Freemasonry In The Seventeenth Century: Warrington, 1646.

one has written underneath the printed signature " alias Richard Rawlinson , LL . D . " The writing is perhaps one hundred years old . Allibone * speaks of John Burman as being the stepson of Dr . Plot . As already pointed out , it is a somewhat suggestive fact that the Sloane MS . No . 3848 is thus signed : " Finis p me Edwardit Sankey , decimo sexto die

, Octobris , Anno Domini , 1646 , " the very day Ashmole was initiated at Warrington . f It will be noticed that in the list of entries from the Warrington Registers , subsequently given , relating to the Sankey family , EdAvard , son to Richard Sankey , Gent . Bapt ., 3 rd February , 1621-2 , is mentioned . If I were asked to express an opinion on the Warrington Lodge of 1646 , I

should feel obliged to say that , so far as I am able to judge , there is not a scrap of evidence that there was a single operative Mason present on the afternoon of the 16 th of October , 1646 ; in fact , the whole of the evidence seems to point quite in the opposite direction . How far the following notes will bear out such an opinion I must leave to the judgment of others . For astrological reasons Ashmole was particular to note in his diary the

exact hour and minute , when possible , of all the events of his life , and from this diary the following notes have been for the most part gathered : — He was the only child of Simon Ashmole , of Lichfield , saddler , the eldest son of Mr . Thomas Ashmole , of the same city , saddler , who was twice chief bailiff of that corporation , by his wife Anne , one of the daughters of Anthony Bowyer , of CoventrydraperbBridgethis wifeonldaughter of Mr . Fitchof Ausley ,

, , y , , y , in Warwick , gent . He mentions his uncles , Thomas ancl Ralph Ashmole , the latter of whom died 29 th October , 1675 , and a cousin , William Ashmole , saddler , of London . His father , Simon Ashmole , died 1634 , and his mother , Anne Ashmole , died of the plague in July , 1646 .

Elias was born , as he himself informs us , giving the precise time of the day , with his and Lilly ' s rectification of his nativity , on the 23 rd of May , 1617 , and was baptized on the 2 nd of June , at St . Mary ' s Church , Lichfield . His father served under Robert , Earl of Essex , in Ireland and elsewhere ( A . D . 15 —) , and " loved war better than making saddles ancl bridles . " By his improvidence the family appears to have suffered considerably ; but fortunately for Ashmolehis musical voice caused him to be noticed by James PagetEsq ., % the

, , Puisne Baron of the Exchequer , Avho had married " to his second wife BRIDGET , one of my Mother ' s Sisters , and Widow to—MOTBE , a Confectioner in LONDON . " After having been made a chorister in Lichfield Cathedral , and taught to play upon the virginals and organ , he was sent to London in 1633 , by Thomas , the Judge ' s second son . Here he continued his musical education and studied law , residing in the Temple , under the patronage of his friend . In 1639 he tells us that " Peter V enables , Baron of Emderfon , wrote to me , to take wpon . me the