AQC Vol 102
THE YORK MS. NO. 1
BY BRO. GEOFFREY MARKHAM
1717-18, a
The York MS. No. 1 is one of six versions of the Old Charges listed in 'A Catalogue of Effects belonging to the Grand Lodge at York Jany. 1st 1776'. This of itself is an early date of provenance among the Old Charges but more remarkable is the endorsement upon it:
Found in Pontefract Castle at the Demolition and given to the Lodge
by Francis Drake 1732.1
The reference to the demolition of the castle, if valid, proves the existence and location of the document in April-May 1649.2 There are considerable grounds for believing the validity of this. Drake, who was at different times Grand Warden and Grand Master of the York Grand Lodge, was also the famous author of Eboracum, the great history of the City of York published in 1736. He was a native of Pontefract and (as W. J. Hughan pointed out and Poole and Worts noted as grounds of validity of the endorsement)3 was
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the grandson, son and half-brother of successive vicars of Pontefract. And his greatgrandfather, Nathan Drake, had an intimate connection with Pontefract Castle and left, through his descendants, a famous diary from which details of the history of the castle during the last period of its existence can be reconstructed.4
We should consider next the question of whether the MS. may possibly have been connected with non-operative Masonry in 1649. James Andersen's Constitutions of 1723 make it clear that the Old Charges in general were significant in non-operative Masonry in his time; Robert Plot's Natural History of Staffordshire shows that connection as to a single version in 1686;5 and both the late Herbert Poole and Bro. Wallace McLeod have inclined to the view that the Sloane MS. 3848, which is dated 16 October 1646, was actually used for the initiation into a non-operative lodge of Elias Ashmole and Henry Mainwaring at Warrington which Ashmole's diary records as having taken place on that exact date.6 Further, the large number of versions of the Charges which can be shown to have originated between 1600 and 1750, approximately, suggests that these were transcribed for use in relation to non-operative Masonry because, whilst there are fairly numerous instances of connections between them and non-operative masons,7 there is no body of evidence of their association with operative Masonry during that period in provincial England.8 It is therefore submitted that on a balance of probabilities, at least, the existence of the York MS. No. 1 at Pontefract Castle in 1649 should be considered in a non-operative context. Additional comment on this arises later.
A further piece of information with regard to the contents of the manuscript is to be noted. Above an anagram on the word 'Masonrie' appears:
'An Anagraime upon the name of Masonrie Willm Kay to his friend Robt Preston upon his Artt of masonrie as followeth.'9
Poole and Worts quoted G. Y. Johnson as to this:
... in the Register of the Freemen of the City of York (Surtees Society Vol. Cll) for the year 1569 'Willelmus Kay, Sporryer, fil. Johannis Kay, Sporryer' is recorded, also for the year 1571 'Robertus Preston, fyshemonger' is recorded ... This would make William Kay about fifty-two and Robert Preston about fifty years old in the year 1600.10
Other names appearing in the register do not exactly conform with those in the manuscript, with the exception that another Robert Preston, a haberdasher recorded in 1589, would possibly fit. The reference to 1600 appears to have been made because Johnson was aware of the opinion adopted by Poole and Worts that 'The date of composition is unknown, but it is doubtless about 1600 A.D.'11 In Appendix I to this paper further comment is made on this question of dating, suggesting that apart from the fact that the document must be pre-April/May 1649 the only reliable close indication as to its date of origin is such as can be deduced from the reference to William Kay and Robert Preston. If, however, the Kay and Preston referred to in the Register are also those referred to in the manuscript (and it would be a considerable coincidence if they were not) the circumstances of a spur-maker and fishmonger or haberdasher being associated together in the transcription of a version of the Old Charges may be thought to suggest strongly that the intended purpose of the document was in connection with non-operative Masonry. Clearly they could not have been concerned with operative Masonry, and the only other possible alternative is that raised by Poole in his 1951 edition of Gould's History of Freemasonry12 where he stated that the anagram suggested that 'antiquarian interest' rather than masonic use was the original purpose of the document. Antiquarian interest in a document in Gothic form does not seem likely in the Renaissance climate of the late sixteenth/early seventeenth centuries, less so as between a spurmaker and a fishmonger or haberdasher, and the general circumstances of repeatedly transcribed and slightly varying versions of the Charges is inconsistent with antiquarianism. This aspect of the matter is dealt with in detail in Appendix II in a general way not restricted to the York MS.No. 1.
The York MS. No. 1 ^^
If this suggestion as to the anagram is correct it would follow that the document originated in York13 in connection with non-operative Masonry and subsequently by some means was taken to Pontefract Castle where it was found at the demolition of the castle in 1649, thereafter returning to York via the Drake family. Exactly what happened will doubtless never be known but background information on the history of Pontefract Castle and York enables some possibilities to be mentioned.
Pontefract Castle was described by a visitor from Norwich on 11 August 1634 as a:
... high & stately, famous & princely impregnable Castle & Citadell, built by a Norman upon a Rocke: which for the situation, strength & largeness, may compare with any in this kingdome.14
At about that time extensive repairs were carried out.15 It was a royal castle, part of the Duchy of Lancaster, and, being near a main north-south route, was occasionally visited by kings, as by Henry VIII in 1540, by James I in 1603 and 1616 and by Charles I in 1625,16 though on other occasions shown to visitors. During the Civil War it was garrisoned by the Royalists and came into prominence in 1644 after the Battle of Marston Moor, when King Charles lost control of northern England save for certain castles of which Pontefract was one. A large number of Yorkshire gentry and others defended the castle resolutely between December 1644 and 2 March 1645 and again between 21 March and 21 July 1645, when the garrison was starved into submission. Until June 1648 it was nominally occupied by a Parliamentarian force but, during the shortlived Second Civil War, was surprised and seized by another group of Royalists and held until 25 March 1649 (after the execution of the King) when it was again surrendered. It was then at once totally demolished.17
On 2 July 1644, shortly after the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor, York had surrendered to the Parliamentarian armies. Under the lenient terms allowed them, the Royalist troops were permitted to march out with their arms and their 'bag and baggage'. Remarkably (though Royalist composition papers show that this was not exceptional) no restriction was put upon them to prevent them from reinforcing places still held for the King.18 There can be little doubt therefore that some of them would have gone from York to nearby Pontefract Castle, the strongest fortress for many miles around, which was itself not put under siege until Christmas Day of the same year. The York MS. No. 1 could therefore have gone from York to Pontefract as part of the 'bag and baggage,' and may possibly have been used during the siege of York for non-operative Masonry by Royalist soldiers and then taken by them to Pontefract Castle where it may have been used for the same purpose.
This may seem to be stretching credibility but it should also be remembered that Pontefract Castle would not have been an inviting place for the holding of a non-operative lodge unless the holders of the lodge were obliged to be there for some other compelling reason. The scale of it was immense, arranged round three great courts or baileys. It was forbidding, being upwards of three hundred years old and grimly associated with famous historical figures who had died there violently and whose ghostly spirits may well have been believed to haunt its vastness. Its image had been etched by Shakespeare in Richard III:
O Pomfret! Pomfretl O thou bloody prison! Fatal and ominous to noble Peers.
'Pomfret' is an old version of the name 'Pontefract'. The inhospitability of the fortress is suggested by the fact that the Royalists were assisted in its seizure in 1648 because most of the Parliamentarian garrison had been permitted to sleep outside in and near the town of Pontefract.19
It may be suggested that the MS. was brought to the castle by operative masons carrying out repairs before the Civil War but, if so, the document would presumably have been thought valuable enough under normal circumstances to remove on leaving. The idea of a lodge of operative masons tending the battered walls during the siege is
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even less acceptable; stonemasonry would have been far too slow a process to meet such a situation and the masons would have been fired on while attempting to work. Early in the first siege a considerable piece of the wall was battered down but the practical remedy was to pile earth quickly at night time on top of the fallen stones and along an inner trench which, combined with the steepness of the rock face below the site of the wall, still made the castle incapable of being stormed without unacceptable loss of life.20 These suggestions as to operative Masonry could, further, only justifiably be asserted on stronger grounds because there is no other evidence of operative lodges in England at that time with the possible exception of the London Company of Masons, and this lack of evidence can be explained on economic grounds.21
How, therefore, can the matter as a whole be summarized? This is attempted as follows:
(1) The York MS. No. 1 was a document connected with Freemasonry in the seventeen-thirties.
(2) That it was found in Pontefract Castle at the demolition in 1649 cannot seriously be doubted; and that it was at that time relevant to non-operative Masonry is likely on the balance of probabilities.
(3) If the identification of William Kay and Robert Preston referred to is correct (which seems a fairly strong possibility) the likelihood is that the document came into existence in connection with non-operative Masonry in or about the last quarter of the sixteenth century in York.
(4) Whilst the document could have been in Pontefract Castle due to circumstances of no relevance to this enquiry, it is reasonable that it may have been taken there for use by non-operative masons and in particular could have been taken there by members of the Royalist York garrison following the surrender of that city in 1644.
If the last of these suggestions is correct the Royalist involvement in Freemasonry thus arising would provide an interesting comparison with the initiation at Warrington in 1646 of (leaving aside the question of Ashmole) Henry Mainwaring, a colonel in the Parliamentarian Army. This would indicate that in the 1640s, as at the time of Andersen's Constitutions of 1723, Freemasonry maintained as a principle the exclusion of political dispute, so enabling adversaries in the Civil War to become members of the same fraternity. It is the belief of the writer that this principle was probably one of the basic attractions in the politically stormy seventeenth century which made Freemasonry so widely popular as conceded by Plot in 1686.22
It may be mentioned that there is an unanswered question whether or not the York MS. No. 1 was transcribed from another such document which at that time may have existed in York and, if so, the significance of this. This is felt to be better dealt with in a paper with a wider view rather than in one devoted to a single document.
One more general question, however, needs to be raised in this paper if the value of the York MS. No. 1 and other rare pieces of masonic evidence are to be fully realized. Is it right that possibilities should be seriously considered at all in early historical investigation? It is submitted that in a situation of survival of very limited evidence it is correct to consider possibilities or, where appropriate, alternative possibilities, which can be constructively related to known facts, rather than to attempt to form a view on evidence which is certain beyond reasonable doubt but clearly incomplete and which, considered on its own, is likely to produce a wrongly-based conclusion. Further, such possibilities may, if other relateable strands of suggestion can be identified and anchored to known masonic or general history, enable the sketchy form of a hitherto unrecognized period of the history of Freemasonry to be logically projected for consideration and future study.
It would be tempting to go on to suggest strands of that kind in the present context if, again, it were not that the result would be to extend the investigation too widely and therefore it is intended only to give substance to this theory of examining possibilities by mentioning one matter by way of example. This concerns the apparent understanding in '
London in the seventeen-twenties and thirties that Freemasonry in York was of unusual importance and long standing.
Francis Drake in his well known speech of 1726 referred to the York Grand Lodge as the 'Mother Lodge of them all'. Though made by Drake as Junior Grand Warden of that lodge, the speech was reprinted in London in 1728-9 in Cole's Constitutions, which was dedicated to Lord Kingston, Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge.23 Of more weight is James Andersen's Constitutions of 1738 which (at p. 196), after referring to foreign lodges 'under the patronage of our Grand Master of England', stated:
But the old Lodge at York City, and the Lodges of Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy affecting Independency, are under their own Grand Masters, tho' they have the same Constititions, Charges, Regulations etc. for Substance with their Brethren of England are equally zealous for the Augustan Stile and the Secrets of the ancient and honourable Fraternity.
York enjoyed a claim to masonic fame by being mentioned in many versions of the Old Charges as the place where Edwin's supposed assembly of masons had taken place in the reign of Athelstan; but this was dubious history, as would have been likely to have been pointed out in response to claims of grandeur made by the York Lodge24 and Andersen's statement, and also his use of the expression ''old lodge at York' seems to recognize a further element of justification in York's claim to be a lodge of such long standing and reputation as to have acceptably adopted the status of a Grand lodge not inferior to that 'of England'. This, further, was notwithstanding York's adoption of the title 'Grand Lodge of All England.' Thus York may be regarded as a place where possibilities as to the existence of Freemasonry in periods earlier (and perhaps considerably earlier) than the late seventeenth century can properly be entertained. The writer hopes to give further consideration to this field of enquiry in a subsequent paper.
APPENDIX 1 THE DATING OF THE YORK MS. NO. 1
Poole and Worts (1935) state as to their dating of the document: 'about 1600 A.D. ... The script alone offers evidence of date, although the historical reference to Pontefract Castle fixes its composition before 1649'.25 Poole in his edition of Gould's History of Freemasonry (1951) Vol. I, p. 64, gives 'Circa 1600'. Bro. Wallace McLeod in his paper The Old Charges' published in AQC., 99 (1986). at p. 140 states 'c. 1600' and, at p. 150, as to the Old Charges in general: 'It would be useful to have the manuscripts dated by modern methods. I myself am no palaeographer, nor is this a job for someone who lives beyond the ocean; but I exhort those who are closer to hand to take the necessary steps'. No such recent examination has been made of the York MS. No. 1.
The writer also is no palaeographer but feels that it would be wrong if in passing he did not express doubts about the relative precision suggested by 'circa 1600' from what knowledge he possesses. By the kind courtesy of York Lodge No. 236 he has been given facilities for examining the document itself, the whole of which is written in the style of the extract containing the anagram, a facsimile of which appears on p. 106 of Poole and Worts's book.26 This handwriting is largely Italic, a style which derived from Italy early in the sixteenth century and was inspired by the Renaissance. Until about 1650, and even later in some instances, it existed side by side with the script known as 'Secretary Hand'. After 1650 italic, which is similar to modern handwriting, prevailed. Secretary Hand, which was of Gothic (medieval) derivation, contains many distinctive conventional features which can only be read by careful study, as by examination of model examples of t handwriting in which the two scripts are illustrated together.27