Grand Lodge Of Scotland.

Grand Lodge of Scotland .

MMIE quarterly meeting of the Grand Lodge of Scotland I was held in the Freemasons' Hall , Edinburgh , on the full August . There was a large attendance , about 300 brethren being present . Bro . J . D . G . Dalrymple was Acting Grand Master , and Bros . A . A . Speirs and A . Dinwiddie acted as Grand Wardens . The Acting Grand Master

expressed regret at the absence of the Grand Master , Bro . the Hon . James Ho / . ier , M . P ., but was pleased to report that his health was improving , and that he hoped soon to have it altogether restored . The Deputy Grand Master , Bro . the Hon . C . Maule Ramsay , was absent , he explained , owing to

the inspection of the regiment with which he was connected . It was reported that , in reply to the loyal address presented to the King on the occasion of His Majesty ' s visit lo Edinburgh , a communication had been received from the Secretary for Scotland stilting that he had personally laid the address

before the King at Dalkeith Palace , and His Majesty had been pleased to receive the same in the most gracious manner . It was agreed , on the recommendation of the Grand Committee , to appoint Bro . James Maxtone Grahame Auditor of the Grand Lodge , in room of the late Bro . F . A . Bringloc . His Excellency Miliary Wilmot Travis , Grand

Master ol Liberia , was appointed representative of the Grand Lodge in that District ; Bro . W . F . Roberts was re-appointed to the Provincial Grand Mastership of Gibraltar , and Bro . William 1 ) . Todd was appointed to the Grand Lodge ol Colorado . The Visiting Committees reported with regard to the Metropolitan Lodges , West Aberdeenshire , Argyll

and the Isles , Wigtown , and Kirkcudbright , and Caithness , Orkney , and Zetland , the reports in every instance showing an increasing growth of the Craft . Charters were granted to Lodges Concordia , Pretoria ; Bellevue , Bellevue East , Johannesburg ; St . Andrew , Johannesburg ; and Langside ,

Glasgow . It was agreed to vote 100 guineas to the Townsville Masonic Relief Fund for brethren who had suffered from the cyclone that had passed over that township . The report of the Benevolent Committee showed that during the quarter _ £ ' i 68 6 s . had been voted ; and the

Annuity Board ' s report slated that of sixty applications to be dealt with thirty-one had been granted , the value of the annuities amounting to . £ 340 . At the beginning of the year there were on the roll 152 annuitants , receiving £ " 1570 annually . The other business was of the usual routine character .

The Clerkenw Ell Priory Of The Hnights Ho Spitallers Of St. John Of Jerusalem.

The Clerkenwell Priory of the Hnights Hospitallers of St . John of Jerusalem .

r r HE site o ( Clerkenwell , upon which now stand small I houses and shops , was , in the year 1185 , covered by a grand priory , named St . John , which was the chief home , in England , of the Knights of St . John of Jerusalem . This Order was founded in the eleventh century for the purpose of ministering to the needs of the pilgrims to the Holy

Sepulchre . The Knights came lo Clerkenwell , about the year 1100 , where they built their Priory . A small Xonnan church , nearly the whole of which is to be seen in the crypt , which supports the lloor of the present church of St . John the Baptist at Clerkenwell , was sufficient , at first , for the religious

ST . . lOIIX'S ( 'ATKU'AY AS IT A PPI- ' . Wt Id ) IX 1 ( 1 ( 11 .

needs ol the Order ; this was gradually added to , and the Priory completed in J . 18 5 , when the church was consecrated b y Heraslius , Patriarch of Jerusalem . The Order prospered and its revenues increased , and the poor , ascetic society became rich and luxurious , and when the Commons , nuclei Wat Tyler and Jack Straw , in 13 81 , rose in rebellion , the

Prior )* was one of the first buildings attacked . The mob seized and beheaded the Grand Prior , Sir Robert Hales , set the Priory on lire and let it burn for seven days . Tlie destroyed portions were subsequently rebuilt , and until the

time of Henry VIII . the Prior reigned here in great splendour , ranking amongst the peers as the first Baron of England , but at the dissolution of the monasteries , by Henry VIII ., the grand estate was broken up and the property seized by the King . In tlie following reign , Edward VI ., the buildings were further destroyed , being undermined and blown up

with gunpowder , the stone afterwards being used in building the Lord Protector ' s House in the Strand . In Queen Mary ' s reign the Priory was reconstituted , and a Prior , Sir Thomas Treshaw , appointed , but under Elizabeth it again passed to secular hands , and was used as the head quarters of the Master of the Queen ' s Revels , who licensed several of

Shakespeare ' s plays , and soon nothing was remaining but the choir of the old church with the crypt beneath and the principal gateway . For a while the remains of the church were used as a

private chapel , being known in the seventeenth century as the Aylesbury Chapel , which was , according to Fuller , " one of the best private chapels in England , discreetly embracing the mean of decency betwixt the extremes of slovenly profaueness and gaudy superstition . " Near by was the house of Dr . Gilbert Burnet , the well-known Bishop of Salisbury , who ,

writing of the Sacherverell riots , says : "There happened to be a meeting-house near me out of which they drew everything that was in it , and burned il before the door of the house . "

In 1721 Simon Michell , who had built Red Lion Square close by , restored and refitted the church and afterwards sold it to the Commissioners appointed under an Act of Queen Anne for building fifty churches in London . In this way came into existence the parish church of St . John , Clerkenwell , which was duly consecrated by the Bishop of London ,

December 27 , 1723 . The chief glory of the present church is its ancient crypt , which is very much in the same condition as at the time when Hie church and Priory were relinquished by the Knights in the reign of Henry VIII . The only other relic of the Priory now existing besides the crypt is the St . ( ' ) hn ' s Gale .