Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

appears that “some of the material brought over from France…did contain the
salient features of the Royal Arch.” 38 Indeed, by the mid-eighteenth century, the
degree was gaining popularity in Scotland and was practiced by several lodges,
including Stirling and Glasgow. 39 Records from No. 30 Stirling exist from
1745, and the earliest mention of the Royal Arch Degree occurs on 4 March
1766, when “John Sawers…prayed he might be Matriculated in this Lodge as a
Brother from the Royall Arch Lodge of Said place Gratice, which the Lodge
agreed to.” 40
By the early 1790s, however, allegations had surfaced which connected
these higher degrees to the radical United Irishmen. Established in Belfast in
1791, the United Irishmen advocated religious toleration, parliamentary reform,
199
and universal manhood suffrage. 41 Although initially attempting to achieve their
goals by “radical persuasion and by enlisting mass support,” Dickinson remarks
that French exploitation of Irish resentment ultimately drove them “into the
hands of the militant, republican minority.” 42 Procuring Tory support and
advancing beliefs and doctrines rooted in the revolutionary sentiments which
threatened to overwhelm France, the creation of the United Irishmen in 1791
38 Jones, Guide and Compendium, 501.
39 Ibid, 496-497. Jones also asserts that “the 1750’s give us uncontested records of the making
of Royal Arch masons in Ireland, Virginia, England, and Scotland. Royal Arch masonry had
found its feet in the seven years ending 1759,” 498.
40 No. 30 Stirling Lodge Minutes, 4 March 1766.
41 For more information on the United Irishmen and their doctrines, see Niall Ó Ciosáin, Print
and Popular Culture in Ireland, 1750-1850 (London, 1997), 132-136; James O’Connor, History
of Ireland 1798-1924 (London, 1925), 61-72; Marianne Elliot, Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish
Independence (New Haven, 1989), 134-150; Frank MacDermot, Theobald Wolfe Tone: A
Biographical Study (London, 1939), 68-89; R.B. McDowell, Ireland In The Age of Imperialism
And Revolution (Oxford, 1979), 473-490; J. L. McCracken, “The United Irishmen, in Secret
Societies in Ireland, ed. T. Desmond Williams, (Dublin, 1973), 58-67; Thomis and Holt, Threats
of Revolution, 18-22.
42 Dickinson, British Radicalism, 46.