological history as the author of an Exposition of
the Creed. Of a man so prominent as to have been the
Master
of Jesus College,
him or been engaged with him in so important an affair, this
silence in so minute a journal of the transactions of his every-day
life would be inexplicable.
But enough has been said to show the improbability of any such
meeting as Nicolai records. Even Ashmole and Lilly, the two
leaders, were unknown to each other until the close of the year
1646. Ashmole says in his diary of that year: Mr. Jonas Moore
brought and acquainted me with Mr. William Lilly: it was on a
Friday night, and I think on the 20th Nov. (1646)."
That there was an association, or a club or society, of Astrologers
about that time in
says that in October, 166o, he went to Mr. Lilly's, "there being a
club that night among his friends." There he met Esquire Ashmole
and went home accompanied by Mr. Booker, who, he says, " did tell
me a great many fooleries, which may be done by nativities, and
blaming Mr. Lilly for writing to please his friends, and not
according to the rules of art, by which he could not well eue as he
had done" The club, we may well suppose, was that of the
Astrologers, held at the house of the chief member of the
profession. That it was not a secret society we conclude from the
fact that Pepys, who was no astrologer, was permitted to be
present. We know also from Ashmole's diary that the Astrologers
held an annual feast, generally in August, sometimes in March,
July, or November, but never on a Masonic festival. Ashmole
regularly attended it from 1649 to 1658, when it was suspended, but
afterward revived, in 1682. In 1650 he was elected a steward for
the following year he mentions the place of meeting only three
times, twice at Painters' Hall, which was probably the usual place,
and once at the Three Cranes, in
and the Masons been connected,
Masons' Hall, in
would certainly have been the place for holding their feast.
Again, it is said by Nicolai that the object of this secret society
which organized the Freemasons was to advance the restoration of
the King. But Lilly had made, in 1645, the year before the
meeting, this declaration: "Before that time, I was more Cavalier
than Roundbead, but after that I engaged body and soul the cause of
Parliament." He still expressed, it is true, his attachment to
monarchy; but his life during the Commonwealth showed his devotion
to Cromwell, of whom he was a particular favorite. After the
Restoration he had to sue out a pardon, which was obtained by the
influence of his friends, but which would hardly have been
necessary if he had been engaged in a secret society the object of
which was to restore Charles II to the throne.
But Charles I was not beheaded until 1649, so that a society could
not have been organized in 1646 for the restoration of his son.
But it may be said that the Restoration alluded to was of the
monarchy, which at that time was virtually at an end. So this
objection may pass without further comment.
But the fact is that the whole of this fiction of the organization,
1646, of a secret society by a set of philosophers or astrologers,
or both, which resulted in the establishment of Freemasonry, arose
out of a misconception or a misrepresentation-whether willful or
not, I will not say-of two passages in the diary of Elias Ashmole.
Of these two passages, and they are the only ones in his minute
diary of fifty-four years in which there is any mention of
Freemasonry, the first is as follows :
"1646, Octob. 16- 4 Hor. 30 minutes post merid. I was made a Free-
Mason at
of Karticham
in
lodge, Mr. Richard Penket Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Richard
Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, and Hugh Brewer."
And then, after an interval of thirty-five years, during which
there is no further allusion to Masonry, we find the following
memoranda: " 1682, Mar. 10. About 5 Hor. Post merid. I received
a summons to appear at a lodge to be held the next day at Masons
Hall,
II. Accordingly I went, and about noon was admitted into the
fellowship of Freemasons, by Sir William Wilson Knight, Captain
Richard Borthwick, Mr. William Wodman, Mr. William Grey, Mr. Samuel
Taylour, and Mr. William Wise.
" I was the senior fellow among them (it being thirty-five years
since I was admitted) there was present besides myself, the fellows
after mentioned. Mr. Thomas Wise, Master of the Masons Company,
this present year; Mr. Thomas Shorthose, Mr. Thomas Shadbolt,
Wardsford, Esq; Mr. Nicholas Young, Mr. John Shorthose, Mr. William
Hamon, Mr. John Thompson, and Mr. William Stanton. We all dined at
the Half-Moon-Tavern, in
the charge of the new accepted Masons."
Without the slightest show of reason or semblance of authority,
Nicolai transmutes the Lodge at
made a Freemason, into an annual feast of the Astrologers. The
Society of Astrologers, he says, "had previously held one meeting
at
at
very passage from Ashinole's diary in which that antiquary records
his reception in a Masonic Lodge.
These events in the life of Ashmole, which connect him with the
Masonic fraternity, have given considerable embarrassment to
Masonic scholars who have been unable to comprehend the two
apparently conflicting statements that he was made a Freemason at
the Freemasons, in 1682, at
misapprehension arose from the fact that we have unfortunately no
records of the meetings of the Operative Lodges of England in the
17th century, and nothing but traditional and generally mythical
accounts of their usages during that period.
The sister
respect, and the valuable work of Brother Lyon, on the History of
the Lodge of Edinborough, has supplied us with authentic records of
the Scottish Lodges at a much earlier date. These records will
furnish us with some information in respect to the contemporaneous
English Lodges which was have every reason to suppose were governed
by usages not very different from those of the Lodges in the
adjacent kingdom. Mr. Lyon has on this subject the following
remarks, which may be opportunely quoted on the present occasion.
" The earliest date at which non-professionals are known to have
been received into an English Lodge is 1646. The evidence of this
is derived from the diary of one of the persons so admitted ; but
the preceding minutes (1) afford authentic instances of Speculative
Masons having been admitted to the fellowship of the Lodge of
(1) Minutes of the Lodge of Cannongate, Kilwinning, for 1635,
quoted by him in a precedding page.
warring and Elias Ashmole in the Lodge of Warrington and thirty-
eight years before the date at which the presence of Gentleman
Masons is first discernible in the Lodge of Kilwinning by the
election of Lord Cassillis to the deaconship. It is worthy of
remark that, with singularly few exceptions, the non-operatives who
were admitted to Masonic fellowship in the Lodges of Edinburgh and
Kilwinning, during the 17th century, were persons of quality, the
most distinguished of whom, as the natural result of its
metropolitan position, being made in the former Lodge. Their
admission to fellowship in an institution composed of Operative
Masons associated together for purposes of their Craft would in all
probability originate in a desire to elevate its position and
increase its influence, and once adopted, the system would further
recommend itself to the Fraternity by the opportunities which it
presented for cultivating the friendship and enjoying the society
of gentlemen to whom in ordinary circumstances there was little
chance of their ever being personally known. On the other hand,
non-professionals connecting themselves with the Lodge by the ties
of membership would, we believe, be actuated partly by a
disposition to reciprocate the feelings that had prompted the
bestowal of the fellowship partly by curiosity to penetrate the
arcana of the Craft, and partly by the novelty of the situation as
members of a secret society and participants in its ceremonies and
festivities. But whatever may have been the rnotives which
animated the parties on either side, the tie which united them was
a purely honorary one." (1)
What is here said by
with equal propriety applied to
those of
period. There was in 1646 a Lodge of Operative Masons at
this Lodge Colonel Mainwarring and Elias Ashmole, both non-
professional gentlemen, were admitted as honorary members, or, to
use the language of the latter, were " made Freemasons," a
technical term that has been preserved to the present day.
But thirty-five years afterward, being then a resident of
he was summoned to attend a meeting of the Company of Masons, to be
held at their hall in Masons'
Alley,
(1) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of
and there, according to His own account, he was " admitted into the
fellowship of Freemasons." How are we to explain this apparent
double or renewed admission ? But mark the difference of language.
In 1646 he was "made a Freemason." In 1682 he was admitted into
the fellowship of Freemasons." The distinction is an important one.
The Masons' Company in 1682 constituted in
city companies which embraced the various trades and handicrafts of
the metropolis. Stowe, in his Survey of London, says that " the
Masons, otherwise termed Freemasons, were a society of ancient
standing and good reckoning, by means of affable and kind meetings
divers time, and as a loving brotherhood should use to do, did
frequent their mutual assemblies in the time of King Henry IV, in
the 12th year of whose most gracious reign they were incorporated."
In Cheswell's New View of London, printed in 1708, it is said that
the Masons' Company "were incorporated about the year 1410, having
been called the Free Masons, a Fraternity of great account, ,who
have been honored by several Kings, and very many of the Nobility
and Gentry being of their Society. They are governed by a Master,
2 Wardens, 25 Assistants, and there are 65 on the Livery. "
Maitland, in his
Masons: "This company had their arms granted by Clarencieux, King-
at-Arms, in the year 1477, though the members were not incorporated
by letters patent till they obtained them from King Charles II. in
1677. They have a small convenient hall in Masons' Alley,
There were then, in the time of Ashmole, two distinct bodies of men
practicing the Craft of Operative Masonry, namely, the Lodges which
were to be found in various parts of the country, and the Company
of Masons, whose seat was at
Into one of the Lodges, which was situated
at
which, in compliance with the technical language of that and of the
present day, he called being "made a Freemason." But this did not
constitute him a member of the Masons' Company of London, for this
was a distinct incorporated society, with its exclusive rules and
regulations, and admission into which could only be obtained by the
consent of the members. There were many Masons who were not
members of the Company.
Ashmole, who had for thirty-five years been a Freemason, by virtue
of his making at
Masons' Company, and this he styles being "admitted into the
fellowship of Freemasons "-that is, he was admitted to the
fellowship or membership of the Company and made " free " of it.
From all of which we may draw the following conclusions: First,
that in 1646, at the very date assigned by Nicolai for the
organization of the Freemasons as a secret political society, under
the leadership of Ashmole and Lilly, the former, being as yet
unacquainted with the latter, was
at
where he found a Lodge of Masons already organized and with its
proper officers and its members, by whom he was admitted as an
honorary non-professional member of the Craft. And secondly, that
while in
fellowship of the Masons' Company. And thirdly, that he was also
a member of the fraternity of Astrologers, having been admitted
probably in 1649, and regularly attended their annual feast from
that year to 1658, when the festival, and perhaps the fraternity,
was suspended until 1682, when it was again revived. But during
all this time it is evident from the memoranda of Ashmole that the
Freemasons and the Astrologers were two entirely distinct bodies.
Lilly, who was the head of the Astrologers, was, we may say almost
with certainty, not a Freemason, else the spirit of minuteness with
which he has written his autobiography would not have permitted him
to omit what to his peculiar frame of maid would have been so
important a circumstance as connecting him still more closely with
his admired friend, Elias Ashmole, nor would the latter have
neglected to record it in his diary, written with even still
greater minuteness than Lilly's memoirs.
Notwithstanding the clear historical testimony which shows that
Lodges of Freemasons had been organized long before the time of
Ashmok, and that he had actually been made a Freemason in one of
them, many writers, both Masonic and profane, have maintained the
erroneous doctrine that Ashmole was the founder of the Masonic
Society.
'Thus Chambers, in their Encyclopedia say that " Masonry was
founded by Ashmole some of his literary friends," and De Quincey
expressed the same opinion.
Mr. John Yarker, in his very readable Notes on the Scientific and
Religious Mysteries of Antiquity, offers a modified view and a
compromise of the subject. He refers to the meeting of the
chemical adepts at Masons' Hall (a fact of which we have no
evidence), and then to the " Feast of the Astrologers " which
Ashmole attended. He follows Nicolai in asserting that their
allegories were founded on Bacon's House of Solomon, and says that
they used as emblems the sun, moon, square, triangle, etc. And he
concludes, " it is possible that Ashmole may have consolidated the
customs of the two associations, but there is no evidence that any
Lodge of this, his speculative rite, came under the Masonic
Constitution."' (1)
We may also say that it is possible that Ashmole may have invented
a speculative rite of some kind, but there is no evidence that he
did so. Many things are possible that are not probable, and many
probable that are not actual. History is made up of facts, and not
of possibilities or probabilities.
Ashmole himself entertained a very different and much more correct
notion of the origin of Masonry than any of those who have striven
to claim him as its founder.
Dr. Knipe, of
of Ashmole's Life, says: " What from Mr. E. Ashmole's collections
I could gather was, that the report of our society's taking rise
from a bull granted by the Pope in the reign of Henry III, to some
Italian architects to travel over all
illfounded. Such a bull there was, and these architects were
Masons; but this bull, in the opinion of the learned Mr. Ashmole,
was confirmative only, and did not, by any means, create our
Fraternity, or even establish them in this kingdom."
This settles the question. Ashmole could not have been the founder
of Freemasonry in
belief that the Institution had
existed in
century.
There is no doubt, as I have already said, that he was very
intimately connected with the Astrologers. Dr. Krause, in his
Three Oldest Documents of the Masonic Brotherhood, quotes the
following passage from Lilly's History of my Life and Titles. (I
can not
(1) "Notes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of Antiquity,"
p. 106
(2) "Die drei altesten Kunsturkunden der Freimaurerbruderschaft,"
IV., 286
find it in my own copy of that work, but the statements are
corroborated by Ashmole's diary.) "
"The King's affairs being now grown desperate, Mr. Ashmole withdrew
himself, after the surrender of the Garrison of Worcester, into
up to
Sir Jonas Moore, Mr. William Lilly, and Mr. John Booker, esteemed
the greatest astrologers iii the world, by whom he was caressed,
instructed and received into their fraternity, which then made a
very considerable figure, as appeared by the great resort of
persons of distinction to their annual feast, of which Mr. Ashmole
was afterwards elected Steward."
Ashmole left
of three months he was made a
Freemason, at
time he was not acquainted with
Lilly,
nothing of astrology or of the great astrologers.
This destroys the accuracy of Nicolai's assertion that the meeting
held at Masons' Hall, in 1682, by Ashmole, Lilly, and other
astrologers, when they founded the Society of Freemasons, was
preceded by a similar and
initiatory one, in 1646, at
A few words must now be said upon the subject of Bacon's House of
Solomon, which Nicolai and others supposed to have first given rise
to the Masonic allegory which was afterward changed to that of the
Bacon, in his fragmentary and unfinished romance of the New
Atlantis, had devised the fable of an
was an institution or college called the House of Solomon, the
fellows of which were to be students of philosophy and
investigators of science. He thus described their occupations :
"We have twelve that sail into foreign countries, who bring in the
books and patterns of experiments of all other parts ; these we
call merchants of light. We have three that collect the
experiments that are in all books; these are called depredators.
We have three that collect experiments of all mechanical arts, and
also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not
brought into the arts; these we call mystery men. We have three
that try new experiments such as themselves think good; these we
call pioneers or miners. We have three that draw the experiments of
the former four into titles and tablets to give the better light
for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them; these we
call compilers. We have three that bind themselves looking into
the experiments of their fellows and cast about how to draw out of
them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge as
well for iworks as for plain demonstrations and the easy and clear
discovering of the virtues and parts of bodies ; these we call
doing men and benefactors. Then after divers meetings and consults
of our whole number to consider of the former labors and
collections, we have three to take care out of them to direct new
experiments of higher light, more penetrating into nature than the
former; these we call lamps. We have three others that do execute
the experiments so directed and report them ; these we call
inoculators. Lastly we have three that raise the former
discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms and
aphorisms; these we call interpreters of nature." (1)
It is evident from this schedule of the occupations of the inmates
of the House of Solomon that it could not in the remotest degree
have been made the foundatiort of a Masonic allegory. In fact, the
suggestion of a Masonic connection could have been derived only
from a confused idea of the
relation of the House to the
Solomon, a misapprehension which a reading of the New Atlantis
would readily remove.
As Plato had written his Republic and Sir Thomas More his Utopia to
give their ideas of a model commonwealth, so Lord Bacon commenced
his New Atlantis to furnish his idea of a model college to be
instituted for the study and interpretation of nature by
experimental methods. These views were first introduced in his
Advancement of Human Learning, and would have been perfected in his
New Atlantis had he ever completed it.
The new philosophy of Bacon had produced a great revolution in the
minds of thinking men, and that group of philosophers who in the
17th century, as Dr. Whewell says, "began to knock at the door
where truth was to be found " would very wisely seek the key in the
inductive and experimental method taught by Bacon.
To the learned men, therefore, who first met at the house of Dr.
Goddard and the other members, and whose meetings finally ended in
the formation of the Royal Society, the allegory of the House of
(1) "New Atlantis," Works, vol. ii., p. 376
Solomon very probably furnished valuable hints for the pursuit of
their experimental studies.
To Freemasons in any age the allegory would have been useless and
unprofitable, and could by no ingenious method have been twisted
into a foundation for their symbolic science The hypothesis that it
was adopted in 1646 by the founders of Freemasonry as a fitting
allegory for their esoteric system of instruction is evidently too
absurd to need further refutation.
In conclusion, we may unhesitatingly concur with Bro. W. J.
Elughan in his opinion that the theory which assigns the foundation
of Freemasonry to Elias Ashmole and his friends the Astrologers "
is opposed to existing documents dating before and since his
initiation." It is equally opposed to the whole current of
authentic history, and is unsupported by the character of the
Institution and true nature of its symbolism.
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