The Templars And Freemasonry.

with circumstances which arose out of his religious renunciation , he , subsequently to 1560 , resigned all the property of the Fraternity to Queen Mary , aud on the 24 th . of January , 1563-4 , he received a ¦ re-grant of certain baronies from that Queenwhich

, were erected into a temporal lordship , and he was created Lord Torphichen , in the peerage of Scotland . We then read , " Upon the loss of their possessions the knights are said to have drawn off in a body with the Grand Prior , David Seton , at their head . "

Colonel Porter says that David Seton " is said to have been the last Prior of Scotland , and to have retired to Germany with the greater part of Ms Scottish brethren , about 1752-3 . " This appears to be the last positive information

¦ of the combined Orders . It has been said that Lord Dundee ( Graham of Claverhouse ) was Grand Prior at the time of the Battle of Killiecrankie ( 1689 ) ; but as the three Grand Priors who occupied the office during that

century were the Baillis Zambeccari and Lomelino and Henry Fitz-James , Duke of Albemarle ( the latter visiting Malta in 1687 , and going to Rome in 1703 as Ambassador Extraordinary ) , the statement requires strong confirmation . Dundee may for

some reasons have received the Grand Cross of the Order , and he may have worn it at Killiecrankie ; but this is a very different thing to his being Grand Prior .

In 1782 the Grand Master de Rohan revived the English langue of the Order of St . John , combined it with that of Bavaria , and the succession of Grand Priors is well known . This combination would appear to have included Scotland , as the

Pretender , James , wrote a letter to the Grand Master at Malta on the 14 th of September , 1725 , stating that he had then recently requested the Pope not to dispose of the Grand Priories of his ( James ' s ) kingdom , " nor to grant coadjutors to

the present Grand Prior , " without previously hearing what he ( James ) had to represent on that iiead ; aud he goes on to request that he " he may be treated with the same consideration as is shewn towards other princes on similar occasions . " Here

we have historic evidence in the complaint of a-Scottish Prince that the Grand Prior in 1725 liad been appointed by Papal brief . Three years after the letter of the Pretender , and 155 years after the exodus of David Seton , we hear of the Templars , in a new phase .

The Templars And Freemasonry.

M . Thory says , that Sir John Mitchell Ramsay , the well-known author of Cyrus , appeared in London , about 1728 , with a system of Scottish Masonry , up to that date perfectly unknown in the metropolis , tracing its origin from the Crusades ,

and consisting of three degrees , the Ecossais , the N ' ovice , and the Knight Templar . This system the Grand Lodge of England rejected . It has been asserted , and stress has been laid upon the assertion , that Prince Charles Edward was

installed a Templar during his short stay at Holyrood : but whether this be the fact , or not , there seems nothing to connect the system of Ramsay with the Orders whose records cease 156 years before Ramsay's advent .

Nor does there at present appear to be any proof of connection between the Scottish Masonic Templars and the Ramsay period . Morison , whose correspondence ( 1845-6 ) , with the Secretary of the Scottish Templar Order has

been published , asserts , of his own knowledge , that the Order was introduced in St . Stephen's Lodge , Edinburgh , in 1798 , by certain non-commissioned officers and men of the Nottingham Militia , then quartered in the Castle , and that his own diploma

from that lodge as a Knight of the Temple was dated the 19 th August , 1800 . It is said that the earliest Grand Encampment of England , as it appears to have been then called , was held in 1780 at Carisbrook , Isle of

Wight . The oldest Encampment record I have met with is preserved at the Baldwin , Bristol ; it is dated 20 th December , 1780 , and refers to a previously existing document called a " Charter of Compact . "

I trust that some more competent brother , full , not only of zeal , but of leisure also , will earn the gratitude of the whole Fraternity by devoting his energies to unravelling these difficulties . I do not know when the MAGAZINE was first

published , but perhaps a search of its earlier numbers may afford information . I do know that in October , 1793 , it styles Sir Thomas Dunckerly " Most Eminent and Supreme Grand Master of Knights of Rosa Crucis , Templars , Kadosh , & c ,

of England , under his Royal Highness Prince Edward , Patron of the Order . '' Have the Grand Lodge Records been thoroughly examined ? And have the earliest records of the oldest encampments been searched out ?

[ NOTE . —I should like Bro . Yarker to understand that this article was written a fortnight since , and was therefore not intended to provoke discussion . —L . ]