The Secret History of Freemasonry

The Grand Lodges and Modern Freemasonry 257

eigns. I die with feelings of gratitude, respect, and love for the king

of France, Louis the Beloved, a glorious name. I commend my fam-

ily over to His Most Christian Majesty. I repent from the bottom

of my heart for all my sins and I hold firm hope of being forgiven

by all powerful God, by the grace of his blessed son Jesus Christ,

Our Lord, to whom I commend my soul.

This declaration of faith provides an eloquent illustration of the
state of mind of the Catholic Scots and Stuarts who had introduced
Freemasonry into France from their land. This Scottish Freemasonry
has certainly undergone a political divergence, but still remained true to
its traditional principles of Catholicism and independent lodges. This
mind-set is also asserted in the lines of a letter addressed by Ramsay to
the Marquis de Caumont and dated April 1, 1737:

The unfortunate discord of Religion that set Europe ablaze and

rent it apart during the sixteenth century ensured the degeneration

of our order from the grandeur and nobility of its origins. In com-

pliance with the usurping parricide, Elizabeth, who viewed our

lodges as nests of Catholicism that needed to be snuffed out, the

Protestants altered, disguised, and degraded several of our hiero-

glyphs, transformed our Agapes into Bacchanalias, and defiled our

sacred assemblies. Milord, the Count of Derwentwater, Royal and

Catholic martyr, wished to bring everything here back to its source

and restore everything on its ancient footing. The ambassadors of

Holland and George, the Duke of Hanover, by taking offense and

blaspheming against what they do not know, imagining that the

Catholic, Royalist, and Jacobite Freemasons are one and the same

with the heretical, apostate, Republican Freemasons, first con-

demn us then cover us with Praise, shouting everywhere that we

seek to raise a ninth Crusade to restore the true monarchy of Great

Britain.^11

Following the publication of Jerome Lalande's Memoire historique
sur la Maconnerie,^12 it was generally accepted that Lord Derwentwater
Would have transferred his powers around 1736 to his friend Lord