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

KNIGHTS
KNIGHTS 411
tian and chivalric Masonry . (Sae Temple,
Order of the.)
The second division of Templars is that
which is founded on the theory that Peter
d'Aumont fled with several knights into
Scotland, and there united with the Freemasons
. This legend is intimately connected
with Ramsay's tradition-that Freemasonry
sprang from Templarism, and that all Freemasons
are Knights Templar . The Chapter
of Clermont adopted this theory ; and in establishing
their high degrees asserted that
they were derived from these Templars of
Scotland . The Baron Hund carried the the-
E'
into Germany, and on it established his
Rite of Strict Observance, which was a Templar
system. Hence the Templars of Germany
must be classed under the head of the
followers of Aumont. (See Strict Observance .)
The third division is that which asserts
that the Count Beaujeu, a nephew of the last
Grand Master, De Molay and a member of the
Order of Knights of Christ-the name assumed
by the Templars of Portugal-had received
authority from that Order to disseminate
the degree . He is said to have carried
the degree and its ritual into Sweden, where
he incorporated it with Freemasonry. The
story is, too, that Beaujeu collected his uncle's
ashes and interred them in Stockholm, where a
monument was erected to his memory . Hence
the Swedish Templar Masons claim their descent
from Beaujeu, and the Swedish Rite is
through this source a Templar system .
Of the last class, or the Templars who rec-
'zed the authority of neither of the leaders
w o have been mentioned, there were two subdivisions,
the Scotch and the English ; for it is
only in Scotland and England that this independent
Templarism found a foothold .
It was only in Scotland that the Templars
endured no persecution . Long after the dissolution
of the Order in every other country
of Europe, the Scottish Preceptor' es continued
to exist, and the knights lived undisturbed .
One portion of the Scottish Templars entered
the army of Robert Bruce, and, after the
battle of Bannockburn, were merged in the
" Royal Order of Scotland," then established
by him . (See Royal Order of Scotland .)
Another portion of the Scottish Templars
united with the Knights Hospitalers of St .
John . They lived amicably in the same
houses, and continued to do so until the
Reformation . At this time many of them embraced
Protestantism . Some of them united
with the Freemasons, and established "the
Ancient Lodge" at Stirling, where they conferred
the degrees of Knight of the Sepulcher,
Knight of Malta, and Knights Templar . It
is to this division that we are to trace the
Masonic Templars of Scotland .
The Roman Catholic knights remaining
in the Order placed themselves under David
Seaton. Lord Dundee afterward became their
Grand Master. Charles Edward, the "Young
Pretender," is said to have been admitted into
the Order at Holyrood House, Edinbur on
September 24, 1745, and made the rand
Master. He is also said, but without any
proof, to have established the Chapter of
Arras and the high degrees .* To this branch,
I think, there can be but little doubt that we
are to attribute the Templar system of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite as developed
in its degree of Kadosh .
The English Masonic Templars are most
probably derived from that body called the
"Baldwyn Encampment," or from some one
of the four coordinate Encampments of London,
Bath, York, and Salisbury, which it is
claimed were formed by the members of the
Preceptory which had long existed at Bristol,
and who on the dissolution of their Order, are
supposed to have united with the Masonic
Fraternity. The Baldwyn Encampment claims
to have existed from "time immemorial"-
an indefinite period-but we can trace it back
far enough to give it a priority over all other
English Encampments . From this division
of the Templars, repudiating all connection
with Larmenius, with Aumont, or any other of
the self-constituted leaders, but tracing its
origin to the independent action of knights
who fled for security and for perpetuity into
the body of Masonry, we may be held justly
entitled to derive the Templars of the United
States.
Of this brief statement, we may make the
following summary :
1 . From Larmenius came the French Templars
.
2. From Aumont, the German Templars of
Strict Observance.
3 . From Beaujeu, the Swedish Templars
of the Rite of Zinnendorf .
4 . From the Protestant Templars of Scotland
and the Ancient Lodge of Stirling, the
Scotch Templars .
5 . From Prince Charles Edward and his adherents,
the Templars of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite.
6 . From the Baldwyn Encampment and its
coordinates, the old English and the American
Templars .
The GOVERNMENT of Masonic Knights
Templar in the United States is vested, first,
in Commanderies, which confer the Red Cross
and Templar degrees and instruct in the
secrets of Malta . t The usual expression, that
a candidate after being made a Fights Templar
is also created a Knight of Malta, involves
an absurdity . No man being a Knights
Templar could, by the original statutes, be a
member of any other Order ; and it is to be regretted
that the wise provision of the Grand
Encampment in 1856, which struck the degree
of Malta from the ritual of the Commanderies,
should have been in 1862 unwisely repealed .
The secrets in which the candidate is instructed
are the modern inventions of the Masonic
Knights of Malta . The original Order
had no secrets .
* For a critical examination of this story see
Hughan's Jacobite Lodge at Rome, ch . 3 .
[E . L . H .]
t See foot-note after Knights of Malta .