Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

houses. Government action against seditious societies led to the [Secret]
Societies Act in 1799…By then the formative age of freemasonry was
surely over. 149
The demise of the “formative age” of freemasonry is a direct
consequence of the government’s reaction towards seditious clubs and societies,
and the ramifications for freemasons were huge. Government ministers
convinced themselves of an imminent threat and imposed various pieces of
legislation that were, as Harry Dickinson writes, “serious infringements of civil
liberties.” 150
Repressive legislation was often ineffective or rarely implemented, and
although it did succeed to a certain degree in checking the ostensible threat of
rebellion, the government’s determination to eradicate seditious and treasonable
organizations caused serious masonic turmoil during the early years of the
nineteenth century. Once again, allegations of involvement in the dissemination
of revolutionary ideas resurfaced, triggering fresh fears of masonic ambitions to
subvert the establishment. Although the masons categorically denied the
veracity of such claims and affirmed their allegiance to preserving the stability
of the government, internal political turmoil threatened to erode the public
image so carefully crafted by the eighteenth-century freemason.
The government crackdown on treasonous and seditious societies during
the 1790s caused a shift in the nature of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Suddenly,
the vagueness which once surrounded the extent of its power and authority was
149 Clark, British Clubs, 349.
150 Dickinson, British Radicalism, 41.
182