Masonic History And Its Critics.

MASONIC HISTORY AND ITS CRITICS .

IT goes without sayiug that our Masonic historians have much to answer for in respect of the highly-coloured descriptions they have published of the early history of the Craft . To those who are most conversant with the difficulties encountered in the ordinary course of historic

investigation , the facility with which our writers on Masonic history have adopted the unsupported statements of those who preceded them must be astounding . Even in connection with many events , the authenticity of which is established beyond all doubt , it will be found occasionally

that there is a great variety of readings as to the circumstances , the order in which those circumstances occurred , and the motives by which the men who took part in them were actuated . If we take , as a single illustration of the truth of our statement , certain of the events which

occurred in this country during the latter half of the fifteenth century , we shall find that many of them are still enshrouded in mystery . Thus , after the most careful researches , we are still in doubt as to the circumstances attending the death , in the Tower of London , of our Henry

VI ., the general belief being that he was got out of the way by . Richard of Gloucester , afterwards Richard III . ; of George Duke of Clarence , brother of Edward IY . and the same Richard , the popular version being that , sentence of death having been passed , he was at his own request

drowned in a butt of his especial favourite Malmsey wine * , and of the young princes , Edward V . and his brother of York , who are said to have been suffocated at the instance of their uncle , the Protector , Richard of Gloucester . The character of this last-named prince is a mystery to

this very day . The majority incline to accept the picture drawn of him by our immortal Shakspeare , who has delineated him as one of the most bloody-minded tyrants that ever disgraced a throne ; while there has arisen of late years another school of critics who view his character with

a far greater degree of favour , pronouncing him to have been an able prince and a distinguished military leader , who , in all the actions which marked his brief reign , was influenced by a lofty patriotism , while , as to his alleged bloodthirstiness , he was not less scrupulous or more

indifferent to the shedding of human blood than his contemporaries . Many , indeed , go so far as to say that , as a man , the qualities he possessed made him the superior of his successful rival , the first of the Tudors , and that had

he proved victor on the field of Bosworth , our country would have been better governed and would have attained , under his auspices , a far higher measure of prosperity than it did under those of his wily and ungenerous successor . Here , then , we have certain events about the actual

occurrence of which there is not the slightest doubt whatever , and yet the facts are scarcely at all more clear now , after centuries of investigation , than they were at the time they happened . If , then , there is all this doubt and mystery about matters which are known to have taken place , as well

as about the character of a prince who played so conspicuous a part in the history of his time as did our Richard III ., how much greater donbt and mystery must hang about the occurrences of Masonry , which , whether

as an Operative Guild or a Speculative Society , has always enjoyed the character of being a secret body ? Under these circumstances , it is , of course , the more surprising that any sane man possessing ability to distinguish between the pro - bable and the improbable , yet without the data which

Masonic History And Its Critics.

would enable him to determine the actual , should have associated with the early history of Freemasonry so much that is absolutely mythical . That Freemasonry bas an early history , extending far back into the remote past , we are firmly persuaded ; the very nature of our splendid Society

justifies that belief . But it is one thing to believe in a genuine antiquity and yet another of an entirely different complexion to deliberately associate with it a series of personages and events which , in the order of things , could never have been connected with it . To mention one

conspicuous case only . St . Alban , the protomartyr of Britain , may have been a great patron of architecture , but to affirm that he was the founder of the first Lodge of Freemasonsin anything like the sense in which we understand the expression—is about the most grotesque of the many

grotesque absurdities which the human imagination has over , in its wildest moments , been guilty . This is only one of the almost countless assertions of our historic writers which have made Freemasonry—or , rather , its history—a

byeword and reproach among men of rough , but ready , understanding . We may affirm and imagine what we will , we shall never , while the world lives , succeed in compiling a veracious history of the Society of Freemasons . Tet we cannot but involve ourselves in ridicule of the most

humiliating character when we persist in speaking of Adam , Noah , Euclid , St . Alban , to mention no other names , as having been Grand Masters of our Society . On the other hand , and while we deprecate the nonsense of those writers who insist on giving an actuality to the

history of the Craft in the remotest times , and on proclaiming the direct personal connection with our Order of many among the most remarkable of the world ' s heroes , we must not allow ourselves to run into the opposite extreme of questioning everything which is not

demonstrable m the manner ordinarily accepted by expert historical investigators . We may not , for instance , be able to clear up the mystery as to the circumstances which

attended the deaths of Henry VI . and George Duke of Clarence , as well as of Edward V . and his brother . It is out of our power—at all events , without further evidence—to resolve the character of Richard III . —whether

he was a magnanimous prince , inspired equally by patriotism and a lofty idea of the kingly power , or a mere bloodthirsty tyrant . The facts remain that Henry VI . and the others died in the fortress we have named , and Richard III . lived and died a Sovereign of England .

Similarly , and descending from great things to small , from the conduct of a State to the ramifications of a Society , there are many matters connected with the earliest history of Freemasonry which cannot be fully explained , but the actuality of which cannot or ought not

to be seriously questioned . If we are so unfortunate as to be compelled to number among former contributors to the history of Freemasonry many who have given priority to the extravagance of their imagination over probability ,

there are those among us at this present time who would narrow the circle of historic probability till it was nothing more than a mathematical point . These latter are the class of men who would write whole libraries of volumes

for the purpose of showing that somebody ' s name or title was written either with or without a final " e ; " that the common ancestor of the multitudinous family of the

Smiths spelled his name with a " y " instead of an " i ; " that the half-outlined bird on the long-disused signboard of an ancient hostelry must have been intended to represent a duck because it was small , a goose because it