Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

any Grand Lodge.” 10 Moira’s misinterpretation of the amendment would
ultimately contribute to the Masonic Secession of 1808. Wartski writes that “as
the representative of the Premier Grand Lodge, Lord Moira urged the exemption
from the Act of Lodges, authorized and directly superintended by a Grand
Lodge, and he undoubtedly believed that Pitt agreed to the alteration in that
form. This left the unattached Scottish Lodges in danger of oblivion, a result
possibly intended by Moira.” 11 Consequently, the Grand Lodge believed it
possessed full legal and constitutional authority over Scottish freemasons. Thus
misinformed, it was clearly willing to pursue charges of sedition against
individual masonic lodges.
The Threat of ‘Illuminism’
Moira’s misreading of the amendment and the debate over the masonic
exemptions were not the only sources of contention among freemasons and the
government during the 1790s. The controversies also included questions over
the political aims of the society and the extent to which its actions and
deliberations might be influenced by seditious European organizations.
Freemasonry, as it appeared in Europe, was “first articulated in
postrevolutionary Britain” and the “form of the lodge became one of the many
channels that transmitted a new political culture, based upon constitutionalism,
which gradually turned against traditional privileges and established,
10 Seemungal, “Rebellion,” 323.
11 Wartski, “Secret Societies Act,” 22.
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