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EDWIN
EGYPTIAN 231
hym a vest rebelles and u beryng (upbearing)
the rygt of the reme ." (Ll . 901-912 .)
Edward III . MS ., as quoted by Anderson .
"That when the Master and Wardens preside
in a Lodge, the sheriff if need be, or the
mayor or the alderman (if a brother) where
the Chapter is held, shall be sociate to the
Master, in help of him against rebels and for
upholding the rights of the realm ."
The identity of the two documents is apparent
. Either the Edward III . M S . was
copied from the Cooke, or both were derived
from a common original.
Edwin. The son of Edward, Saxon king
of England, who died in 924, and was succeeded
by his eldest son, Athelstan . The
Masonic tradition is that Athelstan appointed
his brother Edwin the Patron of Masonry in
England, and gave him what the Old Records
call a free Charter to hold an Annual Communication
or General Assembly, under the
authority of which he summoned the Masons
of England to meet him in a Congregation at
York, where they met in 926 and formed the
Grand Lodge of England . The Old Records
say that these Masons brought with them
many old writings and records of the Craft,
some in Greek, some in Latin, some in French,
and other languages, and from these framed
the document now known as the York Constitutions,
whose authenticity has been in
recent years so much a subject of controversy
among Masonic writers. Prince Edwin died
two years before his brother, and a report was
spread of his being put wrongfully to death
by him ; "but this,' says Preston, "is so improbable
in itself so inconsistent with the
character of Athelstan, and, indeed, so slenderly
attested, as to be undeserving a place in
history." William of Malmesbury, the old
chronicler, relates the story, but confesses that
it had no better foundation than some old
ballads. But now come the later Masonic
antiquaries, who assert that Edwin himself
is only a myth, and that', in spite of the authority
of a few historical writers, Athelstan
had no son or brother of the name of Edwin .
Woodford (Old Charges of the Brit. Freemasons,
p. xiv.) thinks that the Masonic tradition
points to Edwin, King of Northumbria,
whose rendezvous was once at Auldby, near
York, and who in 627 aided in the building of a
stone church at York, after his baptism there,
with Roman workmen. "Tradition," he says,
"sometimes gets confused after they lapse of
time ; but I believe the tradition is in itself
true which links Masonry to the church building
at York by the Operative Brotherhood,
under Edwin, in 627, and to a gild Charter
under Athelstan, in 927 ."
The legend of Prince Edwin, of course
requires some modification, but we should
not be too hasty in rejecting altogether a
tradition which has been so long and so universally
accepted by the Fraternity, and to
which Anderson, Preston, Krause, Oliver, and
a host of other writers, have subscribed their
assent. The subject will be fully discussed
under the head of York Legend, which see.
Edwin Charges . The charges said to have
been given by Prince Edwin, and contained
in the Antiquity MS., are sometimes so called .
(See Antiquity Manuscript.)
Egg, Mundane . It was a belief of almost
all the ancient nations, that the world was
hatched from an egg made by the Creator
over which the Spirit of God was represented
as hovering in the same manner as a bird
broods or flutters over her eggs. Faber
(Pag. Idol., i . 1 4), who traced everything to the
Arkite worship, says that this egg, which was
a symbol of the resurrection, was no other than
the ark ; and as Dionysus was fabled in the
Orphic hymns to be born from an egg, he and
Noah were the same person ; wherefore the
birth of Dionysus or Brahma, or any other
hero god from an egg, was nothing more than
the egress of Noah from the ark . Be this as
it may, the egg has been always deemed a
symbol of the resurrection, and hence the
Christian use of Easter eggs on the great feast
of the resurrection of our Lord. As this is the
most universally diffused of all symbols, it is
strange that it has found no place in the symbolism
of Freemasonry, which deals so much
with the doctrine of the resurrection, of which
the egg was everywhere the recognized symbol .
It was, however, used by the ancient architects,
and from them was adopted by the
Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, one of
whose favorite ornaments was the ovolo, or
egg-molding.
Eglinton Manuscript . An Old Record
dated December 28, 1599 . It is so named
from its having been discovered some years
ago in the charter chest at Eglinton Castle .
It is a Scottish manuscript, and is valuable
for its details of early Masonry in Scotland .
In it, Edinburgh is termed "the first and
princpal Lodge," and Kilwinning is called
"the heid and secund Ludge of Scotland in all
tyme cuming ." An exact copy of it was
taken by Bro . D. Murray Lyon, and published
in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh .
(P . 12 .) It has also been printed in Hughan's
Masonic Sketches and Reprints .
Egyptian Hieroglyphs . The extent of
parallelism between the innumerable hieroglyphs
on the tombs and monuments of India
an Egypt and the symbols and emblems
of Freemasonry, taken together with their
esoteric interpretation, has caused very many
well-thinking Masons to believe in an Indian
or Egyptian origin of our speculative institution
of the present day . So close and numerous
are these symbols and their meaning that
it becomes difficult for the mind to free itself
from a fixed conclusion ; and some of the best
students feel confident in their judgment to
this end, more especially when tracing the
Leader "Moses,
learned in all the
wisdom of the
11 M S S arME S
Egyptians," from 1 ,
that country to
Palestine with the twelve tribes of Israel
and their successors building that Holy
House in Jerusalem, which has become the