Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

Not all lodges, however, felt that the requirements were fair and
practical. On St John’s Day, 27 December 1799, the secretary of No. 25 St
Andrew read a letter from St John’s Cupar Fife Lodge pertaining to the recent
declarations by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The letter complained “of the late
resolutions of the Grand Lodge as being in their opinion troublesem and
expensive and that the Lodge of St Johns Cupar Fife would wish some of the
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adjacent Lodges to join with them in getting clear of the burden.” 140 Although St
John’s Cupar attempted to convince other freemasons in the area of the
inconvenience caused by the Act, it appears that the lodge garnered little
support. The members of No. 25 expressed their concern over the opinion of the
Cupar lodge, asserting that
Conclusion
they had at all former periods readily complied with every Act of
Parliament and they with much chearfulness agreed with the present and
were much surprised that the Lodge of St Johns could make any
objections to an Act of Parliament especially when it was giving such
indulgences to masons and attended with no very trifiling expence. 141
Prescott argues that the Secret Societies Act was largely “an exercise in
closing stable doors after horses had fled.” 142 The radical societies that the
government attempted to suppress continued to meet, and the societies who fell
outside the scope of the Act from the onset were placed under extreme pressure
to comply. Organizations inevitably discovered means to circumvent the
legislation, and those who chose to act in accordance with the law forfeited
140
No. 25 St Andrew Lodge Minutes, 27 December 1799
141
Ibid.
142
See Prescott, “Unlawful,” 10-12.