The Golden Builders

by Tobias Churton

  One thing is clear : Ashmole stayed with Free Masonry for the rest of his long life; it was bound up with his deepest roots and his essential - and mercurial - conception of himself and his life's great work. Three and a half centuries after initiation, that life stands today as an inspiring example to all those persons of good-will who would make a lasting temple out of the base elements of their earthly lives.

  Notes to Part Three

  1 This Rupert was the son of Elizabeth of Bohemia, whose court in the Hague drew learned men from all over Europe who wished to see a spiritual and scientific reformation.

  2 Mary, sole daughter of Sir William Forster bt. of Aldermaston in Berkshire, widow of Thomas Mainwaring knt, one of the masters in Chancery - and a relative of Ashmole's in-laws. Mary died on April 1st. 1668. There were no children.

  3 William Backhouse (1593-1662), Rosicrucian philosopher; educated at Christ Church, Oxford; adopted Ashmole as his son; left in manuscript (Ashmole MSS.) translations in verse and prose of French works on occult philosophy. (Concise Dictionary of National Biography. O.U.P. 1992).

  4 See Freemasonry, Hermetic Thought & the the Royal Society in London, by Michael Baigent, delivered to Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research on 27 June 1996. Baigent suggests that Ashmole's relations with Backhouse mark the inception of Hermetic interests into his Free Masonry - and Free Masonry in general. This is a slender twig on which to hold such a large bird. Ashmole had been interested in Hermetic subjects since he was a youth. There is a distinction between conversion, and regeneration. His initiation at Warrington could have ‘put him on the road’ (conversion) while Backhouse seems to have actualised spiritual regeneration : the life of God in the soul - but this process would surely have begun in Ashmole's childhood; its Hermetic definition may in part have been the work of the mysterious Backhouse.

  5 Ms. dedicated to “my worthily honour'd William Backhouse Esquire Upon his adopting of me to be his Son.” Bodleian Library MS Ashmole, 36-37ff. 241v-242.

  6 Ashmole Mss, 1459; ff 280-2; ff 284-31.

  7 It is interesting to see the rewards of service offered after the Restoration. When Dr. John Hacket had been rector of S. Andrews Holborn, London under the Protectorate, he had been ordered to refrain from the traditional Anglican liturgy by Puritans. At one point, a soldier entered the church and put a pistol to Hacket's head, ordering him to cease. Hacket continued, indifferent to the threat of death, saying, in a calm and grave voice : “Soldier, I am doing my duty; do you do yours”. The soldier, abashed, fled the field. (Reported in Harwood's Introduction to Sampson Erdeswick's Survey of Staffordshire (1598) (London. 1844).

  8 Dr. John Lightfoot, learned divine and one of the editors of the Polyglot Bible, was born in Stoke, Staffordshire in 1602. Since he and Ashmole were contemporaries, it is not unlikely that they not only knew of one another but possibly were acquainted : both being Staffordshire men of great attainments.

  9 Note that Newton's alchemical writings far outweigh his purely physical investigations, and that his most prominent alchemical source was Ashmole's 1652 publication : Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum.

  10 King Charles II at the Royal Exchange. London. 1667. Quatuor Coronatorum. London. 1898. vol. XI.pp.138ff.

  11 Sloane MS 3188, British Museum.

  12 “To these add the Customs relating to the County, whereof they have one, of admitting Men into the Society of Free-masons, that in the moorelands of this County seems to be of greater request, than anywhere else, though I find the Custom spread more or less all over the Nation; for here I find persons of the most eminent quality, that did not disdain to be of this Fellowship. Nor indeed need they, were it of that Antiquity and honor, that is pretended in a large parchment volume they have amongst them, containing the History and Rules of the craft of masonry. Which is there deduced not only from sacred Writ, but profane story, particularly that it was brought into England by Saint Amphibal, and first communicated to S. Alban, who set down the Charges of masonry, and was made paymaster and governor of the Kings works, and gave them charges and manners as St. Amphibal had taught him. Which were after confirmed by King Athelstan, whose youngest son Edwyn loved well masonry, took upon him the charges and learned the manners, and obtained for them of his father a free-charter. Whereupon he caused them to assemble at York, and to bring all the old books of their craft, and out of them ordained such charges and manners, as they then thought fit : which charges in the said Schrole or parchment volume, are in part declared : and thus was the craft of masonry grounded and confirmed in England. It is also there declared that these charges and manners were after perused and approved by King Hen.6. and his council, both as to Masters and Fellows of this right Worshipfull craft.

  Into which Society when they are admitted, they call a meeting (or Lodg as they term it in some places) which must consist at least of 5 or 6 of the ancients of the Order, whom the candidates present with gloves, and so likewise to their wives, and entertain with a Collation according to the custom of the place : This ended, they proceed to the admission of them, which chiefly consists in the communication of certain secret signes, whereby they are known to one another all over the Nation, by which means they have maintenance whither ever they travel : for if any man appear though altogether unknown that can she we any of these signes to a Fellow of that Society, whom they otherwise call an accepted mason, he is obliged presently to come to him, from what company or place soever he be in, nay tho' from the top of a steeple, (what hazard or inconvenience soever he run) to know his pleasure, and assist him; viz. if he want work he is bound to find him some; or if he cannot do that, to give him money, or otherwise support him till work can be had; which is one of their articles; and it is another, that they advise the Masters they work for, according to the best of their skill, acquainting them with the goodness or badness of their materials; and if they be in any way out in the contrivance of their buildings modestly to rectify them in it; that masonry be not dishonoured : and many such like that are commonly known : but some others they have (to which they are sworn after their fashion) that none know but themselves, which I have reason to suspect are much worse than these, perhaps as bad as the History of the craft it self; than which there is nothing I ever met with, more false or incoherent.” (The Natural History of Staffordshire by Robert Plot. LLD. Keeper of the ASHMOLEAN MUSAEUM And PROFESSOR of CHYMISTRY in the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD. 1686. Chapter Eight).

  13 The Natural History of Staffordshire by Dr Robert Plot LLD. Keeper of the Ashmolean Musaeum And Professor of CHYMISTRY in the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD. 1686. Ch. 8.

  14 Jean Gimpel (The Cathedral Builders. Michael Russell. 1983.p.68ff.) : “The expression ‘freestone mason’ was gradually replaced by the simpler term ‘freemason’. The word ‘freemason’ then clearly refers to the quality of the stone and not some franchise granted to the cathedral builders. …there was in London, in 1351, a maître maçon de franche peer [stone] which is roughly the Anglo-French equivalent of two Latin expressions : sculptores lapidum liberorum (London, 1212) and magister lathomus liberarum petrarum (Oxford, 1391). The modern English…translation of this expression would be : ‘a master mason of freestone’”.

  15 The Cathedral Builders (Michael Russell. 1983). p.102.

  16 Ibid. pp.71-72.

  17 Biddulph Parish Registers are full of names of people connected with quarrying and masonry. For one unique year, Biddulph's Rector gives us the occupations of those named. Thus we learn that in “1600. Baptismata. Mar. 6 Joanna, fa. Rumbaldi DURBAR, freemason.” Rumbald Durbar was interred in Biddulph Church on April 23 1610. It is to be presumed that Rumbald was not alone in his trade.

  18 MS. Ashm. 1136, f.7.

  19 Ashmole recorded the Mainwaring pedigree in MS. Ashm. 846, f.43. & MS. Ashm.1763, f.32v.

  20 MS. Ashm. 1136, f.10.

  21 Where once Eleanor's stone lay, now there is a set of box-pews. Likewise, the Mainwaring memorial stones have also disappeared, and while there is at Astbury an exceptionally large
number of 17th century graves, there is no longer to be found any mention of the Mainwarings of Smallwood in their church at Astbury. 19th century restoration-work has spoiled this along with so many ancient English churches.

  22 Ashmole found his second wife from the Mainwaring family also. This wife was Mary, widow of Thomas Mainwaring, knt., one of the masters in Chancery where Ashmole began his professional life. Mary was the sole daughter of Sir William Forster bt., of Aldermaston in Berkshire, through which connection with Berkshire it is possible that Ashmole met his ‘spiritual father’, William Backhouse of Swallowfield.

  23 Karincham today (now called Kermincham and pronounced by locals as ‘Kermidgum’) is not even a place as such, just a few farm-houses and converted cottages on the road from Swettenham, at which church people from Kermincham have been buried since at least the 17th. century. Records from the Consistory Court in Chester reveal that Henry Mainwaring of Karincham (Ashmole's father-in-law's father) was involved in a dispute over burial places and seats at the church of S. Luke, Goostrey, two miles away. Henry Mainwaring was permitted to build an out aisle or aisles on the north side of the chancel. One wonders who undertook the building-work. Incidentally, the Advowson of Goostrey had been held by Dieulacres Abbey. (The church was rebuilt 1792-6). Mss. held in the Stafford Record Office prove the longstanding pre-Reformation commitment among the Mainwarings to joining confraternities. Guilds of masons enjoyed confraternal identification with religious sites.

  24 The lord of Biddulph, Sir Francis Biddulph, was a direct descendent of Ormus le Guidon. Ormus or one of his children reputedly returned from the crusades with a Saracen stonemason (John Sleigh, A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek, J.R. Smith, 1862). In Stafford's 12th cent. St Chad's Church is an inscription, ORM VOCATUR QUI ME CONDIDIT (“He who established me is called Orm”), close to an oriental style carving of Ishtar and Tammuz. Ormus was married to the daughter of the Norman sheriff of Stafford, Nicholas de Beauchamp. Sir Francis's hall stood by the church where five unique Templar gravestones have been found. (Land was given to the Templars at Keele in 1168 or 1169, see Testa de Nevill).

  25 In Ashmole's friend William Dugdale's collection, Chartularium Mainwaringianum (1668), it is asserted that there are no less than 133 variant spellings of the family name - surely an exaggeration.

  26 Reported in the account of S. Lawrence church, Upper Peover in Raymond Richards' classic Old Cheshire Churches (Batsford. 1947).

  27 It may also interest readers that Upper Peover was also a command-camp of the US Third Army during World War II, and that General George Patton and his staff worshipped in the little church for many months; Patton presented a US flag to the church in gratitude.

  28 Following Randle Holmes. Holmes' knowledge of this matter is particularly interesting and possibly suggestive since he was himself an accepted gentleman member of a lodge of freemasons based in Chester in the mid-seventeenth century. (See Q.C. Transactions on Randle Holmes, and Old Cheshire Churches. Batsford. 1947. p.874).

  29 On the tomb of Philip is a coat-of-arms consisting of an eight-pointed star above a crescent, suggestive of some oriental involvement in the family.

  30 See Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge : The Lodge of Randle Holme at Chester by Coulthurst & Lawson. Harleian MS. No. 2054 at the British Museum contains a collection of papers in the handwriting of the Royalist Randle Holmes which reveals the existence in circa 1655 of a lodge of freemasons in Chester. The members include both operative masons and other tradespeople, as well as the gentleman Randle Holmes. There is however no way of knowing if this lodge had any connection with the possibly ‘occasional’ lodge held at nearby Warrington in 1646. Interestingly, Randle Holmes was elected to the dignity of ‘sewer’ (similar to the ancient role of dapifer or steward) in the household of Charles II at the Restoration. Holmes had been mayor of Chester and had grieved at having been able to do so little to ameliorate the sufferings of the inhabitants after Sir William Brereton's destruction of so much of the city in 1645.

  Bibliography

  AGRIPPA. Heinrich Cornelius. De Occulta Philosophia. (Eng. trans. London.1651).

  ANDREAE Johann Valentin. Peregrini in Patria errores. Utopiae. (Strasbourg. Lazarus Zetzner.) 1618.

  Civis Christianus sive Peregrini quondam errantis restitutiones. Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1619.

  Reipublicae Christianopolitanae Descriptio. Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1619.

  Turris Babel sive Judicorum de Fraternitate Rosaceae Crucis Chaos. Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1619.

  Invitatio Fraternitatis Christi Ad Sacri Amoris Candidatos. Impensis Heredum.

  Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1617.

  Christianae Societatis imago. Tübingen. Eberhard Wild. 1620.

  Christiani amoris dextera porrecta. Wild. 1620.

  Mythologiae Christianae sive virtutem et vitiorum vitae humanae imaginum Libri tres. Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1619.

  Menippus sive Dialogorum Satyricorum Centuria inanitatum nostratium speculum. In Grammatoricum gratiam castigatum. Cosmopoli (Zetzner). 1618.

  Turbo sive moleste et frustra per Cuncta Divagans Ingenium. In Theatrum productum. Helicone iuxta parnassum. (Zetzner). 1616.

  Theca gladii spiritus, Sententias quasdam breves, vereque philosophicas continens. Zetzner. Strasbourg. 1616.

  De christiani cosmoxeni genitura ludicium. Zetzner. 1619.

  Tobias Hessi, viri incomparabilis, Immortalitas. Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1619.

  Chymische Hochzeit : Christiani Rosencreütz. Anno 1459. Arcana publicata vilescunt: et gratiam prophanata amiltunt. Ergo : ne Margaritas obijce porcis, seu Asino substerne rosas. Strasbourg. Lazarus Zetzner. 1616.

  Allgemeine und General Reformation der gantzen weiten Welt. [extract from Trajano Boccalini's News from Parnassus. Venice. 1614.] Beneben der Fama Fraternitatis, Dess Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes, an alle Gelehrte und Haüpter Europae geschrieben. Auch einer Kurtzen Responsion [not by Andreae] von dem Herr Haselmeyer gestellet, welcher desswegen von den Jesuittern ist gefänglich eingezogen, und auff eine Galleren geschmiedet : Jtzo öffentlich in Druck verfertiget, und allen trewen Hertzen communiciret worden. Kassel. Willhelm Wessel. 1614.

  The Asclepius. Translated & edited by Nock & Festugière.

  ARNOLD. Sir Thomas. Ed. : The Legacy of Islam. Oxford. 1931.

  ASHMOLE. Elias. Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. 1652.

  Fasciculus Chemicus (Arthur Dee). Ed : Ashmole (‘James Hasolle’) 1650.

  The Way to Bliss (Anon.) 1658.

  The Institution, laws and ceremonies of the most noble Order of the Garter. 1672.

  BENY. Roloff. Iran. Elements of Destiny. Collins. 1977.

  BESOLD. Christoph. Collegii Politici (Passim Juridicis et Philosophicis digressionibus illustrati) Classis prima, Reipublicae Naturam et Constitutionem XII. Disputationibus absolvens. [Classis Posterior, De Republica in omnibus partibus gubernanda, IX. Disputationibus] …Accessit nunc primum Frid. Rich. Mockelii Doctrinae Politicae synopsis. Tübingen, I.A. Cellius, 1616.

  De verae Philosophiae fundamento Discursus. Tübingen, I.A. Cellius, 1618.

  Dissertatio Juridico-Politica, De augenda curandaque Republica …Ingenii exercendi causa discutiendam exhibet. M.Ioan. Martin Rauscher. Tübingen, I.A. Cellius,1613.

  Axiomatum Philosophiae Christianae, vitam vere philosophicam utcumque adumbrantium. Strasbourg. Zetzner. 1627.

  Motive seiner Rückehr zur römisch-katholischen Kirche. Bearbitet, übersetzt und herausgegeben von P.W.K., Augsburg . Ch. Kranzfelder. 1828.

  BIBLIOTHECA PHILOSOPHICA HERMETICA. (Ed : Joost Ritman; Frans Janssen; Frank van Lamoen) Hermes Trismegistus. Pater Philosophorum. Amsterdam 1991.

  Les symboles spirituels de l'alchimie. (M de Jong). Amsterdam. 1988.

  The Hermetic Gnosis. (van Lamoen) Amsterdam. 1988.

  Kabbale et philosophie hermétique. (François Secret) Amsterdam. 1989.

  Johann Valentin Andreae 1586-1986. Die Manifeste der Rosenkreuzer-bruderschaft.(Carlos Gilly) Amsterdam. 1986.

&n
bsp; BLAIR. H.A. The Kaleidoscope of Truth. Types and Archetypes in Clement of Alexandria. Churchman Publishing. 1986.

  BOHM. David. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge & Kegan Paul.1981.

  BURCKHARDT. Titus. An Introduction to Sufism. 1976.

  BURKITT. F.C. Church and Gnosis. University of Cambridge Press. 1931.

  BROCARDUS. Jacobus. Mystica et prophetica libri Geneseos interpretatio. Bremen.Th. Gluichstein. 1585.

  CAMPANELLA. Tommaso. Cità dell'O sole, cioé Dialogo di Republica, nel quale si dissegna l'Idea della Riforma della Republica Christiana conforme alla promessa da Dio fatta alle sante Catarina e Brigida (ff. Iro-45vo); DERSELBE, Cento cinquanta Concetti metodici dell'Universa scienza Politica di Fra Tomaso Campanella P[iae] m[emoriae] ff. 47ro-91vo. Mss. at Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. Amster-dam.