Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

280 FREDERICK
FREE
treated like any private individual, and that
none of the usual ceremonies might be altered
on his account . Accordingly, he was admitted
in the customary form, and I could not
sufficiently admire his fearlessness his composure,
and his address. After the double
reception, a Lodge was held. All was over by
four in the morning, and the Prince returned
to the ducal palace, apparently as well pleased
with us as we were charmed with him ."
Of the truth of this account there never
has been any doubt . Frederick the Great was
certainly a Mason . But Carlyle, in his usual
sarcastic vein, adds : "The Crown Prince
prosecuted his Masonry at Reinsberg or elsewhere,
occasionally, for a year or two, but was
never ardent in it, and very soon after his
accession left off altogether . . . A Royal
Lodge was established at Berlin, of which the
new king consented to be patron ; but he never
once entered the palace, and only his portrait
(a welcomely good one, still to be found there)
presided over the mysteries of that establishment."
Now how much of truth with the sarcasm,
and how much of sarcasm without the truth,
there is in this remark of Carlyle, is just what
the Masonic world is bound to discover .
Until further light is thrown upon the subject
by documentary evidence from the Prussian
Lodges, the question can not be definitely
answered . But what is the now known further
Masonic history of Frederick?
Bielf eld tells us that the zeal of the Prince f or
the Fraternity induced him to invite the Baron
Von Oberg and himself to Reinsberg, where,
in 1739 they founded a Lodge, into which
Keyserling, Jordan, Moolendorf, Queis, and
Fredersdorf (Frederick's valet) were admitted .
Bielfeld is again our authority for stating
that on the 20th of June, 1740, King Frederick-for
he had then ascended the throneheld
a Lodge at Charlottenburg, and, as
Master in the chair, initiated Prince William
of Prussia, his brother the Margrave Charles
of Brandenburg and Frederick William, Duke
of Holstein. The Duke of Holstein was seven
y ears afterward elected Adjutant Grand
Master of the Grand Lodge of the Three
Globes at Berlin.
We hear no more of Frederick's Masonry
in the printed records until the 16th of July,
1774, when he granted hisprotection to the
National Grand Lodge of Germany, and officially
approved of the treaty with the Grand
Lodge of England, by which the National
Grand Lodge was established . In the year
1777, the Mother Lodge, "Royal York of
Friendship," at Berlin, celebrated, by a festival,
the king's birthday, on which occasion
Frederick wrote the following letter, which, as
it is the only printed declaration ofhis opinion
of Freemasonry that is now extant, is well
worth copying :
"I cannot but be sensible of the new homage
of the Lodge `Royal York of Friendship' on
the occasion of the anniversary of my birth,
bearing, as it does, the evidence of its zeal and
attachment for my person . Its orator has
well expressed the sentiments which animate
all its labors ; and a society which employs itself
only in sowing the seed and bringing forth
the fruit of every kind of virtue in my deminions
may always be assured of my protection .
It is the glorious task of every good sovereign
and I will never cease to fulfil it. And so I
pray God to take you and your Lodge under
his holy and deserved protection . Potsdam,
this 14th of February 1777-Frederick ."
Frederick Henry Louis, * Prince of Prussia,
was received into Masonry at Berlin by
Frederick the Great, his brother, in 1740 .
Frederick William III . King of Prussia,
and, although not a Freemason, a generous
patron of the Order . On December 29 1797,
he wrote to the Lodge Royal York of F&iendship,
at Berlin, these words : "I have never
been initiated, as every one knows, but I am
far from conceiving the slightest distrust of the
intentions of the members of the Lodge . I
believe that its design is noble, and founded
on the cultivation of virtue ; that its methods
are legitimate, and that every political tendency
is banished from its operations. Hence
I shall take pleasure in manifesting on all
occasions my good-will and my affection to
the Lodge Royal York of Friendship, as well
as to every other Lodge in my dominions ."
In a similar tone of kindness toward Masonry,
he wrote three months afterward to Fessler .
And when he issued, October 20, 1798, an
edict forbidding secret societies, he made a
special exemption in favor of the Masonic
Lodges. To the time of his death, he was
always the avowed friend of the Order .
Free. The word "free," in connection
with "Mason," originally signified that the
person so called was free of the company or
gild of incorporated Masons . For those
Operative Masons who were not thus made
free of the gild, were not permitted to work
with those who were . A similar regulation
still exists in many parts of Europe, although
it is not known to this country . The term
appears to have been first thus used in the
tenth century, when the traveling Freemasons
were incorporated by the Roman Pontiff .
(See Traveling Freemasons .)
In reference to the other sense of free as
meaning not bound, not in captivity, it is a rule
of Masonry that no one can be initiated who
is at the time restrained of his liberty .
The Grand Lodge of England extends this
doctrine, that Masons should be free in all
their thoughts and actions, so far, that it will
not permit the initiation of a candidate who is
*Frederick did not in his latter days take the
active interest in Masonry that had distinguished
his early life before coming to the
throne . It cannot be established that he ever
attended a meeting after he became king, though
many such efforts have been attempted . Some
over-zealous persons have claimed that he established
the A. and A .S.R. of the Thirty-third
Degree, but the Grand Lodge of the Three
Globes at Berlin, as well as many European
historians, have often shown this to have been
impossible .
(E . E . C,]