The Secret History of Freemasonry

Speculative Freemasonry 237

path. In fact, we have already seen that since 1439 the Scottish lodges
had hereditary grand masters in the Lords Saint Clair.*

Under the reign of James V (1513-1542), husband of Mary of

Lorraine and father of Mary Stuart, the wind of a new era was

blowing through Scottish high society. The king was a fervent

humanist as well as an admirer of the ideas and masterpieces of the

Renaissance. Did he inspire this interest? The fact remains that

Lord Sinclair resolved to visit Italy. He returned full of enthusiasm

and immediately decided to entrust to Italian artists the construc-

tion of a chapel inside his domain at Roslyn. This chapel is still

standing today and is admired by its visitors for the high quality of

its architectural decor, in which shines all the masonic symbolism

of the time. Not content merely with building a chapel, Sinclair

invited additional Italian masons, put them together with Scottish

masons, organized them into a brotherhood, and granted them a

charter. From that time, under the protection of the king, this

brotherhood's prospects soared.^5

It appears that we can trace the origins of the transformation of
operative masonry to this era. During this time, through the infusion of
new blood, it was given a new impetus that could be seen on both the
cultural and artisitic planes.
The first historic trace of a nonoperative Mason who was neither
a powerful patron nor a cleric is provided by the minutes of a meet-
ing of the Mary's Chapel Lodge in Edinburgh on June 8, 1600. This
"accepted" mason was John Bosnel of Auchinlek, but it is certain he
was not the first. On May 20, 1641, the members of this same
Edinburgh lodge, who were then in Newcastle with the Scottish Army,
admitted as an accepted mason the honorable Robert Moray, the
general quarter master of the army. Interestingly, it had been long-
standing practice to form lodges within Irish and Scottish regiments.
In chapter 13, we will see the important role this played in the estab-
lishment of modern Freemasonry on the Continent, especially in
France.

* [Saint Clair was eventually Anglicized to Sinclair. —Trans.]