THE BUILDER August, 1929

The Degrees of Masonry; Their Origin and History

By BROS. A. L. KRESS and R. J. MEEKREN
(Continued from JULY)

THE emendation in the answer to the first question in the Catechism
in the Dumfries-Kilwinning MS. that was suggested last month may be
regarded as the more probable, in that it only gives significance
to what is, as it stands, a rather nonsensical response, but it
also brings it into closer accord with the parallel documents.
Every other catechism extant excepting this and the Trinity College
MS. has a question directly demanding: "Are you a Mason ?" The
other exception, the Trinity College MS. has the following:

Q. What manner of man are you?

A. I am a Mason.

Thus we may suppose with some plausibility that the original of the
Dumfries-Kilwinning MS. had some such question as this last, and
that would make it probable that the third question, as quoted
above, was an inquiry as to a higher grade, and that the answer
embodied the same contrast as appears explicitly in the Grand
Mystery and its congeners.

In the Examination, and its companion, the Mystery of Freemasons,
we find further questions concerning the grade of the one
questioned.

Q. Have you been in the Kitchen?

A. Yes I have.

Q. Did you ever dine in the Hall?

A. Yes I did.

To these answers the Mystery appends respectively the two notes. To
the first:

N. B. You shall know an Enter'd Apprentice by this question.

and to the second:

N. B. A Brother Mason by this Question.

The Examination throws its own light upon the subject. It begins
somewhat differently from the Mystery. The first two questions and
answers are as follows:

Q. Are you a Free Mason? 

A. Yes indeed I am.

Q. How shall I know it? 

A. By signs and tokens . . . from my entrance into the kitchen and
thence into the Hall.

Thus here turns up once more, it would seem, the terminology we
have tentatively distinguished in the Old Charges and the Scottish
Minutes that is, that "Mason," or (in the Examination) "Free
Mason," was equivalent to Master and Fellow.

The Mystery goes on to ask another question to differentiate the
Fellow which has no counterpart in any other of our documents,
though it appears in Prichard, and in the Catechisme des Francs-
Macons (1). And in both it is definitely noted in explanation that
it has the same purpose as it has in the Mystery. Of course in
these last two publications it is quite possible that the idea was
borrowed from a version of the Mystery As it appears in the latter
it runs:

Q. How old are you? 

A. Under 5 or under 7, which you will.

N. B. When you are first made a Mason you are only enter'd
Apprentice, and till you are made a Master, or as they call it,
pass'd the Master's Part, you are only enter'd Apprentice, and
consequently must answer under 7, for if you say above, they will
expect the Master's Word and Signs.

Now this note is quite likely to have been the work of the editor
who prepared the MS. for the printer, so that if any weight is to
be given to it at all, it is as reflecting the usage in or about
1730 in London. But the implication is plain that "Master" was the
grade above Apprentice, and that the "Master's Part" was a second
degree, in our sense of that word.

The remaining documents will have to be treated separately as the
indications they afford on the subject of grades, and the secrets
pertaining thereto, are almost all peculiar to one source only. We
may take the Mason's Confession first. Its date of publication is
late, but the anonymous author, who seems to have quite honestly
come to the conclusion that Masonry was superstitious and sinful,
and that it was his duty to expose it, says that his account is

.... to testify concerning that oath, word and other secrets held
among the corporation of Mason's wherein I was taken under the same
by sundry of them gathered together and met at D about the year
1727.

We may observe here, incidentally, that the Confession and the
Sloane MS. No. 3329, are alone in being written from a hostile or
critical standpoint. Omitting the editorial notes in the Mystery
and Grand Mystery, which are not properly part of these documents,
all the others give the impression of being memoranda of things
important to remember but likely to be forgotten. The "Confessor"
was admittedly a Mason, but his account is so confused and
disjointed that it seems probable that he had had no Masonic
intercourse for many years before he wrote it. That he was not a
Mason by trade may be also surmised. On the whole it seems safe to
assume that, so far as it goes, the Confession represents Scottish
usage of about 1725-1750. But whether earlier or later, the lodge
in which the author was entered would seem certainly to have known
two degrees, but two only. He says explicitly that "a word in the
Scripture was shewed" him, which he was told was "the Mason word."
And then he adds that one word is the "Mason word," and another "a
fellow-craft word," and goes on to say;

The former is shewn to an entered prentice after he has sworn the
oath, and the latter is shewn to one that has been a prentiee at
least for a year, when he is admitted a degree higher in their
lodge, after he has sworn the oath again, or declared his
approbation of it.

Now the use of the term "degree" here is cause for suspicion. By
the time this was published the modern system of three degrees was
being worked in Scotland. The minutes of the Lodge at Kelso tell us
that the new Master Mason degree was introduced there in June,
1754, and it is remarked that it was worked elsewhere; certainly in
Edinburgh whence it was brought. It is very likely therefore that
the "Confessor" used the terminology of the period of his writing
rather than that of the time of his initiation (2). But this does
not affect the fact that when he was made a Mason the Fellow Craft
received secrets which were kept from the Apprentice. That there
was more to these secrets than the "fellowcraft word" merely,
appears at the end of the Confession, where a series of signs and
signals for recognition are described. One of these (so loosely
described that one cannot say the secret was really revealed) he
calls the "fellow-crafts due guard"; and with this, it is
intimated, there went a grip, which is as difficult to reconstruct
from the description as the "due guard." And then is added, as an
alternative, the five points we have already discussed, though he
gives them no distinctive name. The passage runs:

. . . or placing himself hand to hand foot to foot, knee to knee,
heart to heart, ear to ear, [he] says 'Great you, great you God
greateth you, and make you a good Master-mason. I'm a young man
going to push my fortune, if you can furnish me you will do well."

Now in his account of what he remembered of his initiation the
"Confessor" gives an Apprentice salutation, which will be mentioned
later in conjunction with the Chetwode Crawled MS. On the other
hand all the other sources give a Fellow's greeting or salutation
of a similar character to the above. The only exception is the
Trinity College MS., which is so very brief, and omits so much,
that there is no significance in its not mentioning this.

It is one of the indications of an amalgamation of the secrets of
the two ceremonies some time during the period preceding 1717 that
this formal salutation is not differentiated in most cases as
pertaining to the "Fellows," though in form it is from Masters and
Fellows to Masters and Fellows, which in itself would seem to make
it inappropriate for an apprentice. The phraseology varied a good
deal. It might be guessed that the original form was distinguished
by a triple repetition, which however in some places had become
obscured. Perhaps the Sloane MS. may be taken as giving a typical
form;

The right worshipful, the Mast'rs and fellows in that worshipful
lodge from whence we last came greet you, greet you, greet you.

To which the reply was,

God's good greeting to you dear brother.

Prichard has;

. . . the right worshipful brothers and fellows of the right
worshipful holy Lodge of St. John . . . greet you thrice heartily
well.

The original of the reply to this possibly included the jingle,
"God's good greeting be at this our meeting," which appears with
variations in the five documents included in the Grand Mystery and
Examination groups, and also in the Sloane MS.

The Confession is certainly Scottish in origin; the Examination
type, judging by certain slight indications, possibly originated in
or about London. From other equally slight indications it might be
surmised that the Grand Mystery versions came from somewhere
geographically in between possibly the north of England. Yet in all
we find definite traces of certain forms and secrets peculiar to,
and distinguishing, the Fellow of the Craft or Master. There is the
formal greeting or salutation, associated with a sign and a word,
and "proper" points of Fellowship; and besides this, test questions
and answers to introduce and pave the way to these more definite
and serious proofs of the free Craftsman's status.

EARLY MEANS OF RECOGNITION

It may be remarked in passing, that to no one will the various
means of recognition described and hinted at in these documents
seem stranger than to a Freemason of today. It is a curious
commentary on Mackey's Code of Landmarks (3), unalterable as the
laws of the Medes and Persians, that in the very first of them, and
the one "of all the most legitimate and unquestioned," which can
"admit of no variation," we find the "Means of Recognition," which
in two hundred years have themselves changed beyond recognition.
Though it is probable that on the whole this change has been due to
a progressive and organic evolution.

We will now take up the very curious Chetwode Crawled MS. which
links up with the Confession on one point, and with the Haughfoot
Minute of 1702 in regard to another. It is the only one of our
sources that definitely describes a second ceremony, though as we
have seen, the Confession alludes to one as following the "entry"
at an interval of the year or more. The passage is not a long one,
and may be quoted in full (4) After telling how the Apprentice
receives "the word" the author or transcriber says:

Now it is to be remarked that all the Signs and words as just
spoken of are only what belongs to the entered prentices. But to a
Master-Mason or ffellow Craft there is more to be done, as after
follows.

ffirst, all the Apprentices are to be removed out of the Company,
and not Suffered to Stay, but only Mason-Masters. Then he who is to
be admitted a member of the ffellowship is put again to his knees
and gets the Oath administered to him anew. Afterwards he must go
out of the Company with the youngest Master to learn the words and
signs of ffellowship. Then coming in again, he makes the Master-
Sign, and says the Same words of Entry as the Prentice did, only
leaving out the Common Lodge. Then the Masons whisper among
themselves beginning at the youngest, as formerly. Afterwards the
young Master must advance and put himself in the posture wherein he
is to receive the word. And says to the assembled Honorable Company
whispers;

"The worthy masons and Honorable Company that I came from, Greet
you well, Greet you well."

The insertion of the word "whispers" at the end of the next to last
sentence seems curious. Both the Grand Mastery and the Institution
have an Addendum in which casual modes of recognition are
described, of which the fifth is

You must Whisper, saying thus; The Masters and Fellows of the
Worshipful Company from whence I came greet you [all]

However the point is not of importance in the present connection.
We will now pass to that curious fragment on the present first page
of the minute book of the old Lodge of Haughfoot. It will be
remembered that some preceding pages have been torn out at some
time. The few words remaining were a great puzzle until the
Chetwode Crawled MS. was discovered. They were recognized as being
of the nature of a ritual rubric, but their precise bearing was a
matter of conjecture only. There are only two sentences the first
incomplete.

. . . of entrie as the Apprentice did leaving out (the Common
Judge). They then whisper the word as before, and the Master Mason
grips his hand in the ordinary way.

Now the Chetwode Crawley MS. in the description of, or more
properly perhaps, the memorandum on, the "entry" of an apprentice,
says he is sent out of the lodge accompanied by the "Youngest
Mason" to be taught the "manner of making Guard," consisting of the
sign, word and postures of his Entry, and including the following
salutation:

Now am I the youngest and last entered Apprentice; As I am sworn by
God and St. John, by the Square and Compass and Common Lodge to
attend my Master's service at the Honorable Lodge, from Munday in
the morning to Saturday at night, and to keep the keys thereof . .
.

The remainder is not essential for our purpose here. Turning to the
Confession we find that the author says concerning the signs and
words that at his initiation;

One person in the lodge instructed me a little about them the same
day that I entered, and was called my "Author"

while he chose another to be his "intended until the following
assembly "that time twelve-month." It is not definitely said that
the newly entered apprentice was sent out of the lodge, but there
is a description of his taking formal steps over three lines drawn
on the ground, which seems to indicate a ceremonial re-entry and
salutation. The passage is as follows, and must be considered in
the light of the excerpt from the Chetwode Crawled MS. given above;

Question: What say you? Answer: Here stand I (with his feet in form
of a square) younger and last entered Prentice, ready to serve my
Master from Monday morning to the Saturday night in all lawful
employment.

All this leads almost irresistibly to the conclusion that at the
beginning of the eighteenth century and of course by inference
earlier still there were two quite distinct formal salutations
employed in Scottish operative lodges, one by the apprentices, and
the other by the Masters and Fellows; and that each was accompanied
by certain postures and gestures, which were in effect signs of
recognition; and that those pertaining to the higher grade were not
known to the apprentices.

The Fellow's salutation it would appear was known and used in
England in variant forms, and it may be a fair inference to assume
that this implies an Apprentice's salutation also, although in that
breaking down of the distinction between the two grades in purely
nonoperative lodges which we believe to have occurred in some
places, this may have come to be little emphasized, or even to have
entirely dropped out.

Before leaving the Chetwode Crawley MS. we may note that in the
Catechism which follows the descriptive note on the reception of a
"Master Mason or ffellow Craft," the following query and response
appears:

Q. 8th. What's the name of your Lodge?

Ansr. The Lodge of Kilwinning.

If this is to be accepted as a safe indication of ultimate origin,
and there seems no special reason why it should not be, then it is
an additional confirmation of our conclusion that Gould was
mistaken in inferring that the bare communication of a word was the
sum total of the secrets known to the Masons there; for this
reference would tie it up closely with the ritual practiced at
Haughfoot in 1702, which he regarded as abnormal (5).

There remain two MSS. more to be considered, the Sloane MS. No.
3329 and the Trinity College MS. These present a special problem,
in that on their face they seem to speak of three degrees, under
much the same names as are employed today. We have already noted
that the paper and handwriting of the former has been judged, by
experts having no interest in the contents, to be possibly as early
as the first years of the 18th century or even the last years of
the 17th. While, judged by these same external criteria, 1730 is
probably as late a date as it would be justifiable to assign to it.

In dealing with Mackey's theory of the origin of the symbolic
degrees we examined the arguments he based on certain features of
this document (6), and it is these that now call for further
examination.

We have already remarked the somewhat critical and disparaging tone
of this MS. This could be accounted for by assuming that it is a
compilation from various sources by the hand of a non-Mason. The
author or compiler always speaks of members of the fraternity as
"they." "'They discover [each] other by signs," "their gripe for
fellowcrafts"; while "they say," or "say they," is a frequently
recurring phrase. It is this latter especially which almost gives
the MS. an air of having been written by one who had become a Mason
out of curiosity but had never identified himself with the Craft,
and had written down something of what he had learned in the same
spirit of detachment that an anthropologist might write of the
ceremonies of some primitive secret society to which he had gained
admission in his study of the culture of a savage race. Whichever
way it was, there is not much order or system in his account. He
first describes at greater length than in any other of the
documents a number of the "casual" signs or signals used to attract
a Mason's attention in various circumstances. Among these we find
the description of "gripes" that is quoted by Mackey. Then comes a
Catechism thus introduced:

Here followeth their private discourse by way of question and
answer.

This has sixteen questions. Then we are told that:

In some places they discourse as followeth.

This refers to a group of eight questions, evidently a fragment of
another catechism in part parallel to the first, and which, as it
stands, ends with a form of the Fellow's Salutation and the
response thereto. Then follows this addendum, which it may be
assumed comes from a different source:

Another salutation is giving the mast'rs or fellows grip, saying,
the right worshipful the mast'rs and fellows in that worshipful
lodge from whence we last came, greet you, greet you, greet you
well.

To which there is also a proper formal reply. In this reference to
the "Master's or Fellow's grip" it is natural to take the two terms
as synonymous, as we have found them to be in so many other places.
But the previous description of the "gripes" throws some doubt upon
this, and the difficulty thus raised makes Mackey's interpretation
not unreasonable at the time he wrote. As he quoted this previous
passage in full in a work that is accessible everywhere, there will
be no need to give more here than the phrases we are specially
interested in; there are two paragraphs, neither beginning with a
capital letter:

their gripe for fellow craftes is clasping their right hands, etc.,
etc.

their master's gripe is clasping, etc., etc., but some say the
mast'rs grip is the same I last described, only, etc.

Taken as it stands this differentiates the masters and the fellows,
and ignores the apprentices. If we might suppose that a mistake had
been made in copying, and that we should read:

their gripe is, etc.

their masters or fellow craftes gripe, etc.

the difficulty would vanish; but the emendation is rather risky. It
is very true that a word can easily get misplaced or doubled in
copying, as everyone who has done much of it knows only too well,
but it is safer not to avoid a difficulty by altering the text,
unless it is obvious on general grounds that an error exists.

If we had further information as to these "gripes" from other
sources we might be able to come to a more definite decision. But
there is nothing quite parallel to them in any of our documents.
The Grand Mystery has a list of "Signs to know a true Mason", the
fourth of which is:

To take hand in hand, with Left and Right Thumbs close and touch
each Wrist three Times with the Forefinger each Pulse.

And the Institution repeats this with some changes that make it
more incomprehensible still. The Examination has, in a somewhat
similar list of signals, the following statement: 

To Gripe is when you take a Brother by the Right Hand and put your
middle Finger to his Wrist.

Wrist and pulse are much the same thing for such a purpose, and
this last, which is reasonably clear, may be the original of the
former. But neither is like the two "gripes" described in the
Sloane MS.

Gould was quite strongly of the opinion that the Sloane MS. is
later than the publication of Prichard's work, and that the
compiler knew and borrowed ideas from it. Prichard describes three
grips, one for each degree, and the first one, assigned to the
Entered Apprentice, sounds as if it might have been a variation of
the one first described in the Sloane MS. This might be taken as
some confirmation for such an emendation of the text of the latter
as we suggested above, especially as the "master's gripe" as
therein described bears a general resemblance to the grip set forth
in a note to Prichard's "Master's Degree." This would leave
Prichard's Fellow Craft grip with no traditional parallel which is
of course what we would expect.

If then this emendation were accepted, the Sloane MS. falls into
line with all the other sources so far examined, as exhibiting two
grades; some secrets being common to all Masons, and some reserved
for the Masters or Fellows. But on its face it indicates three
grades, although apprentices are only mentioned once, in the fifth
question of "their private discourse":

Q. What is a just and perfect or just and lawful lodge?

A. A just and perfect lodge is two Interprintices two fellowcraftes
and two Masters . . . [or] if need require five will serve that is
two Interprintices, two fellow crafts and one Mast'r on the highest
hill or lowest valley of the world without the crow of a cock or
the bark of a dogg.

It must be said quite frankly that this particular variant of the
description of the lodge found in each of our documents (with one
exception) seems to imply the of idea of three degrees; even more
so, indeed, than Prichard's version does in the parallel passage.
This last tells us the lodge consists of

One Master, two Wardens, two Fellow Crafts and two Entered
Apprentices.

The Mystery has:

A Master and two wardens, and four Fellows.

The Examination adds to this, "five Apprentices." There is the
possibility, which we offer for what it may be worth, that the two
Masters mentioned by the Sloane MS. originally referred to two
officers for it would appear that there were not always two wardens
in addition to a Master (or Deacon).

It may also be noted that the Grand Mystery gives:

.... Five or Seven right and perfect Masons on the highest
Mountains, or the lowest Valleys in the world

which the Essex MS. and the Institution repeat; the latter changing
the order, making it "seven or five."

Remembering the insistence of the Schaw Statutes on the presence of
two Apprentices, this might be interpreted as referring to the
constitution of the lodge before and after the apprentices were
"removed out of the Company," as the Chetwode Crawley MS. puts it,
when a Master or fellow was to be accepted. But the fact is that
there is no consistency between the accounts, excepting only that
the numbers given are generally odd. Indeed the Grand Mystery and
its congeners draw attention to this by asking "Why do Odds make a
lodge?" the Institution says "odd numbers"  to which the answer is,
"Because all odds are men's advantage"; all which he may interpret
who can.

The Essex MS. has an additional series of questions, in the answer
to one of which we are told that any number "from three to
thirteen" makes a "perfect lodge."

To thoroughly discuss this and some other subsidiary points would
take too much time and would not be worth while, but it may be
noted that the subject is far from having been exhausted. We will
therefore pass to the last of our sources, the Trinity College MS.,
which even more definitely than the Sloane seems to postulate three
degrees: Master, "fellow craftsman" and "Enter prentice."

We noted to begin with that this MS. bears an endorsement
"Freemasonry Feb. 1711." This is in a later hand than the body of
the document, and we know neither just what it means nor why it was
made. The first judgment that naturally occurs is that it is a note
of the age of the document; and as we do not know who made it, or
what his source of information, we are left in a state of
uncertainty as to its value. But there is another possibility; it
might be a note of the date at which the paper was examined and
filed. It is quite plausible that some methodical person who was
sorting and classifying miscellaneous family papers, not only
labelled them, but made a note of the date when doing so. If this
supposition were accepted it would follow that the document itself
is older than the date. We believe that disinterested experts, with
no knowledge of Masonic antiquities, are inclined to judge the
paper and handwriting to be of the beginning of the century, though
obviously such considerations alone can hardly lead to certainty
inside of fairly wide limits, thirty to thirty-five years or so
(7). We have therefore to allow for this indefiniteness and
endeavor so to interpret the document as to make our conclusions,
if possible, consistent with either the earlier or later
limits which means that they will be to the same extent tentative
and indefinite, too.

The MS. contains a brief series of eleven questions and answers,
for all of which, with one enigmatic exception, close parallels are
to be found in most of the other documents. Then come a few
memoranda regarding signs. Here we are first told of a somewhat
complicated sequence of gestures called the "common sign," and then
comes a short paragraph in which mention is made of a "Master
sign," a "fellow craftsman's sign" and the "Enter prentice sign."
They are not described, but are merely designated by words that
doubtless would have had mnemonic significance to anyone who had
once known what they were, but which have for a modern reader no
meaning at all. The "Master sign" is said to be "backbone," that of
the "fellow craftsman" is "knuckles and sinews," while to the
"Enter prentice" is assigned "sinews" only. The following paragraph
gives a little more detail, and each sign is coupled with a word.
Thus "backbone" is stated to go with the word "Matchpin," a corrupt
rendering, doubtless, of the word "Maughbin" found elsewhere.

The only thing in all this that is of concern in our present
inquiry is the ascription of special secrets to three classes of
Masons, bearing essentially the same titles as our three symbolic
degrees. This is quite clear and unequivocal. The apparent
reference to three degrees in the Sloane MS. can be removed by an
emendation of the text requiring only the deletion of a single
word. Here the conclusion is unescapable that three degrees were
definitely recognized by the author of the document.

If we assume that it was written by, or at least owned by, some
member of the Irish branch of the Molyneux family, in or about the
year 1711, then we have to conclude that in Ireland the evolution
of the Masonic system was earlier than in Great Britain, so far as
the extant evidence leads us to suppose. The endorsement has not
been questioned, we believe, except in regard to the date. And the
date has been questioned simply because it was assumed that the
other evidence requires us to conclude that no third degree could
have existed, anywhere, before 1723.

It is very difficult here to hold the balance true. The endorsement
may be authentic enough, and yet in this one respect erroneous.
That is obvious. But this is not to be proved by a negative
argument. We must recall Bro. Tuckett's fallacy of the ultra-
critical, the assumption "that what cannot be proved cannot have
happened." The positive evidence tells us that in 1730 certainly,
and probably, in 1727 or a little earlier, the three degrees were
in existence in some places. It also tells us that in 1723 the
Grand Lodge of London, and most of the old Scottish lodges, used a
two degree system. But this does not exclude the possibility that
elsewhere a third degree had come into existence. It may be
considered unlikely, it may be judged more probable that the
endorsed date of the Trintty College MS. is a mistake, yet the
possibility remains that it may be substantially correct; and this
must be kept in mind.

On the whole, we are, ourselves, inclined to the view that the MS.
is later than 1711, but we do not think that the point is so
important to this investigation as it may at first seem to be.
Before discussing this, however, it may be remarked that, presuming
the endorsement was made in good faith, and this no one has ever
doubted, the fact that the month is given as well as the year
certainly indicates that it was not a mere conjecture on the part
of whoever made the note. one may guess at the probable date of a
thing, and set down a year, but no one would be likely to specify
any particular month in a year without some warrant for it. But
even so, there are still plenty of ways in which error could have
arisen. The date might have been copied from some partially
illegible memorandum, or the information may have been received at
some time previously and remembered inaccurately. All that can be
said is that it was probably based on some information received,
whether good or bad, or accurately or inaccurately reproduced.

NOTES

(1) Published in 1744 by Travenol. Reprinted the following year in
the expose' entitled Le Sceau Romps, and shortly after in L'Ordre
des Franc-Macons Trahi and in the many successive editions of those
two works

(2) According to the editor's note to the Confession, the original
MS. bore the date Nov. 13, 1751, and was supplemented by another
document dated Feb. 20, 1752, both by the same hand presumed to be
that of the "Confessor." The whole had been communicated to the
Scot's Magazine "by a Mr. D B ." Thus we have no indication of the
part of Scotland from which the "Confessor" came. But it is fairly
safe to assume that he could have heard about the new system. On
the other hand it cannot be said positively that the term "degree"
was not in use before the Grand Lodge era. It was a word in quite
common use to designate social rank and status.

(3) Mackey, Encyclopedia. side Landmarks.

(4) The passage is discussed by Bro. Herbert Poole in the paper
previously mentioned, A. Q. C., xxxvi, p. 4.

(5) It is really amazing that Hughan was unable to see the
significance of the conjunction of the Chetwode Crawled MS. and the
Haughfoot minute, which he seems to have been the first to notice;
he being apparently the discoverer of the MS., or at least the
first to critically examine it. From the brief account he gave of
it in A. Q. C., vol. xvii, p. 91, it seems it was found in the
pages of an old book, the antecedents of which were not
discoverable. It is hard to see how, in view of the definite date
and unquestioned authenticity of the Haughfoot minute, that it was
possible to remain blind to the almost compulsory conclusion, that
whatever the actual date of the MS. it represented, in a variant
version, the same original that underlay the usage of the lodge of
Haughfoot.

(6) BUILDER, August, 1928, p. 240. For Mackey's citations see his
History, vol. iv, p. 969. Revised edition, vol. iv, p. 1023.

(7) Bro. E. L. Hawkins (A.Q.C., vol. xxvi, p. 18) says that an
expert judged the writing to be thirty or forty years earlier than
1711. Gould took it to be later than 1723, solely on the ground of
the "Scotticisms" it contained. But what if it came from Scotland?
