Rosicrucians were, by Inquisitional definition, heretics and meddlers in the occult. Back in the days of Elizabeth I, the Queen’s adviser John Dee was a noted Rosicrucian,12 as was the hermetic philosopher Robert Fludd who aided the translation (from Greek into English) of the King James Bible. In practice, however, Rosicrucians were student chevaliers of the Rosi-crucis—the enigmatic symbol of the grand enlightenment (see chapter 13).
An intriguing, but poignant, aspect of post-1723 Freemasonry is that, whilst Euclid is revered in the Charges (although wrongly dated) there is no mention of John Dee. He had written the famous preface to the English translation of Euclid—the most remarkable monument to sacred geometry in which he urged the revival of the Euclidian art. James Anderson clearly knew of this work since he almost quotes from it on occasions. For example, concerning the 1stcentury reign of Augustus Caesar, Dee wrote: ‘…in whose days our heavenly Archmaster was born’. On the same subject of Emperor Augustus, Anderson wrote: ‘…when the great Architect of the Church was born’. Just as Hanoverian Freemasonry ignored Elias Ashmole’s hermetic interests, it also paid no heed to the work of John Dee, even though the 47th Proposition of the 1st Book of Euclid (the Pythagoras Theorem) is pictorially demonstrated (bottom centre) in Anderson’s 1723 frontispiece (see plate 5), and is a traditional symbol of masonic perfection. The reason once again is that Dee’s Rosicrucian connection was anathema to the newly devised straitlaced Freemasonry of Georgian times.
Wilkins’ Mathematicall Magick specifically referenced the sepulchre of Frater Rosicrosse, as detailed in the 1614-15 Fama Fraternitatis of the Rosicrucian Manifestos. (Also incorporating the Confessio Fraternitatis, the Manifestos were German works that announced an impending age of new enlightenment and hermetic liberation in which certain universal secrets would be unlocked and made known.) Wilkins’ work was also substantially based upon the mechanics section of Robert Fludd’s Utriusque Geomi Historia (published in the Palatinate in 1619). Additionally, Wilkins frequently cited the late Stuart Chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon, who had been a master craftsman of the Rosicrucian Order. Indeed, it was Bacon’s one-time vision of a fraternal scientific institute which led Wilkins to envisage the Oxford fraternity at a time when the Bohemian research of the Palitinate had been curtailed by the Thirty Years’ War in Europe (1618-48).
The apparent dichotomy of Dr Wilkins was a mystery to all. But for his group to thrive and survive, he made a strict masonic ruling from the outset: Whatever else might be discussed, the subjects of religion and politics were prohibited. Notwithstanding this, the Bible became a subject of continued study from the time of Wren’s Gresham College lecture in 1657, particularly in respect of chronology and astronomical time frames. In fact, this lecture was a manifesto of things to come from the group, since it referred to the tyranny of the Greek and Roman cultures upon which all 17th-century academic society was based.
Despite his scientific genius, the Eton-educated Robert Boyle was short-sighted and not particularly adept at mathematics, so Robert Hooke helped him a good deal with calculations and experiments. Both were fascinated by the power of exerted pressures, so Boyle concentrated on air pumps, while Hooke investigated springs. In the course of their collaborative work, important mathematical formulae relating to compressed air and compressed springs were discovered. They become known respectively as Boyle’s Law and Hooke’s Law—two of the most crucial precedents in the world of emergent science, and equally important today.
A Royal Charter
In time, and specifically from 1660, the Rosicrucian aims of the group emerged into the open with the Restoration of the flamboyant King Charles II. Quite suddenly, and irrespective of clerical opinion, they gained approval and recognition by way of a Stuart charter in 1662, to become known henceforth as the Royal Society. Their motto was established as Nullis in verba, which translates roughly to ‘Take no one’s word for it’—a motto which had been used previously by Sir Francis Bacon.
The Society’s new status was achieved by two influential members, namely the Scottish statesman Sir Robert Moray and the Gresham College president William, Viscount Brouncker—both of whom had direct access to the king. In the event, it was Moray who approached King Charles on behalf of the fraternity, securing his patronage and encouragement. Having been Attaché to Cardinal Richelieu in France during the Protectorate, Moray was a man of enormous influence in court and government circles, and was greatly respected by the royal household. By that time, other subsequently famous characters, such as Elias Ashmole and the diarist John Evelyn, had joined the group. Viscount Brouncker (though not a scientist) became the Society’s first President, with Robert Hooke appointed as the first Curator and, on 20 May 1663, some 150 Fellows were elected from the fastgrowing overall membership.
The House of Stuart progenitor, Robert the Bruce had inaugurated the Elder Brethren of the Rosy Cross in 1317—a Knight Templar institution13 which was inherited 11 generations later by King Charles II. It is no coincidence that the first two known prominent masonic initiates in England, Sir Robert Moray and Elias Ashmole, were both foundation Fellows of the Royal Society and members of the Rosicrucian movement. The Royal Society’s New Philosophy (as Wren had dubbed it) was therefore largely Rosicrucian and, as such, was immediately concerned with matters of hermetic alchemy.
King Charles’s paternal aunt, Princess Elizabeth—the daughter of King James I (VI)—had married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, in 1613. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the House of Stuart, with its link to the Bohemian Palatinate, accompanied by John Wilkins’ own Rosicrucian chaplainship, was eager to acknowledge the enthusiastic brotherhood of the Royal Society. In so doing, King Charles effectively reconstituted the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, taking on the Grand Mastership of his family’s traditional Order.
To leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Royal Society was a Rosicrucian establishment, the Society’s historian Thomas Sprat included a descriptive frontispiece illustration in his 1667 History of the Royal Society (see plate 12). Designed by John Evelyn and engraved by Wenceslas Hollar, the Society’s inaugural picture depicts a bust of King Charles, along with Viscount Brouncker and Sir Francis Bacon who had died many years before in 1626. Also featured in the engraving is the trumpet-bearing Angel of Fame from the Fama Fraternitatis of the 1614 Rosicrucian Manifestos, along with a number of books and masonic devices.14
Having moved to join their colleague Christopher Wren at Gresham College, the founding Fellows soon became a threat to all sectors of the establishment, whether governmental, educational or clerical. But, despite this, they appeared like a breath of fresh air to the people at large—and best of all, they had the popular King Charles as their patron, with his personal access to the masonic archive of the Kings of Scots.
The Georgian Movement
Prior to James Anderson’s mention that key masonic documents had been lost and destroyed, this was also stated to have been the case in 1718. George Payne, an early Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge asked his members to bring whatever old literature they could find, so as ‘to shew the usages of antient times’. But it was subsequently recorded that the more valuable manuscripts were ‘tragically lost’. Anderson noted particular examples in his revised 1738 Constitutions, stating that papers ‘writ by Mr Nicholas Stone, the Warden of Inigo Jones, were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous Brothers, that those papers might not fall into strange hands’. The question has recently been posed in the journal Freemasonry Today: ‘Could it be that there was a ritualistic form of Accepted Freemasonry prior to 1717 that was unpalatable to those who wished to review the movement in the 1720s?’1
The answer to this would appear to be ‘yes’. Everything