What the tradition of York is to the Freemasons of England, that of Kilwinning is to the Masons of Scotland. The story which traces the birth of the Order to the celebrated Abbey of Kilwinning was for many years accepted as the authentic history of Scottish Masonry. Thus Sir John Sinclair, in his Stalistical Account of Scotland, states that "a number of Freemasons came from the continent to build a monastery at Kilwinning and with them an architect or Master Mason to superintend and carry on the work. This architect resided at Kilwinning, and being a guide and true Mason, intimately acquainted with all the arts and parts of Masonry, known on the continent, was chosen Master of the meetings of the brethren all over Scotland. He gave rules for the conduct of the brethren at these meetings, and decided finally in appeals from all the other meetings or lodges in Scotland." *

(* Vol. xi., art. "Kilwinning.")

This tradition has been accepted by the author of Laurie's History, who says that "Freemasonry was introduced into Scotland by those architects who built the Abbey of Kilwinning." *

(* "History of Freemasonry" p. 89.)

He connects those architects with the trading association of artists who were engaged in the construction of religious buildings on the Continent, under the patronage of the Pope, and who provided builders for both England and Scotland. And he suggests as an evidence that Masonry was introduced into Scotland by these foreign workmen the fact that in a town in Scotland where there is an elegant abbey, he had "often heard that it was erected by a company of industrious men who spoke in a foreign langiiage and lived separately from the town's people."

The Abbey of Kilwinning, which has been claimed as the birthplace of Masonry in Scotland, was situated in the town of the same name, and in the county of Ayr, on the southwestern coast of Scotland. It was founded by Hugh de Morville, High Constable of Scotland, in the year 1157. The abbey is now and bas long been in ruins, though what now remains of it attests, says Mr. Robert Wylie, who has written a History of the Mother Lodge, Kilwinning, "the zeal and opulence of its founder, and furnishes indubitable evidence, fragmentary as it is, of its having been one of the most splendid examples of Gothic art in Scotland."

It is only very recently that anyone has attempted to deny the authenticity of the Legend which traces the introduction of Freemasonry into Scotland to the workmen who came over in the 12th century to construct the Abbey of Kilwinning. Bro. D. Murray Lyon has attacked the tradition, together with some others connected with Scottish Masonry, all of which he deems destitute of historical support. The tradition, however, like that of York among the English Masons, has not wanted its zealous supporters among the Scottish brethren, and more especially among the members of the Kilwinning, which claims to have a legitimate descent from the primitive lodge which was established in the 12th century by the foreign architect who settled in the town of Kilwinning.

It has, however, been attempted to trace the introduction of the Order into Scotland to a much earlier period, and one writer, cited by Wylie with apparent approval says that Scotland can boast of many noble remains of the ancient Roman buildings which plainly evince that the Romans when they entered the country brought along with them some of their best designers and operative masons, who were employed in rearing those noble fabrics of which we can at this day trace the remains. And it is asserted that these Roman builders communicated to the natives and left behind them a predilection for and a knowledge of Masonry which have descended from them to the present generation. *

(* Wylie, "History of the Mother Lodge, Kilwinning," P. 47.)

It is very probable that more is here claimed than can be authenticated by history. The influences exerted upon English architecture by the Roman colleges of Masons is very patent, as has been already shown. The Romans had been enabled to make for centuries a home in England, had introduced into it their arts of civilization, and made it in every respect a Roman colony. But Scotland had never been completely subjugated by the Roman arms; the incursions of the legions were altogether of a predatory nature, nor are there many evidences from Roman remains that the Roman artists had been enabled to make, or had even attempted to make, the same impression on the warlike Scots and Picts that they had been enabled to produce in the more docile and more easily civilized inhabitants of the southern part of the island.

The theory which assigns the introduction of Freemasonry into Scotland to the workmen who came over from England or from the Continent in the 12th century, and erected the religious buildings at Kilwinning, Melrose, Glasgow, and other places, is a much more plausible one. The bodies of Traveling Freemasons were at that time in existence, and we know that they were perambulating the Continent and erecting ecclesiastical edifices; we know too that it that period there were corporations or guilds of Masons in England; and it is a very fair deduction from historical reasoning, though there be no historical records to confirm it, that the churches and abbeys which were erected in Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries must have been the work of Freemasons who came partly from England and partly from the Continent. Bro. D. Murray Lyon, the Historian of the Lodge of Edinburgh, has said that "not the slightest vestige of authentic evidence has ever been adduced in support of the legends in regard to the time and place of the institution of the first Scotch Masonic Lodge." *

(* "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 2.)

This is, however, a merely local question affecting the claims to precedency on the roll of the Grand Lodge, and must not be mixed up with the question of the introduction of the Freemasons into Scotland as an organized society of builders. I can not consider it as quite aprocryphal to assign this to the time when religious establishments were patronized by King David I., which was toward the close of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. The Mother Kilwinning Lodge, at Kilwinning, the St. Mary's Chapel Lodge, at Edinburgh, and the Freemen St. John's, at Glasgow, have each preferred the claim that it is the oldest lodge in Scotland. Each has its proofs and each has its adherents, and the controversy has at times waxed warm among the Scottish Masons. Yet, as I have already said, it is, as a matter of general history, of but little importance. We have seen that we are almost compelled to suppose that the institution of Masonry was introduced into Scotland by the builders who were engaged in the erection of religious houses from the 11th to the 13th centuries. We can not get over the belief that these builders formed a part of the fraternity which already existed in the Continent of Europe and in England, and who were then engaged in the same occupation of constructing cathedrals and monasteries. Knowing from other evidence what was the usage of these Traveling Freemasons, and that wherever they were engaged in the labors of their Craft they established lodges, we are again forced to the belief that in Scotland they followed the usages they had adopted elsewhere, and erected their lodges there also. Doubtless there is no authentic evidence that the modern lodges at Glasgow, at Kilwinning, and at Edinburgh were the legitimate and uninterrupted successors of those which were established by the Masons who were engaged in the construction of the Cathedral, the Abbey, and Holyrood; indeed it is very probable that they are not. Nor is there any historical material which will enable us to determine which of these primitive lodges was first established by the mediaeval builders.

The probability is, as Bro. Lyon has suggested, that the erection of the earliest Scottish lodges was a nearlv simultaneous occurrence, as wherever a body of mediveval Masons were employed there also were the elements to constitute a lodge. *

(* "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 242.)

The facts, therefore, would appear to be that lodges must have existed in Scotland from the time when those edifices were being erected, and that the Freemasons who came over from the Continent to erect those edifices brought with them the Freemasonry of the Continent. We can not indeed prove these facts by historical records of undoubted authenticity, but we can advance no reason for denying or doubting their probability. Ascribing the first introduction of Freemasonry into Scotland to the continental Masons, we have some evidence that at a later period there was a considerable influence exercised by England on Scottish Masonry. This is apparent from the fact that the Constitutions used in the Kilwinning Lodge, and in others established by it in the middle of the 17th century, and known as the "Edinburgh Kilwinning MS.," is a nearly exact copy of an English manuscript, and contains a charge to be "liegemen to the King of England, without treason or other falsehood."

This manuscript, which was kept in the archives of the Kilwinning Lodge, and known, says Lyon, as "the old buck," was frequently copied, and the copies sold by the Lodge of Kilwinning to those lodges which had received charters from it. The fact that these Constitutions require allegiance to the King of England, that the legend which refers to the introduction of Masonry into Scotland and in subsequent expansion, dwells on the patronage extended to the Craft by the English Kings, and finally that the narrative contains no allusion to the Kilwinning or another Scottish legend, induce Brothers Hughan and Lyon to come to the conclusion that the manuscript was brought from England into Scotland, and that its adoption by the Kilwinning Lodge, and by those which were chartered by it, proves that the Masonry of England exercised in the middle of the 17th century a very great influence over that of Scotland, an influence which, as it will be seen, was still further exerted in after times in assimilating the rituals and ceremonial usages of the two countries.

This English influence on Scotch lodges at so early a period is a fact of great importance in the history of Masonry. From it is to be presumed that there was a great intimacy and frequent communication between the Freemasons of the two countries. It is to be presumed also that there was a great similarity - indeed, in many respects, an identity - of usages in Scotland and England. Therefore we may with great safety apply what we know of the Masonry of one country to that of another, where we have no other knowledge but that which is derived from such a collation. Now, it is a well-known fact that while the literature of English Masonry is exceedingly deficient in any authentic records of lodges which existed anterior to the Revival of 1717, the Scottish lodges have preserved original minutes or records of their proceedings as far back as the end of the 16th century. Lyon, in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, has torn away, with an unsparing and relentless hand, the meretricious garments which the imaginations of Anderson and Brewster (Lawrie's edition) had cast around the statute of Scottish Masonic history. It will not be safe in writing such a history to lose sight of the incisive criticism of Lyon and trust to the deceptive and fallacious authority of earlier historians.

At the beginning of the 12th century, Masons had been imported into Scotland from Strasburg, in Germany, for the purpose of building Holyrood House; in the middle of the same century other Masons were engaged in erecting Kilwinning Abbey. From these epochs historians have been wont to date the origin of Scottish Masonry. We have no documents referring to that early period, but we know that King David I., who then reigned, was what Anderson would call a "great patron of Masonry," and that he nearly beggared the kingdom by the prodigality with which he invested its resources in the construction of religious edifices. But it is not until we reach the commencement of the 15th century that we begin to find any records which seem to indicate the existence of a craft or guild like that which we know at the same time existed in England. It is not asserted here that there were no lodges or guild meetings in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. Judging from the condition of things in England at that time, we may conclude that guilds or lodges of Masons were in existence also in Scotland, but we have no documentary evidence of any authentic value to sustain the supposition.

The first period in which Freemasonry in Scotland begins to assume an historic form is the beginning of the 15th century. James I. had been confined as prisoner in England from the year 1406 to 1424. During those eighteen years of his enforced absence, the kingdom had been greatly harassed by the contentions of what were called "leagues" or "bands" among the craftsmen of the different trades, including the Masons, and which might be compared to the modern trades-unions and strikes. When James I. returned to Scotland, in 1424, he at once began to reform the abuses which had resulted from these illegal confederacies.

He suppressed the "leagues," and instituted the office of "Deacon" or "Master-man," as a method of preserving the community from the frauds of the crafts. For this purpose the "Deacons" were authorized, by act of Parliament, to regulate the works of all the crafts, to establish the rate of wages, and to punish any who should transgress the law. But these powers having been found to be in many instances oppressive to the people and an encroachment on the prerogatives of the municipal authorities, were, after a year's trial, abrogated, and a new class of officials was instituted, called "Wardens," one of whom was selected from each trade.

These Wardens were not the representatives of the crafts, but had a greater affinity with the town-councils of each burgh, whose prerogatives in regulating work and wages they exercised. Now the Masons who originally came to Scotland in the 12th century from the Continent and from England had enjoyed the privilege from the Pope of regulating their own concerns and prescribing their own wages. This privilege they must of course have communicated to their successors in Scotland, and it was there apparently exercised, up to and including the time of the institution of Deacons, under whom the trade and craft unions exercised the same prerogative. But when the Deaconship was abolished, and Wardens established as representatives of the municipal authorities, this right of regulating their own concerns was taken from the craft. To this there was naturally resistance, and Lyon tells us that "the Deacons continued holding meetings of their respective crafts, for the purpose doubtless of keeping alive the embers of discontent at their degraded portion and organizing the means for carrying on the struggle, not only to regain independence of action in trade affairs but also to acquire a political status in the country." *

(* "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 3.)

There is nothing in the history of the reigns of the two succeeding kings, James II and III, that connects them with the Masonic fraternity. None of the acts of the Scottish Parliament, during these two reigns, has any special reference to the Craft of Masons. James III is said indeed to have had "a passionate attachment for magnificent buildings." Beyond this, says Lyon, "his name can not in any special degree be associated with Masons." But in truth, though documentary evidence of particular facts may be wanting, this attachment to magnificent edifices must have led the monarch

to have bestowed his patronage upon that fraternity whose duty it was to erect thern. Brewster (Lawrie's edition) has sought to give an importance to the reign of James II., by the statement that that monarch had invested the Earl of Orkney and Caithness with the dignity of "Grand Master" of the Masons of Scotland, and subsequently made the office hereditary in his heirs and successors in the barony of Roslin. This statement, long accepted by Masonic writers and by all the Masons of Scotland as a veritable fact, has been proved by more recent researches to be wholly unsupported by historic evidence and even to be contradicted by those authentic documents which are known as the "St. Clair Charters."

There are two Charters bearing this name, which were once the property of Mr. Alexander Deuchar, and were purchased at the sale of his library by Dr. David Laing of the Signet Library, and exchanged by him for other documents with Professor Aytoun of the University of Edinburgh, who presented them to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, in whose archives they are still preserved. The manuscipts have been carefully examined, and their authenticity is without doubt. The date of the first of these Manuscripts is not given, but from internal and other evidence it seems presumable that it was written between the years 1600 and 1601.

It is signed by William Schaw as "Master of Work" and by several Masons of Edinburgh and various towns in Scotland. It is unnecessary to give the text of the manuscript, as it has been printed by Lawrie, by Lyon, and by some others, but its substance may be cited as follows: It begins by stating that the Lords of Roslin have from "age to age" been patrons and protectors of the Masons of Scotland and of their privileges, and as such have been obeyed and acknowledged. That within a few years past this position has from sloth and negligence been allowed to go out of use, whereby the Lord of Roslin has been lying out of his just rights and the Craft been destitute of a patron and protector, and other evils have arisen; wherefore it goes on to say that, not being able to wait on the tedious and expensive courses of the ordinary courts, the signers, in behalf of all the Craft and with their consent, agree that William Sinclair of Roslin and his heirs shall obtain at the hands of the King liberty, freedom, and jurisdiction upon them and their successors, in all times to come, so that he shall be acknowledged by the Craft as their patron and judge under the King.

The second charter, which purports to be issued by the Deacons, Masters, and Freemen of the Masons and Hammermen of Scotland, is supposed by Lyon, with good reason, to have been written in the year 1628. This document is confirmatory of the other, making the same statement of the recogniion of the Sinclairs of Roslin as patrons and protectors of the Scottish Craft, but adding an additional fact, which will hereafter be referred to. Upon this authority Brewster has said, in Lawrie's History, that King James II had granted to William St. Clair, Earl of Orkney and Caithness, Baron of Roslin, the office of Grand Master, and made it hereditary to his heirs and successors in the barony of Roslin; and he adds that "the Barons of Roslyn, as hereditary Grand Masters of Scotland, held their principal annual meetings at Kilwinning."

Anderson had previously asserted that James I had instituted the office of Grand Master, who was to be chosen by the Grand Lodge, and this, he says, "is the tradition of the old Scottish Masons and found in their records." The language of Anderson shows that he was not acquainted with the St. Clair Charters, as they are called, because if he had seen them it is not likely that he would have omitted to take notice of the important point of hereditary occupation. But the authority of Anderson as an authentic historian is of so little value that we need not discuss the question whether any such tradition ever existed.

The statement made in Lawrie's History is, however, professedly based on the authority of the St. Clair Charters. This statement has been impugned by James Maidment in his Genealogie of the Saint Clairs of Rosslyn, by Lyon in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, and by several other writers. As the statement made in Lawrie's work depends for its verity or its fallacy on the question whether these charters have been faithfully interpreted or not, it will be necessary in making the issue to investigate more particularly the express language which is used in these documents. The words of the first charter, literally translated from the Scottish dialect of the original, are as follows:

"We, Deacons, Masters, and Freemen of the Masons within the realm of Scotland, with express consent and assent of William Schaw, Master of Work to our Sovereign Lord, forasmuch as from age to age it has been observed among us that the Lords of Roslin have ever been patrons and protectors of us and our privileges, likewise our predecessors have obeyed and acknowledged them as patrons and protectors, while through negligence and sloth the same has past out of use. . . . We, for ourselves and in the name of all our brethren and craftsmen, consent to the aforesaid agreement and consent that William St. Clair, now of Roslin, for himself and his heirs, shall purchase and obtain, at the hands of our Sovereign Lord, liberty, freedom, and jurisdiction upon us and our successors, in all times coming, as patrons and judges to us and all the professors of our craft within this realm, . . . so that hereafter we may acknowledge him and his heirs as our patron and judge under our Sovereign Lord, without appeal or declination from his judgment, and with power to the said William to deputize one or more judges under him, and to use such ample and large jurisdiction upon us and our successors, in town and in country, as it shall please our Sovereign Lord to grant to him and his heirs."

The second charter is but a repetition of the statements of the first, with a few additional details which make it a longer document. It approves and confirms the former "letter of jurisdiction and liberty made and subscribed by our brethren and his highness, formerly Master of Work for the time to the said William St. Clair of Roslin." There is, however, one statement not to be found in the first charter, and which is of much importance. It is stated that the St. Clairs of Roslin had letters of protection and of other rights which were "granted to them by his majesty's most noble progenitors of worthy memory, which, with sundry others of the Lord of Roslin's writings, were consumed and burnt in a flame of fire within the castle of Roslin in the year. Mr. Lyon objects to the opinion that Schaw was an Operative Mason and thinks that he was of higher social position and merely an honorary member of the Craft. If there were no other evidence to sustain Bro. Lyon in this view, the fact that the appellation of "highness," as here applied to him, would be sufficient to prove its accuracy.

The last two words are "in an," evidently meaning "in anno," but being at the end of the line, the two last letters with the date have been apparently torn or worn off from the manuscript. We can from this only gather the fact that there was a tradition among the Scottish Masons that some one of the Kings of Scotland, previous to James VI, in whose reign the manuscript was undoubtedly written, had by letters patent granted to the Lords of Roslin the patronage and protection of the Craft in Scotland. Now, it is very evident that Brewster had no authority from these charters to make the statement that James II had appointed the Barons of Roslin hereditary Grand Masters of Scotland.

There is not the remotest allusion in either of these documents to the use of such a title. One of William Schaw's titles was "Chief Master of Masons," but that of "Grand Master" was never recognized in Scotland until one was elected in 1731 by the Grand Lodge of Edinburgh. But the charters do not themselves declare that the Sinclairs of Roslin had received any such appointment from the King. It is true that the second charter does refer to the fact that letters of protection had been granted by the predecessors of James VI, which letters were burnt in a fire that took place at Roslin Castle at a time the date of which has been lost. On this subject it has very properly been asked why was the fact of the burning of these papers not stated in the first charter; how is it that there is no certain knowledge of the year when this fire took place; and how was it that while all the other charters belonging to the house of Roslyn were preserved these alone were consumed by this fatal fire? When the last Roslin resigned in the year 1736 his hereditary rights as patron, he certainly did allude to the possibility that some King of Scotland may have granted a charter to his predecessors. But he expressly designates those predecessors as William St. Clair and his son, Sir William, the very persons who are mentioned in the two charters as deriving their rights from the Masons in the beginning of the 17th century. But there is no evidence in his letter of resignation that he was at all acquainted with any charter granted by James II to the Earls of Orkney and Barons of Roslin.

On the whole, I think we may explain this story of the St. Clair Charters in the following way: At the beginning of the 17th century there was possibly a tradition, unsupported, however, by any historical evidence, that the St. Clairs of Roslin had been the hereditary patrons and protectors of the Craft of Masons in Scotland. In the year 1601, when William Schaw was the "Chief Mason" and "Master of the Work," the St. Clairs, if they had ever exercised their patronage and protection, had ceased to do so.

The Masons needing at that time such a patron, designated William St. Clair as such, and to give a greater prestige to the position, either invented a tradition that the office had been hereditary in the family of the St. Clairs or repeated one that already existed. About thirty years afterward, the Masons of Scotland renewed and confirmed the appointment of Sir William St. Clair, the son of the one who had received the appointment in 1601. And now, in accordance with the unhappy method of treating Masonic documents which seems always to have prevailed whenever it was necessary to make a point, the writers of the second charter changed the tradition which in the first charter was to the effect that the Masons had always appointed the St. Clairs as their patrons, and asserted that the appointment had been given at an early period by one of the Scottish Kings.

This was a falsification of the original tradition and must be rejected. It was, however, accepted by Sir David Brewster and bas until recently been recognized as a part of the authentic history of Scottish Masonry. I think there can be no doubt that the St. Clairs accepted the honorable position of patrons of Scotch Masonry which had been bestowed upon them in 1601 and retained the office until it was finally vacated in 1736 by William St. Clair, who resigned all claim or pretense that he had to any hereditary right to be "patron, protector, judge or Master of the Masons in Scotland." Upon this the Grand Lodge of Scotland, which had then been duly formed, first adopted for their presiding officer, under the influence of the example of the Grand Lodge of England, the title of " Grand Master" and elected St. Clair to the office.

Looking back to the 12th century, when Kilwinning Abbey, Glasgow Cathedral, and Holyrood and other religious houses were built by Freemasons brought over from England and from the Continent, we are to suppose, for we are without documentary information, that the Masons of that and the succeeding centuries up to the end of the 16th century must have observed the usages and customs of the English and Continental Masons.

In the reigns of James IV and V, the statutes of Parliament show that there were continual controversies between the Masons and the public authorities, the former seeking to enlarge their privileges and the latter to restrict them. When Mary ascended the throne she found the Masons suffering under an act passed during the regency which suppressed the Deaconry, and which with previous ones that forbade their meetings in "private conventions" or framing statutes, seemed to have deprived the Masons of almost all their prerogatives.

All these laws Queen Mary abolished, and granted letters under the Great Seal, which restored the office of Deacon, confirmed the Craft in the privilege of self-government, in the observance of the customs and the exercise of the prerogatives which they had formerly enjoyed. *

(* Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 5.)

During the reign of James VI we find a recognized connection between the Sovereign and the Craft; the office of Warden and that of Master of the Works, being made by the King's authority. It is at this period that we begin to find records or minutes of lodges and statutes well authenticated, by which we are enabled to form a correct judgment of the condition and the customs of the Craft in Scotland at that early period. In this respect Scotland has the advantage of England, where we find no authentic records of any lodge until the 18th century, while the first minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh date back to the year 1598. A very fair analysis of the early minutes of the Scottish lodges, and especially of the Lodge of Edinburgh, has been given by Bro. D. Murray Lyon in his valuable history of that Lodge. Whoever expects to write a faithful history of Freemasonry in Scotland must depend on that work as almost the only source of authentic facts. As histories of the early period the imaginative illustrations of Anderson's, and of Lawrie's edition, are almost utterly valueless. The minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh, or St. Mary's Chapel, extend from December 28, 1598, to November 29, 1869. They are

contained in six volumes, which are in an excellent state of preservation, with comparatively very few omissions. The first and second volumes, which include the space of one hundred and sixty-three years, that is, from 1598 to 1761, with a hiatus of only thirteen years, supply an ample store of authentic materials for early Scotch Masonic history. The first volume contains a copy of what are called "The Schaw Statutes," the earliest Constitutions extant of Scotch Freemasonry.

The date of this document is December 28, 1598. They are entitled "The Statutes and Ordinances to be observed by all the Master Masons within this realm; set down by William Schaw, Master of Work to his Majesty and General Warden of the said Craft with the consent of the Masters hereafter specified." *

(* In quoting from these statutes, from the minutes of lodges or any other documents, for the convenience of the English reader, the Scottish dialect of the originals has been translated into the vernacular, but with literal exactness. The object has been to impart the meaning, and not merely to preserve the original phraseology.)

Of these statutes, the most important for understanding the true condition and usages of the Masonic Craft of Scotland in the 17th century are the following:

The first point intimates that the ordinances thereafter prescribed are but a continuation of those which had previously prevailed, but of these no copy is in existence.

The second point requires them "to be true to one another, and to live charitably together." This is in exact accord with the guild spirit, to be found in all the old English Constitutions.

The third enjoins obedience "to their Wardens, Deacons, and Masters in all things concerning their Craft."

The fourth directs them to be honest, faithful, and diligent, and to deal uprightly with the Masters or owners of the work in whatsoever they shall take in hand. This is evidently a transcript from the English Constitutions.

The fifth point prescribes that no one shall take in hand any work which he is not able duly to perform. This is the same as the regulation in the English Constitution, but the Schaw statutes direct the compensation that is to be made for an infraction of the rule.

The sixth provides that no Master shall take another one's work from him, after the latter has made a contract with the owner of the work (who in the English Constitutions is called "the lord") under a penalty of forty pounds.

The seventh point is that none shall finish any work begun, and not completed by another, until the latter has received his pay for what he has done.

The eighth point provides for the election by the Masters of every lodge of a Warden to take charge of the lodge, whose election is to be approved by the Warden-General.

The ninth point directs that no Master shall take more than three apprentices unless with the consent of the Wardens, Deacons, and Masters of the shriffalty (district) where the apprentice dwells.

The tenth point is that no apprentice shall be taken for less than seven years, nor shall that apprentice be made a brother and fellow of the Craft until he has served seven years more after the expiration of his term of apprenticeship, unless by the special license of the Wardens, Deacons, and Masters assembled for that purpose, nor without a sufficient trial of his worthiness, qualifications, and skill.

The eleventh point makes it unlawful for a Master to sell his apprentice to any other Master or to dispense with the years of his apprenticeship by selling them to the apprentice himself. The apprentice was to fulfill the full term of his servitude with his original Master.

By the twelfth point the Master, when he received an apprentice, was to notify the fact to the Warden of the lodge, so that his name and the day of his reception might be properly enrolled in the book of the lodge.

The thirteenth point prescribed that the names of the apprentices should be enrolled in the order of the time of their reception.

By the fourteenth point a Master or Fellow was to be received or admitted only in the presence of six Masters and two Entered Apprentices, the Warden of the lodge being one of the six; the time of the reception and the name and mark of the Master or Fellow were to be enrolled in the lodge book, together with the names of the six Masters and two apprentices who received him and the names of the "intendars" or persons chosen to give him instruction. Nor was he to be admitted without an "assay" or specimen of his work and a sufficient trial of his skill and worthiness.

By the fifteenth no Master was to do any work under the charge or command of any other craftsman.

The sixteenth strictly prohibited all work with cowans.

The seventeenth forbade an apprentice to accept any work beyond a certain amount without the license of the Masters or Warden.

By the eighteenth all disputes were to be referred for reconciliation to the Wardens or Deacons of the lodge.

The nineteenth provided for the careful erection of scaffolds and footways so as to prevent any danger or injury to the workmen.

By the twentieth apprentices who had ran away from their Masters were not to be received or employed by other Masters.

The twenty-first commended all the craftsmen to come to the meeting when duly warned of the time and place.

The twenty-second point required all Masters who were summoned to the Assembly to swear under "a great oath" not to conceal the wrongs or faults done to each other nor to the owners of the works on which they were employed.

The twenty-third and last point prescribed that all the fines and penalties inflicted for a violation of these ordinances should be collected by the Wardens, Deacons, and Masters of the lodges and distributed according to their judgment for pious uses. Bro. Lyon very properly suggests that this code of laws was applicable only to Operative Masons. This is certainly true, but so also were all the Constitutions of the English Craft and the Ordinances of the German and French Masons. Originally Freemasonry was an exclusively operative institution. But out of it grew the present Speculative system, in all these countries. To understand, then, the growth of the one out of the other, it is necessary to examine these constitutions and the minutes of the Operative lodges, of which Lauer Scotland only supplies us with authentic materials.

The great resemblance between the statutes of Schaw and the early English Constitutions indicates very clearly the close connection that existed between the two bodies of craftsmen in these countries, and leaves us in no doubt that both derived their laws and their customs from a common source, namely, that body of architects and builders who sprang up out of the Roman Colleges of Artificers and in time passed over into the Traveling Freemasons of Lombardy, who disseminated their skill and the principles of their profession over all Europe and to its remotest islands. Having thus traced the rise of Masonry in Scotland to the builders who came over in the 12th century from the Continent, and perhaps from England, to be employed in the construction of religious houses at Kilwinning, at Glasgow, at Edinburgh, and other places, and having shown the condition of the Craft, so far as the great dearth of materials would permit, between that period and the year 1598, when the Schaw Statutes were enacted, we are next to inquire into the customs and usages of the Scottish Craft in the 17th century and until the organization of the Speculative Grand Lodge of Scotland in the year 1736.

In performing a similar task in reference to the Masons of England, we were restricted for our sources of information to the manuscript Constitutions which could supply us only with logical deductions and suggestions, which made our narrative more a plausible conjecture than an absolute certainty. But in tracing the customs and usages of the Scottish Craft in the 17th century, we are enabled to take as guides the minutes of the Operative lodges which, unlike those of England, have been preserved from the early date of the last years of the 16th century, and which have been collected and published by Bro. D. Murray Lyon in his most valuable History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, a work to which, in the following chapter, I shall almost wholly confine myself for facts, though not always concurring in his views and deductions. The facts are incontrovertible and authentic - the deductions, whether they be his or mine, may be erroneous, and their acceptance must be left to the reader's judgment.

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