Mark Coleman Wallace PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

Conclusion
Remarkably, the Maybole Trial hinged on the association of No. 264
with irregular members, oaths, and illegally constituted lodges. On 12 January
1737, No. 14 Lodge Maybole presented a query to the Grand Lodge of Scotland
addressing the problems of “what course shall be taken with such irregular
brethren as belong to no particular Lodge, yet meet in private and enter Masons
at such low rates and in such irregular methods as is a scandal to be mentioned
among Masons.” 142 As we have seen in Chapter 2, the concerns of the lodge
“were never reported upon by the committee to whom they were remitted;” 143
subsequently, no reply was given by the Grand Lodge and the matter was left
unresolved. 144 Just as the Grand Lodge had failed to properly address the
concerns of No. 14 in 1737, it also did not succeed in resolving the dispute in
1799.
This case illustrates several important trends that resurfaced during the
Masonic Secession controversy of 1808. Firstly, the sorts of clashes present
within Scottish lodges underwent a noticeable change as a result of the French
Revolution and the reactionary legislation passed by the government in the
225
142
Lyon, Mary’s Chapel, 192.
143
Ibid.
144
During the 1730s, the Grand Lodge of England also experienced problems with irregular
masons. Whereas the Grand Lodge of Scotland entirely ignored the difficulties, the Grand
Lodge of England, on 31 March 1735, addressed the “Grievance of making extranious Masons
in a private and clandestine manner, upon small and unworthy Considerations, and proposed that
in Order to prevent that Practice for the future: No person thus admitted into the Craft, nor any
that can be proved to have assisted at such Makings shall be capable either of Acting as a Grand
Officer on Occasion or even as an Officer in a private Lodge, nor ought they to have any part in
the General Charity which is much impaired by this clandestine Practice,” United Grand Lodge,
77. Furthermore, the Grand Lodge resolved that any freemason found guilty of irregularly
admitting a mason would be “forever excluded from asking any Relief from the Committee of
Charity, Quarterly Communications or any publick Assemblies of Masons whatsoever,” Ibid, 77.