Now let’s add another one. It’s the Masonic oath:
I do solemnly promise, vow, and swear, that I will always and at all times love the Brotherhood heartily and therefore will charitably hide and conceal and cover all the sins, frailties and errors of every Brother to the utmost of my power.88
It doesn’t come clearer than that, and at least half of Queen Victoria’s Parliament had sworn to this. One can either believe that these promises were useful to the state, or one can believe that they were not. For those inclined to the latter opinion, the question must surely be, what then was the purpose of them? Why take such an oath if the corporate intention was to dishonour it?
Was Bro the Duke of Clarence not in trouble? Was Bro the Earl of Euston not in the same boat? Had not these parliamentary Brethren taken their Freemasonic oath? Did they not ‘hide and conceal and cover, all the sins, frailties and errors of every Brother’ to the utmost of their power? And if not, why not? If they did not, their treachery is doubly compounded.
Courtiers Bro Sir Francis Knollys and Bro Sir Dighton Probyn had taken this oath, as had a ruling executive with supremely vested interests in making it stick.
When His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales first heard of Euston’s complicity in the Cleveland Street scandal, he wrote, ‘It is really too shocking! A married man whose hospitality I have frequently accepted!’ So shocked was he that he invited him to dinner. On 13 March 1890, Euston was a guest of His Highness at a banquet celebrating one hundred years of the Prince of Wales Freemasonic lodge.89 Some interesting names were present, including many we shall be hearing more of. They included the Chamberlain to the Queen the Earl of Lathom, and Colonel Thomas Henry Shadwell Clerke, Secretary to the English Freemasons and Masonic Secretary to Edward himself. Like Euston, Shadwell Clerke was a personal friend of my candidate, both enjoying membership of the Knights Templar ‘Encampment of the Cross of Christ’.
Bro the Prince of Wales and Bro Lathom were to be found once again at another Masonic celebration at the very heart of the English law, in Lincoln’s Inn. The evening was devoted to the consecration of a new lodge, the Chancery Bar, its membership restricted to the legal profession. The other guests included the Lord Chancellor, Bro Lord Halsbury, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Bro Lord George Hamilton, plus a galaxy of wigs: Bro Judge Sir H. Lloyd, Bro Sir Forrest Foulton, Bro Sir Frank Lockwood QC MP, Bro Mr Staveny Hill QC MP, Bro Mr Jones QC MP, Bro E.H. Pember QC, Bro D.R. Littler QC, Bro F.A. Philbrick QC, and Bro Colonel Le Grande Starkie.
Bro the Prince of Wales, who had just been made an Honorary Member of the Chancery Bar, said in a speech of thanks: ‘I am a Mason. I am glad to think that on this occasion the great legal profession and the great Masonic Brotherhood are more intimately connected tonight than perhaps they have ever been before. (Cheers from all.)’90
Arsonists in charge of the firehose.
Which brings us to our last esteemed guest at that occasion, a man of whom it was written, ‘Englishmen are far from purists in judging the manners and life of their aristocracy. What they cannot tolerate is the sight of names which they have been accustomed to regard with respect surrounded by low and contaminating associations.’91 The guest was, of course, Bro the Earl of Euston.
The function of the Establishment was to look after the Establishment. Prying journalists could be jailed, and lippy MPs shown the door. Cleveland Street was a rank perversion of the course of justice, its puppet-masters senior Freemasons, and its puppets the Masonic herd.
‘The Mystic Tie’.
We must move on from Euston and his brothel, leaving the final comment on Cleveland Street to a journalist of the day: ‘The determination of men of rank to stand by scoundrels of their order, no matter what their crimes are, and the certainty with which they can count upon men who have merely a brevet claim to associate with them to help them out.’92
I think that is precisely put, and worth repeating. ‘The determination of men of rank to stand by scoundrels of their order, no matter what their crimes are’ is a statement of inestimable importance when trying to come to terms with the scandal of Jack the Ripper.
* See Appendix I, ‘The Parnell Frame-Up’.
2
Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.
La Rochefoucauld, Maxims
It is impossible to understand ‘the mystery of Jack the Ripper’ without an understanding of the Freemasonry. Masonry permeates every fibre of this conundrum, both as its inspiration and its stooge. To acquiesce to the proposition of this scandal as an impenetrable mystery is to prostrate one’s intellect before the savageries of Victorian spin. The ‘mystery’ is a manipulation, a piece of propaganda, like calling Nixon’s great felony ‘the Watergate mystery’, as I’m sure many among that gentleman’s associates would have been pleased to do.
‘We are all the President’s men,’ said Henry Kissinger, and no less were England’s ruling elite ‘all the Widow’s men’.
The degree of control this unique criminal exercised is indicated by the efforts of those who would still seek to protect him. Like courtiers from beyond the grave, they are essentially blameless, but also fools. Freemasonry may never have asked for Jack the Ripper (it certainly did not), but a combination of circumstance and moral turpitude made it his stupefied guardian.
Concealing the Ripper was not a Masonic conspiracy, but a conspiracy of Her Majesty’s executive, who almost without exception were Freemasons. In other words, it was a conspiracy of the System. The man they were required to be baffled by was ‘in house’, and unquestionably revelling in the security he’d spun about himself. The Ripper was smart, but not that smart. It is simply an insult to the Victorian police to believe that detectives like Moore, Reid and Abberline couldn’t have caught this prick in their sleep.
It goes without saying that there was nothing illaudable about being a Victorian Mason, any more than it was improper to enjoy membership of a tricycle club. But as I have said, this narrative is about the bad guys, and about one in particular who went rotten, and what that did to the rest of the barrel. Beyond that, I have no opinion on Freemasonry, no animosity towards it, no motive to wish it ill. My interest in Masonry is only inasmuch as it relates to ‘the mystery of Jack the Ripper’.
By the late nineteenth century this quasi-religious, highly conservative society was a power in the land, perhaps the most powerful, because of its ability to insinuate itself into powerful institutions – Parliament, the police, the press, the judiciary and the Crown. It’s worth reiterating that the heir to the throne, Bro Edward, Prince of Wales, was the most powerful Freemason on earth. His Chancellor, Bro Lord Halsbury, was the most powerful Law Lord, and Bro Sir Charles Warren the most senior copper in the Metropolitan Police. Excepting Home Secretary Matthews (and possibly Salisbury himself), every man at the Viscount’s cabinet table had sworn the Masonic oath.
The Prime Minister’s organic antipathy to democracy was generally well served by this