Rosslyn Chapel 

It has been argued that regulated Freemasonry in Scotland is older than in any other part of the British Isles. The connection between the craft of stonemasonry in Scotland and modern Freemasonry was established by David Stevenson, in The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590 to 1710. It is believed that Freemasonry derived from “operative” masonry, or craft guilds of masons, and then evolved into “speculative” masonry or a secret society based on the mystical interpretation of the rebuilding the Temple of Solomon. The Da Vinci Code, following on the Holy Blood Holy Grail, popularized the legend that Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland was a repository of occult wisdom, and built by William Sinclair, a descendant of William of St. Clair, who accompanied Saint Margaret—the daughter of Agatha of Bulgaria and Edward to Exile—on her trip to Scotland, where she eventually married Malcolm III of Scotland, father of David I of Scotland, a supporter of the Templars. Two of the children of James I (1394 – 1437), a descendant of Agatha Malcolm III, included Eleanor of Scotland and James II of Scotland (1430 – 1460). Eleanor married Sigismund (1427 – 1496), Archduke of Austria of the House of Habsburg, grandson of Ernest the Iron, a member of the Order of the Dragon. Sigismund’s uncle was Emperor Frederick III, whose son Maximilian I became Grand Master of the Oder of the Golden Fleece after he married Mary of Burgundy, the granddaughter of the Order’s founder, Phillip the Good.

James II of Scotland married Philip the Good’s great-niece, Marie of Guelders. Marie was the daughter of Arnold of Egmond (1410 – 1473), who enjoyed Philip’s support, and Philip’s niece Catherine of Cleves, of the House of Cleves, who traces their descent from the Knight of the Swan, and resided in the Grail castle Schwanenburg, where Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote the story of Lohengrin, immortalized in Wagner’s famous opera. Catherine was the daughter of Adolph I, Duke of Cleves, and Mary of Burgundy, Duchess of Cleves, sister of Philip the Good. Adolph I was raised by Emperor Sigismund, founder of the Order of the Dragon, as duke and a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1417. Their descendants would intermarry with the House of Guise, and through their association with the neo-Templar Order of the Fleur de Lys, founded by René of Anjou, purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, would play a central role of the rise of Freemasonry through their association with the Sinclairs of Rosslyn.

In 1128, soon after the Council of Troyes, Hugh de Payens, the Templars’ first Grand Master, met with David I of Scotland. According to a contemporary chronicler, David “surrounding himself with very fine brothers of the illustrious knighthood of the Temple of Jerusalem, he made them guardians of his morals by day and by night.”[1] David granted the Templars the lands of Balantrodach, by the Firth of Forth, but now renamed Temple, near the site of Rosslyn, where the order established a seat. Balantrodach became their principal Templar seat and preceptory in Scotland until the suppression of the order between 1307 and 1312. “Balantrodach,” from the Scottish Gaelic Baile nan Trodach, means “town of the warriors,” again a reference to the Knights Templar. Today it is known as the village and civil parish of Temple in Midlothian, Scotland, situated to the south of Edinburgh, on the east bank of the River South Esk.

When Freemasonry emerged in the early eighteenth century, it was founded on the belief that it represented the survival of traditions preserved by the Templars of Scotland, where they helped the Scottish cause against the English at the Battle of Bannockburn. The Templars in Scotland were also to have assisted the excommunicated King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce (1274 – 1329), at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, which resulted in a significant victory against the army of Edward and Eleanor’s son, King Edward II of England (1284 – 1327), in the First War of Scottish Independence, establishing Scotland’s de facto independence. Robert the Bruce claimed the Scottish throne as a direct descendant of David I. Walter Stewart, the sixth High Steward of Scotland, who played an important part in the Battle of Bannockburn, married Marjory, daughter of Robert the Bruce. Thus was founded the House of Stuart, when their son Robert II of Scotland eventually inherited the Scottish throne after his uncle David II of Scotland died.

It has often been asserted that the Stuarts and Sinclairs, who became hereditary Grand Master of Freemasonry, were descendants from Jews who escaped the Edict of Expulsion issued in 1290 by King Edward I, grandfather of Edward III, founder of the Order of the Garter. That history would be recalled by the Cromwellian apologist James Howell (c. 1594 – 1666) and by John Toland (1670 – 1722). In l714, while addressing the bishops of Great Britain, Toland reminded them, “you further know how considerable a part of the British inhabitants are the undoubted offspring of the Jews,” because “a great number of ‘em fled to Scotland, which is the reason so many in that part of the Island, have such a remarkable aversion to pork and black puddings to this day, not to insist on some other resemblances easily observable.”[2]

As Marsha Keith Schuchard has also pointed out, there were persistent claims that not only Templars, but Jews as well were expelled to Scotland. The first significant Jewish communities had come to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. Only sixteen years after being expelled from England by Edward I, France likewise expelled its Jewish population in 1306 AD, a year before the arrest of the Templars. According to James Howell’s History of the Latter Times of the Jews, published in 1653:

The first Christian Prince that expelled the Jews out of his territories, was that heroic King, our Edward the First, who was such a scourge also to the Scots; and it is thought diverse families of the banished Jews then fled to Scotland, where they have propagated since in great numbers; witness the aversion that nation hath above all others to hogs-flesh.[3]

Scotland has the highest proportion of redheads of any country in the world, where they represent thirteen percent of the population, and red hair and the color red, as demonstrated by Andrew Colin Gow, author of the Red Jews: Anti-Semitism in an Apocalyptic Age: 1200-1600, had become distinctly associated with the Jews. As he further noted, Jews were often portrayed by medieval illustrations in Christian texts with red hair and in red clothes. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth century, as he has shown, it became popular in German literature to identify Gog and Magog with the Lost Tribes of Israel, who collectively were referred to as “Red Jews.” As he further noted, Jews were often portrayed by medieval illustrations in Christian texts with red hair and in red clothes. According to Gow:

This connection was so widely-accepted as to be included prominently in illustrations of Hebrew manuscripts, though in such cases, these depictions presumably lacked or did not evoke the negative associations generally marked by red hair. The Jews by whom these manuscripts were made and for whom they were intended seem to have attached no negative significance to the color red. Yet as we have seen, Christian iconography “saw red” in connection with Judas. The Metzgers’ manuscript illuminations suggest that to Jews as to Christians, Jews were typically red-headed and wore red clothes; it was taken for granted.[4]

Robert the Bruce also mentioned the origin of the Scots from among the Scythians, in the famous Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, signed by him and addressed to Pope John XXII—who had approved the founding of the Order of Christ—and intended to confirm Scotland’s status as an independent, sovereign state:

We know, most Holy Father and Lord, and from the chronicles and books of the ancients gather, that among other illustrious nations, ours, to wit the nation of the Scots, has been distinguished by many honours; which, passing from the greater Scythia through the Mediterranean Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and sojourning in Spain, among the most savage tribes, through a long course of time, could nowhere be subjugated by any people however barbarous; and coming thence, one thousand two hundred years after the outgoing of the people of Israel, they by many victories and infinite toil acquired for themselves the possessions in the West which they now hold… In their kingdom one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, no stranger intervening, have reigned.

Legend has it that when the Templars were rounded up in France in 1307, they secretly removed their treasure from Paris to be hidden in the Temple. A local legend states: “Twixt the oak and the elm tree/You will find buried the millions free.” French legends about the Templar treasure apparently also state that the treasure was taken to Scotland, with the knights landing on the Isle of May, the first island they would encounter in the Firth of Forth. Geographically, this would take them to the mouth of the River Esk, which could take them on to the famous Chapel of Rosslyn.[5] There the symbol of the skull and crossbones appeared on later gravestones, such as those that surround the ruined Templar church at Temple.[6] In 1312, by order of a Papal Bull, all assets of the Order of the Temple were given to Knights Hospitaller, except for Spain where they were succeeded by the Order of Montesa the Order of Calatrava, and Portugal where they became the Order of Christ and it has been claimed that in Scotland the Order combined with the Hospitallers and continued as the Order of St John and the Temple until the Reformation.[7]

Clan Sinclair

The Sinclairs, originally St. Clair, were a noble family which had its origins in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in Normandy. According to genetic researchers Elizabeth Hirschman and Donald Panther-Yates, authors of When Scotland was Jewish, the Sinclairs were secret Jews among the many Sephardic Jews from Spain and Southern France that entered Scotland from around 1100 AD onward. The first group would have accompanied William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, and assisted in setting up the Norman civil administration in England. Among them would have been St. Clair, named William. William St. Clair went to Hungary to bring back the true heir, Edward “the Exile,” to replace Edward the Confessor when he died. William St. Clair accompanied Saint Margaret of Scotland, daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha of Bulgaria to Scotland in 1068, where she eventually married Malcolm III of Scotland. Soon after, William joined Malcolm III in Scotland and received lands at Rosslyn in about 1057. He fought as Lord of the Marches for Malcolm and upon Malcolm’s marriage in 1068 to Margaret, became her steward until his death in 1070.[8]

Genealogy of Clan Sinclair

• Adelaide of Maurienne + Louis VI of France

  • Louis VII of France + ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE

    • Marie of France (sponsor of Chretien de Troyes) + Henry I of Champagne

    • Alix of France + Theobald V, Count of Blois (involved in blood libel through affair with Jewess Pulcelina of Blois)

  • Louis VII of France + Adela of Champagne (sister of Henry I of Champagne)

    • Philip II of France + Isabella of Hainault

      • Louis VIII of France + Blanche of Castile (daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of England, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II)

        • Louis IX of France (founded Order of the Ship and the Double Crescent) + Margaret of Provence (see below)

        • Robert I of Artois + Matilda of Brabant

        • Charles I of Anjou + Beatrice of Provence (see the Genealogy of the Kingdom of Naples)

          • Beatrice of Sicily + Philip I, Latin Emperor

          • Charles II of Naples (discovered remains of Mary Madgalene at Saint-Maximin) + Mary of Hungary (see above)

            • Charles Martel, Prince of Salermo

              • Charles I of Hungary (founder of the Order of Saint George) + Elizabeth of Poland

            • Margaret + Charles, Count of Valois

  • Robert I, Count of Dreux + Agnes de Baudemont

    • Robert II, Count of Dreux + Yolande de Coucy

      • Robert III, Count of Dreux + Alianor de St. Valéry

        • Yolande of Dreux + Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy

          • Adelaide of Burgundy + Henry III, Duke of Brabant

            • Maria of Brabant + Philip III of France

          • John of Burgundy + Agnes of Dampierre

          • Robert II, Duke of Burgundy + Agnes of France

            • Margaret of Burgundy + Louis X of France

            • Joan of Burgundy + Philip VI of France (see above)

              • John II of France + Bonne of Luxembourg (see below)

            • Mary of Burgundy + Edward I, Count of Bar (see below)

      • Peter I, Duke of Brittany + Alix of Thouars, Duchess of Brittany

        • John I, Duke of Brittany + Blanche (see below)

        • Yolande de Dreux + Hugh XI of Lusignan

      • Philippa of Dreux + Henry II, Count of Bar

        • Margaret of Bar + Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (see above)

          • HENRY VII, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (first emperor since the death of Frederick II in 1250, ending the Great Interregnum. First emperor of the House of Luxembourg) + Constance (d. of Roger II)

            • John the Blind, King of Bohemia + Elizabeth of Bohemia

              • Bonne of Luxembourg + John II of France (see below, and the Genealogy of the House of Luxembourg)

                • Charles V of France + Joanna of Bourbon

                • Louis I, Duke of Anjou + Marie of Blois

                • JOHN, DUKE OF BERRY (requested that Jean d’Arras write the Roman de Mélusine or the Chronique de Melusine part of Le Noble Hystoire de Lusignan) + Joanna of Armagnac

                • PHILIP THE BOLD + Margaret III, Countess of Flanders

                  • John the Fearless + Margaret of Bavaria

                    • PHILIP THE GOOD (founder of the ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE) + Isabella of Portugal (sister of Prince Henry the Navigator, Grand Master of the ORDER OF CHRIST)

                • Joan, Queen of Navarre + Charles II of Navarre

                • MARIE OF VALOIS, Duchess of Bar + Robert I, Duke of Bar

        • Theobald II, Count of Bar + Jeanne de Toucy

          • Henry III, Count of Bar + Eleanor of England (daughter of Edward I of England)

            • Edward I, Count of Bar (Grand Master of the Priory of Sion) + Mary of Burgundy (daughter of Robert II, Duke of Burgundy)

              • Henry IV, Count of Bar + Yolande of Dampierre

                • Robert I, Duke of Bar + MARIE OF VALOIS (see above)

                  • Henry of Bar + Marie de Coucy, Countess of Soissons (d. of Enguerrand VII de Coucy, possible author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight)

                    • Robert of Bar, Count of Marle + Jeanne de Béthune

                    • Yolande of Bar + John I of Aragon

                      • Yolande of Aragon + Louis II of Anjou

                        • Louis III of Anjou

                        • Marie of Anjou + Charles VII of France

                          • Louis XI of France + Charlotte of Savoy

                        • RENE OF ANJOU (Grand Master of PRIORY OF SION) + Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine

            • Joan of Bar, Countess of Surrey (Grand Master of the Priory of Sion)

      • Eleanor + ROBERT DE SAINT-CLAIR

        • William St. Clair, 6th Baron of Roslin (guardian of Alexander, Prince of Scotland. Acquired the Templar lands of Gourton from Walter fitz Stephen de Meliville) + Agnes (daughter of Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March)

          • Henry St Clair, 7th Baron of Roslin + Alice de Fenton

            • SIR WILLIAM ST. CLAIR (Led Templars at the Battle of Bannockburn. One of the knights chosen to join James Douglas, Lord of Douglas in his expedition to Palestine with the heart of Robert the Bruce where in an encounter with the Saracens, in the Emirate of Granada, where he was killed along with Douglas)

              • William St Clair, 8th Baron of Roslin (d. 1358) + Isabella de Strathearn + Isabella of Strathearn

                • HENRY I SINCLAIR, Earl of Orkney (known for legend of explorations of Greenland and North America 100 years before Columbus) + Jean Haliburton

                  • Henry II Sinclair, Earl of Orkney + Egidia Douglas (daughter of Sir William Douglas of Nithsdale and maternal granddaughter of Robert II of Scotland)

                    • WILLIAM SINCLAIR, 1st Earl of Caithness (builder of ROSSLYN CHAPEL)

          • Bishop William Sinclair (one of twelve Scottish bishops to swear fealty to Robert the Bruce)

The chiefs of Clan Sinclair, the Earls of Caithness, descend from William St. Clair, 6th Baron of Rosslyn (d. 1297), who was sheriff of Edinburgh and who was granted the barony of Rosslyn in 1280.[9] According to the Genealogie of the Sainteclaires of Rosslyn, written in 1690, William was the second son of Robert de Saint-Clair and Eleanor de Dreux, daughter to Robert II, Count of Dreux (1154 – 1218) and Yolande de Coucy. Robert II’s and his first wife Mahaut of Burgundy were both great-great grandchildren of William I, Count of Burgundy and his wife Etiennete and they were both Capetian descendants of Robert II of France.Robert II was the nephew of Louis VII of France, who married Eleanor of Aquitaine and then Adela of Champagne, the sister of Henry I of Champange, whose wife Marie of France was a sponsor of Gail author Chretien de Troyes. Eleanor de Dreux’s sister Philippa married Henry II, Count of Bar (1190 – 1239), and was the mother of Theobald II, Count of Bar (1221 – 1291), whose son Henry III, Count of Bar (1259 – 1302), married Eleanor of England, the daughter of Edward I of England. Their son was Edward I, Count of Bar (d 1336), a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, who was succeeded by his sister Joan of Bar. Theobald II’s sister Margaret married Henry V, Count of Luxembourg, from whom were descended John Duke of Berry, Philip the Bold and Marie of Valois, who perpetuated the legend of Melusina. William St. Clair, 6th Baron of Roslin, acquired the Templar lands of Gourton from Walter fitz Stephen de Meliville. In 1285, William St. Clair was one of the members of the Scottish embassy to France that was tasked with escorting back Eleanor’s nice, the Queen-elect, Yolande of Dreux, grandmother of Philip III of France.

William St. Clair, 6th Baron of Roslin was the grandfather of Sir William St Clair, who was supposedly  the leader of the Templar force at the Battle of Bannockburn. Before his death, when Robert the Bruce had requested that his heart be taken to Jerusalem, and buried in the Templar Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the heart was taken by Sir William St Clair and Sir James Douglas. The two never made it to the Holy Land, having been killed in Spain in battle with the Muslims. The Douglases were one of Scotland’s most powerful families and are also related to the Stewarts. According to the genetic research of Hirschman and Yates, genetic studies of the Douglas family exactly matched three Jewish males with Ashkenazi surnames.[10]

Sir William St Clair’s grandson was Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney (c. 1345 – c. 1400), who is known for legend of explorations of Greenland and North America a century before Columbus. The most sacred site in Freemasonry, Rosslyn Chapel, was famously designed by Henry’s grandson, William Sinclair (1410 – 1480), the third Earl of Orkney, first Earl of Caithness, High Chancellor of Scotland, and knight of the Order of Santiago and the Order of the Golden Fleece.[11] The church in the village of Roslin, Rosslyn Chapel, is replete with occult symbolism. There are hundreds of stone carvings in the walls and in the ceiling of the Rosslyn Chapel, which represent biblical scenes, Masonic symbols, and examples of Templar iconography. There are swords, compasses, trowels, squares and mauls with images of the Solomon’s Temple. In addition to the Jewish and occult symbolism, there are also some traces of Islamic motifs and pagan serpents, dragons, and woodland trees. The Green Man is found everywhere in Rosslyn Chapel on the pillars and arches, together with fruits, herbs, leaves, spices, flowers, vines and the plants of the garden paradise.

As recently popularized in Dan Brown’s bestselling The Da Vinci Code, da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper was the key clue to unraveling the sacred mystery of red hair and its connection to Rosslyn Chapel, the Holy Grail and the Sinclairs. In the painting, to Jesus’ right is not John the Apostle but a woman with red hair, often purported to be Mary Magdalene. This speculation was already the topic of The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published in 1997. Dan Brown suggests, following up on the work of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, that Mary Magdalene produced a secret line of descent through her marriage to Jesus, which could be traced through their red hair. Therefore, according to Brown, the significance of the color red is alluded to everywhere in occult symbolism. The Templar red cross is the “rose cross” of the Rosicrucians. Brown follows the trail of this lineage to the Sinclairs and Rosslyn Chapel, rumored to be the burial site of the Holy Grail—being the remains of Mary Magdalene. Rosslyn, according to Brown, takes its name from the Rose-Line, the north-south meridian that runs through Glastonbury, which is the traditional marker of King Arthur’s Avalon. “Or,” says Brown, “as Grail academics preferred to believe, from the ‘Line of Rose’— the ancestral lineage of Mary Magdalene.”[12]

Lodge Mother Kilwinning

Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745), author of Gulliver’s Travels, drew upon his experiences in Dublin and Ulster to describe the Kabbalistic, Lullist, and Rosicrucian interests of Scots-Irish Freemasonry. The presence of Scottish Freemasonry had began in Ulster when William Sinclair of Roslin, hereditary patron of the Scottish Masons, had emigrated there in 1617.[13] In A Letter from the Grand Mistress, Swift revealed the developments in an “ancient” Masonic tradition in the 1690s:

The Branch of the Lodge of Solomon’s Temple, afterwards call’d the Lodge of St. John of Jerusalem… is… the Antientest and Purest now on Earth. The famous old Scottish lodge of Kilwinnin of which all the Kings of Scotland have been from Time to Time Grand Masters without Interruption, down from the days of Fergus, who Reign’d there more than 2000 Years ago, long before the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem or the Knights of Maltha, to which two Lodges I must nevertheless allow the Honour of having adorn’d the Antient Jewish and Pagan Masonry with many Religious and Christian Rules.

Fergus being the eldest Son to the chief King of Ireland, was carefully instructed in all the Arts and Sciences, especially in the natural Magick, and the Caballistical Philosophy (afterwards called the Rosecrution)…[14]

Lodge Mother Kilwinning is a Masonic Lodge in Kilwinning, Scotland, under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and is reputed to be the oldest Lodge in the world. The Abbey of Kilwinning was supposedly constructed by foreign free Masons, assisted by Scottish masons.[15] In Born in Blood, American historian John J. Robinson found evidence that the Knights Templar sought refuge with the monks of Kilwinning who lived in the Abbey, a ruined abbey located in the center of the town of Kilwinning, North Ayrshire.

According to M. Thory, the French annalist of Freemasonry, Robert the Bruce founded the Masonic Order of Heredum de Kilwinning after the battle of Bannockburn, reserving to himself and successors on the throne of Scotland the office and title of Grand Master.[16] The Declaration of Arbroath is generally believed to have been written in the Arbroath Abbey by Bernard of Kilwinning (died c. 1331), then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath.[17] Professor A.A.M. Duncan first argued that Bernard of Arbroath was also Roger Abbot of the Abbey of Kilwinning.[18]

King Robert II Stewart (1316 – 1390), the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, granted the abbey a charter, erecting all the lands of the Barony of Kilwinning into a free regality, with full jurisdiction. They received ratifications of this charter from Robert II’s son, Robert III (c.1337/40 – 1406) and James IV.[19] King James I (1394 – 1437) of Scotland, the youngest son of Robert III, was a patron of the mother lodge of Kilwinning and presided as Grand Master while staying at the abbey.[20] James I married Joan Beaufort (d. 1445), a daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, a legitimated son of John of Gaunt by his third wife Catherine Swynford, Their descendants were members of the Beaufort family, which played a major role in the Wars of the Roses. Joan’s mother was Margaret Holland, a member of the Order of the Garter, was the granddaughter of Joan of Kent, wife of Edward the Black Prince and mother of Richard II of England. Their son was James II of Scotland, who married Mary of Guelders.

Genealogy of the Kings of Scotland

• Edward the Exile + Agatha of Bulgaria

  • Saint Margaret + Malcolm III of Scotland

    • David I of Scotland + Maud, Countess of Huntingdon (a cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon)

  • Henry of Scotland + Ada de Warenne

    • Malcolm IV of Scotland

    • William I of Scotland

      • Alexander II of Scotland + Marie de Coucy

        • Alexander III of Scotland

    • David, Earl of Huntingdon + Matilda of Chester

      • Margaret of Huntingdon + Alan, Lord of Galloway

        • Dervorguilla of Galloway + John I de Balliol

          • John I of Scotland

      • Isobel of Huntingdon + Robert de Brus, 4th Lord of Annandale

        • Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale + Isobel of Gloucester and Hertford

          • Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale + Marjorie of Carrick

            • ROBERT THE BRUCE, King of Scotland + Elizabeth de Burgh

              • David II of Scotland + Joan of England (sister of Edward III)

                • Marjorie Bruce + Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland

                  • Robert II of Scotland + Elizabeth Mure

                    • Robert III, King of Scots + Annabella Drummond

                      • James I, King of Scotland + Joan Beaufort

                        • James II, King of Scotland

                          • James III of Scotland + Mary of Guelders

                            • James IV of Scotland + Margaret of Denmark

                              • James V of Scotland + Marie de Guise

                                • Mary, Queen of Scots + Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

                                  • JAMES VI OF SCOTLAND (later James I of England) + Anne of Denmark

As a sign of his support, Philip gifted James II in 1457 with the Mons Meg, a bombard whose barrel diameter of 20 inches makes it one of the largest cannons in the world by caliber. After James II’s death, Mary ruled as regent for their son James III of Scotland (1451/1452 – 1488) until her own death three years later. Mary had been drawn into the Wars of the Roses taking place in England at this time. The English queen of the House of Lancaster, Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René of Anjou, and wife of Henry VI of England, fled north across the border seeking refuge from the Yorkists. Mary sympathetically aided Margaret, giving her a number of Scottish troops to help Margaret and the Lancastrian cause.

James II made the St Clairs of Roslin the hereditary Grand Masters of Scotland.[21] In 1678, an English visitor reported that the role of the St Clairs was still recognized in Scotland:

The Lairds of Roslin have been great architects and patrons of buildings for many generations. They are obliged to receive the Mason’s word which is a secret signal masons have throughout the world to know one another by. They allege it is as old as since Babel, when they could not understand one another and they conversed by signs. Others would have it no older than Solomon.[22]

In 1456, Sinclair commissioned Sir Gilbert Hay (b. c. 1403), another descendant of the signatories of Arbroath and the Scots Guard, to translate into Scots English Lull’s treatise, The Buke of the Order of Knichthood from the Livre de l'ordre de chevalerie and The Buke of the Governaunce of Princes. In The Buik of King Alexander the Conqueror, Hay described the “magical and mathematical instruments” that enable a king to see and interpret visions which give knowledge of future events that will effect his kingdom.[23] Working from a French translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum, which included accretions from the Sepher Yetzirah and Judeo-Arabic mysticism, Hay described how Aesculapius hid Aristotle’s book in the Temple of Sun (Heliopolis in Egypt).[24]

Order of the Fleur de Lys

In 1418, the son of Robert II Stewart, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany (c. 1340 – 1420), appointed his son, John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Buchan (c. 1381 – 1424), Chamberlain of Scotland, to command a Scottish expeditionary force, the largest army that medieval Scotland had ever sent abroad, to help the King of France against the English. In 1425, from these forces, Charles VII of France, created an elite bodyguard of Scots known as the Garde Écossaise, the Scots Guard. The group formed themselves into what amounted to an independent mercenary company called Compagnie des gentilhommes Ecossais and wore a Fleur de Lys on their left breast to show that they owed allegiance to the King of France.[25]

Charles VII was the son of Charles VI, the brother of Jean de Berry, Philip the Bold and Marie of Valois. It was at Jean Duke Berry’s request Jean d’Arras wrote a long prose romance called the Roman de Mélusine or the Chronique de Melusine part of Le Noble Hystoire de Lusignan. D’Arras dedicated the work to Marie of Valois, Duchess of Bar, and expressed the hope that it would aid in the political education of her children. Marie married Robert I, Duke of Bar, grandson of Edward I, Count of Bar, grandson of Edward I, Count of Part, purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Their grandson of René of Anjou, another purported Grand Master of Priory of Sion. Charles VII married René’s sister, Marie of Anjou.

The Order of the Fleur de Lys was given its first Document in 1439 by René of Anjou. Francesco I Sforza, an original member of the Order of the Crescent, had later commanded René’s forces, which had included a large number of Scots mercenaries, against the Alfonso V of Aragon, member of the Order of the Dragon and a contender for the throne of Naples.[26] In his fight to gain the Kingdom of Naples, René had been supported by Cosimo de Medici the elder, whose descendants became Dukes of Florence and later Grand Dukes of Tuscany as well as John de Montgomery (c.1445 - c.1485), Constable of the Scots Guard. In 1358, Alexander Montgomery, son of Alexander de Montgomery of Egglesham, received a safe conduct from the English to “Go abroad” with a party of sixty mounted Templar Knights and Men-at-Arms. It seems that they went to join their brethren of the Order of the Sword in Lithuania, a daughter Order of the Templars.[27]

John, who would both succeed René and Cosimo as Grand Master of the Order of the Fleur de Lys, had come over to France in 1420 in the Scottish Contingent of 6,000 knights and men-at-arms together with the Earls of Douglas, Buchan, Mar and Murray. Charles VII picked a number, roughly one hundred of the best warriors, to be his personal body guard, which became known as the Garde Écossaise, or Scots Guard. They participated at the siege of Orleans alongside Rene d’Anjou and Joan of Arc in 1428. In 1445, John was killed and he was succeeded as Grand Master of the Order by Francesco’s son, Ludovico, Leonardo da Vinci’s chief patron, and husband of Beatrice d’Este.[28]

In 1444 members of the Order and the Company, had fought in what today we call Bosnia-Herzegovina, but which at that time was part of the Serbian Byzantine Empire and which was in the forefront of the fight against Islam. The Order succeeded in returning George Brankovich to the throne of Serbia and this event is still marked today by the Fleur-de-Lys Obelisk at Blatsha. In 1448, the Order found itself once again fighting in Serbia. The Army consisted of Hungarians, Wallachians and Knights of the Orders of the Dragon, the Order of the Crescent and the Order of the Lys. A number of Jewish warriors also joined one or other of the Orders, certainly the Lys, and fought or acted as physicians, alongside their Christian brethren. According to the order’s website, the reasons for this date back to the foundation of the Jewish Princedom of Septimania in the Languedoc region of Southern France in the eight century, who were ruled by the Kalonymos family, who claimed descent from Rabbi Makhir, purported father of Guillaume de Gellone. [29]

Many of the members who fought in the Balkans were descendants of Jews brought out of Spain and later Byzantium by the Medicis.  In 1490–1492, the Order of the Fleur de Lys became involved in moving large numbers of Jews out of Spain and Portugal and resettling them in the domains of the of the Medicis and those of René II of Lorraine (1451 – 1508), the son of René of Anjou’s daughter Yolanda of Bar, and Ferry II of Vaudémont, a member of her father’s Order of the Crescent with Franceso I Sforza.

Married twice, René II of Lorraine’s first wife was Jeanne d’Harcourt de Montgomery, Countess of Tancarville, daughter of René de Montgomery, René of Anjou’s godson, and son of John Montgomery. After Jeanne’s death, he married Phillipa of Guelders, the niece of James II’s wife Mary of Guelders. Philippa’s father was Adolf, Duke of Guelders, the son of Catherine of Cleves. René II was succeeded as Duke of Lorraine by his son, Antoine (1489 – 1544), who married Renee of Bourbon, the sister of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, the son of Federico I’s daughter Clara Gonzaga, and so linked three families who at one time or another had members who became Sovereign Grand Commanders of the Order of the Fleur de Lys.[30] René II succeeded Ludovico Sforza as Grand Master of the Order of the Lys. René, in turn, was succeeded by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, who was also a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Clara’s brother, Francesco II Gonzaga married Beatrice d’Este’s sister Isabella, and fathered Federico II Gonzaga. Isabella and Francesco II’s son, Ferrante, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece is listed as a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion after Da Vinci, and also succeeded his first cousin Charles III as Grand Master of the Order of the Fleur de Lys. Ferrante was succeeded as Grand Master of the Priory of Sion by his nephew Louis Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers.

House of Guise

Rene II of Lorraine’s second son, Claude, Duke of Guise (1496 – 1550), was the founder of a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine, the House of Guise. Claude entered French service and was made a duke by King Francis I, also a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and grandson of Philip II, Duke of Savoy, a claiming of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Francis I married Claude of France, whose father, Louis XII of France, was the son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and Marie of Cleves, the sister of Catherine of Cleves. Claude of France’s sister Renée of France, was married to Ercole II d’Este, the eldest son of Alfonso I d’Este and the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Claude of Guise’s brother was Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine (1498 – 1550), who was named Abbot Commendatory of the Abbey of Cluny by his friend Francis I. Jean was also a friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam and François Rabelais, author of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Jean was succeeded by Marie’s brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (1524 – 1574), who was Rabelais’ protector. Their brother, Francis, Duke of Guise (1519 – 1563) married Anna d’Este, daughter of the Ercole II d’Este and Renée.

Genealogy of Marie of Guise

• René of Anjou (Grand Master of the Priory of Sion) + Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine

  • Margaret of Anjou + Henry VI of England

    • Edward, Prince of Wales

  • Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine + Frederick II of Vaudémont

    • René II, Duke of Lorraine + Philippa of Guelders

      • Claude, Duke of Guise + Antoinette de Bourbon

        • MARIE DE GUISE + James V, King of Scotland

          • Mary, Queen of Scots + Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

            • JAMES VI OF SCOTLAND (later James I of England) + Anne of Denmark

    • Jeanne of Lorraine + Charles IV, Duke of Anjou

    • Yolande of Lorraine + William II, Landgrave of Hesse

The House of Guise claimed descent from Charlemagne and harbored pretensions to the French crown. According to Edward Gelles, “In the days of Charlemagne an ancient Davidic blood connection was clearly valued by the aristocracy.”[31] In L’Auguste Maison de Lorraine, by J. de Pange, with introduction by Otto von Habsburg, whose ancient titles included Duke of Lorraine and King of Jerusalem, records that Francis’s and Anna d’Este’s son Henry I, Duke of Guise (1550 – 1588), was welcomed by cries of Hosanna filio David (“Hosanna the son of David”) on entering the town of Joinville in Champagne.[32]

Claude was the father of Marie de Guise who recruited the chemist and astrology Girolamo Cardano (1501 – 1576), hoping to make use of his expertise in Hermetic medicine, military engineering, and masonic fortification in her struggle against England.[33] Cardano was one of the most influential mathematicians of the Renaissance. He was born in Pavia, Lombardy, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano, a close personal friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Cardano was the author of a book on algebra titled Ars Magna (“The Great Art”), which is considered one of the three greatest scientific treatises of the early Renaissance, together with Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium and Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica. Though Cardano was denounced as a “Papist magician” by Reformers, Marie believed he could provide similar services to Scotland as Nostradamus did for the Guises in France. Cardano met Nostradamus and was aware of his Jewish ancestry and of his boast that he inherited the prophetic powers of the “tribe of Issacher.”[34] Cardano himself explored Kabbalistic theosophy, which he utilized for magical experiments.[35] In the nineteenth century, Masonic historian J.M. Ragon, would claim that Cardano made a significant contribution to Masonic “science.”[36]

According to the order’s own history, an important event in the history of the Order of the Fleur de Lys was the marriage of Marie de Guise to James V of Scotland (1512 – 1542), a member of the Order of the Garter and knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. James V was the son of King James IV of Scotland and his wife Margaret Tudor, a daughter of Henry VII of England, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Margaret’s mother was Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, who was widely suspected of being a witch. Elizabeth of Woodville’s mother Jacquetta belonged to the House of Luxembourg and was a fourth cousin twice removed of Emperor Sigismund. Jacquetta was the great-great-granddaughter of Marie of Valois, Duchess of Bar and Robert I, Duke of Bar. As a consequence, the Order of the Fleur de Lys needed to protect this major branch of the House of Guise-Lorraine and it switched its main base from France to Scotland. From that point forward, nearly all the Grand Master were Scots with the only exceptions being members of the Guise Lorraine families themselves.[37]

Francis I died in 1547 and was succeeded by Henry II, who was even more severe against the Protestants than his father had been. However, the accidental death of Henry II in 1559 created a political vacuum that encouraged the rise of factions eager to grasp power. Henry II, who was made a knight of the Order of the Garter, married Catherine de Medici, great-granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, grandson of Cosimo de Medici the Elder. Catherine, a leading sponsor of Nostradamus, was also a practitioner of the Black Mass.

In 1548, Marie Guise had been brought to France under the escort of the Scots Guard, whose captain, Gabriel de Montgomery (1530 – 1574), a senior member of the Order of the Fleur de Lys, was a close friend of Henry II.[38] Montgomery is remembered for mortally injuring Henry II in a jousting accident. In their final pass, Montgomery's lance splintered into two shards, with one going through the Henry II’s visor hitting his eye, while the other lodged in his temple. Henry II’s death was widely believed to have been foretold by Nostradamus, who wrote: “The young lion will overcome the older one, On the field of combat in a single battle; He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage, Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death.”[39]

Upon Henry II’s death in 1559, Catherine de Medici became regent of their sons in succession, Francis II, and King Charles IX, and she played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III of France (1551 – 1589). During Francis II’s reign, the House of Guise attained supreme power, and sought to convert it to true kingship by eradicating the House of Bourbon. Although Francis II was then only fifteen years old, the House of Guise had an advantage in his marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, who was their niece, as the daughter of James V and Marie Guise. Within days of the Francis II’s accession, the English ambassador reported that “the house of Guise ruleth and doth all about the French King.”[40]

Francis II’s ascension to the throne began a period of political instability that ultimately led to the French Wars of Religion, a prolonged period of war and popular unrest between Catholics and Huguenots in the Kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598. It is considered the second deadliest religious war in European history, after the Thirty Years’ War. Foreign allies provided financing and other assistance to both sides, with Habsburg Spain and the Duchy of Savoy supporting the Guises. Much of the conflict took place during the long regency of Catherine de Medici, widow of Henry II, for her minor sons, the last Valois kings: Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. Catherine, who was initially lenient towards the Protestants, later hardened her stance and, at the time of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572, sided with the Guises.

Catherine de Medici also reportedly taught the black arts to their son and successor Henry III. During the later years of Henry III’s reign, the House of Guise was on the verge of succeeding to the throne of France. The death of the royal heir-presumptive, Henry's younger brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou, in 1584, which made the Protestant King Henry of Navarre heir to the French throne, led to a new civil war, the War of the Three Henries, the eighth conflict in the Wars of Religion, with King Henry III of France, Henry I, Duke of Guise, and Henry of Navarre (1553 – 1610), of the House of Bourbon, all fighting for control of France. The senior line of the House of Bourbon became extinct in the male line in 1527 with the death of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, when he was killed commanding the troops of Emperor Charles V in the Sack of Rome. This made the junior Bourbon-Vendôme branch the genealogically senior branch of the House of Bourbon, from which descended Charles de Bourbon, the son of Jacquetta of Luxembourg’s brother, Peter II of Luxembourg, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and his wife Marguerite of Savoy, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy and Anne of Lusignan. Charles’s son, Henry of Navarre.

Henry I, Duke of Guise, began the war by declaring the unacceptability of Navarre as King of France. Henry I was the leader of the Catholic League, funded and supported by Philip II of Spain, Pope Sixtus V and the Jesuits. The war was instigated by Philip II to keep his enemy, France, from interfering with the Spanish army in the Netherlands and his planned invasion of England with the Spanish Armada in 1588. The war began when the Catholic League convinced King Henry III to issue an edict outlawing Protestantism and annulling Henry of Navarre's right to the throne. To avenge Henry I’s death, Jacques Clément, a fanatical member of the Catholic League, assassinated King Henry III in 1589.

According to Salic law, Henry II’s distant cousin and brother-in-law, Henry of Navarre, because Henry IV of France, the first King of France from the House of Bourbon. Henry IV converted to Catholicism in 1593, and signed the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which recognized the Protestant Huguenots, marking the end the French Wars of Religion. Henry IV’s marriage to Margaret of Valois was annulled in 1599, and he married a second time a year later to Marie de Medici, the daughter of Francesco I de Medici, the son of Cosimo I de Medici, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, who like his son was avidly interested in alchemy. Marie de Medici’s mother was Joanna of Austria, daughter of Philip II’s uncle Emperor Ferdinand I and Anna Jagellonica, great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Sigismund. Marie de Medici’s uncle was Emperor Maximilian II, the father of Rudolf II, who maintained the occult-oriented court at Prague which attracted John Dee and resulted in the founding of the Rosicrucian movement.

Schaw Statutes

The daughter James V and Marie Guise was Mary Queen of Scots (1542 – 1587), who married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545 – 1567), to father James VI of Scotland (1566 – 1625), later King James I of England. During his James VI’ childhood, his chief tutor was George Buchanan (1506 – 1582), who according to historian Keith Brown, was “the most profound intellectual sixteenth century Scotland produced.”[41] Buchanan, who would subsequently influence the Judaizing trend of James’ studies and religious practices, praised his teacher Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1450 – 1536) for “bringing light out of darkness.”[42]

Throughout this period, explains Schuchard, many important Scots studied in Paris and participated in the “tremendous revival of Lullism” led by Lefèvre, who established a chair of Lullist studies at the Sorbonne.[43] Lefèvre had met in Italy with Pico della Mirandola, who argued that Lullism was a form of Kabbalah. Lull further hoped that illuminated craftsmen would join similarly the Templars and Hospitallers in an international crusade to recover Jerusalem, convert Jews and Muslims, and establish a universalist religion.[44] Returning to Paris, Lefèvre published Lull’s works on the crusading orders, visionary techniques, and mystical numerology, making the first recorded reference to the Kabbalah in France.

Lefèvre advanced the idea that the aim of the Hebrew sages was “to translate the Cabala of letters into the secret magical philosophy of numbers,” which was the source of “the secret philosophy of Pythagoras.”[45] Developing the numerical-linguistic permutations of the Sepher Yetzirah, Lefèvre also experimented with the architectural visualizations involved in Jewish Temple mysticism, as suggested by a passage in his treatise, De Magia Naturalis:

Heaven imprints on the minds of those influenced by [the constellation] Pegasus a true outline of future events. Just as the architect, before he puts up a building, makes preparatory drawings from which he can visualize the structure that his fellow citizens will eventually see in reality, so heaven can instruct the eye of the mind to see past, present, and future.[46]

As reported by Marsha Keith Schuchard, from the sixteenth-century, the Stuart kings of Scotland were actively involved in ambitious architectural projects, and they worked closely with “operative” Masons, whose traditional craft lore drew on the Sepher Yetzirah and other works of Jewish mathematical-architectural mysticism and visualization.[47] As Moshe Idel explained, the mystical language of the Sepher Yetzirah has a “masonic” function, for the letters and words serve as building blocks:

Letters are regarded as stones, as full-fledged entities, as components intended to build up an edifice of words to serve as a temple for God and a place of encountering Him for the Mystic. After the Temple was destroyed...man is supposed to rebuild the Temple in his ritual use of language… The  “masonic” aspects of the divine and human activity reveal a hidden and mighty dimension of the Hebrew letters… [which enable] operations that can bridge the gap between the human—or the material—and the divine.[48]

David Seton of Parbroath (d. 1601), Grand Master of the Order of the Fleur de Lys, was made Chamberlain of Dunfermline for James VI’s wife Anne of Denmark, an office which passed to William Schaw (c. 1550 – 1602), a founding figure in the development of Freemasonry in Scotland. The Setons were at one time considered one of the most influential families in Scotland. Sir Christopher Seton had been in attendance when Robert the Bruce murdered John Comyn and was also present at Bruce’s coronation at Scone in 1306. The Setons signed the Declaration of Arbroath together with other prominent Scottish families. In 1345, Alexander de Seton is mentioned in a charter as a Templar knight. When the Templars were deprived of their patrimonial interest by their last Grand Master, Sir James Sandilands (c. 1511 – c. 1579 or c. 1596), they parted as a separate body, with David Seton, Grand Prior of Scotland at their head.[49]

James VI appointed Schaw, as King’s Master of, Master of Works, and he worked closely with him in architectural, political, and diplomatic affairs.[50] Since his youth at Marie de Guise’s court, Schaw was familiar with Cardano’s advocacy of the importance of the work of Lull, as James as well was a student of Cardano’s writings.[51] In 1588, Schaw was amongst a group of Catholics ordered to appear before the Edinburgh Presbytery, and English agents reported him as being a suspected Jesuit and holding anti-English views during the 1590s.[52] In 1598, in conference with the masters of lodges in southeast Scotland, Schaw produced a set of regulations for the governance of masons and their lodges now known as the Schaw Statutes.

In 1583, Schaw had accompanied the Scottish alchemist Alexander Seton (1555 – 1622) on his father’s embassy to France. Seton would later serve as Lord President of the Court of Session from 1598 to 1604, Lord Chancellor of Scotland from 1604 to 1622 and as a Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland. His was regarded as one of the finest legal minds of the time, and he became an advisor to James VI and guardian and tutor to Prince Charles, then called the Duke of Albany. Seton had developed his method by studying the “profound Ramon Lull.” While travelling on through Europe, Seton impressed his audiences with his transmutations that reportedly turned lead into gold.[53]

Seton’s assistant was William Hamilton, whose red hair provoked attention because of the European tradition that red hair and freckles were signs of Jewishness.[54] Seton’s fame led to his imprisonment and torture by Christian II, Elector of Saxony, who was determined to acquire the secret of his alchemical powder. After the frightened Hamilton escaped and returned to Scotland, Seton was rescued by the famous alchemist Michael Sendivogius (1566 – 1636), who carried him off to Krakow. A pioneer of chemistry, Sendivogius discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substance-later called oxygen, 170 years before Scheele’s discovery of the element. Sendivogius later married Seton’s widow, who handed over her husband’s alchemical manuscript, which Sendivogius published as Novum Lumen Chymicum.

Sir William Sinclair

In 1599, two lodges, Aitchison’s Haven and Edinburgh were incepted and the Lodge of Haddington appears on records. In the same year, a second code of statues by Schaw was issued partly addressed to the Kilwinning Lodge and mentioning also the lodges of Edinburgh and Stirling. The Second Schaw Statutes specified that, “ye warden of ye lug of Kilwynning” to “tak tryall of ye airt of memorie and science yrof, of everie fellowe of craft and everie prenteiss according to ayr of yr vocations.”[55] In 1600 or 1601, Schaw and representatives of the five lodges confirmed the position of William Sinclair of Roslin as hereditary patron of the craft. After presiding over the order for many years, William Sinclair went to Ireland, and in 1630 a second charter was issued, granting to his son, Sir William Sinclair, the same power with which his father had been invested. Revealing her affiliation to the bloodline, in 1546, Marie Guise had signed an unusual Bond and Obligation to Sir William Sinclair: “In likewise that we sall be Leal and trew Maistres to him, his Counsill and Secret shewn to us we sall keep secret, and in all mattres gif to him the best and trewest Counsell we can as we sall be requirite thereto… and sall be reddy att all tymes to maintain and defend him…”[56]

Sir William Sinclair, who was Lord Justice General of Scotland at the time, did not agree with persecutions meted against the Gypsies, and defied a ban and allowed their plays to continue in Roslin Glen. The connection would later fuel speculation of the Gypsies’ association with the Tarot, first examples of which were the Visconti-Sfora deck, commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti and Francesco I Sforza, a member of the Order of the Crescent, founded by René of Anjou. James V was equally well tolerant towards the Gypsies, at a time when they were being increasingly persecuted throughout Europe. During the reign of Henry VIII of England, the Egyptians Act of 1530 banned Romanies from entering the country and required those already living there to leave within sixteen days. During the reign of Bloody Mary, the act was amended with the Egyptians Act of 1554, which complained that “Egyptians” were plying their “devilish and naughty practices and devices.” However, the new act allowed the Gypsies to escape prosecution as long as they abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and their “naughty, idle and ungodly life and company.” However, in 1540, James V had signed a writ granting protection to “our lovit Johnnie Faa, Lord and Erle of Littil Egipt.” In 1553, this protection of the “Gypsy King” was renewed during the minority of Mary, Queen of Scots.[57]

As noted by Marsha Keith Schuchard, “It is perhaps relevant that the gypsies were believed to possess the occult secrets of the ancient Egyptians, which they preserved through the Middle Ages.”[58] It is well documented that the Sinclairs allowed gypsies to live on their land in Midlothian at a time when they were outlawed elsewhere in Scotland.[59] Sinclair was documented to “delivered once ane Egyptian from the gibbet.”[60] Today a permanent exhibition at Rosslyn is devoted to this unusual relationship. In May of each year, until the Protestant Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century, the Sinclairs sponsored an annual festival held in Roslin Glen. A variety of plays, in particular, Robin Hood and Little John, were performed by Gypsies. Rosslyn Castle had two towers, one named Robin Hood and the other Little John. In 1555, the Scottish Parliament passed severe legislation against the gypsies, including a ban on the play Robin Hood and Little John. On Corpus Christi Day in 1584, a number of Gypsies, fleeing persecution, sought refuge with the knights of the Order Santiago, of which Rosslyn Chapel’s founder, Sir William St. Clair, was a member.[61]

Mason King

James VI was initiated in the lodge at Perth around 1600, and brought Scottish Masonic interests to London.[62] In approximately 1601, James VI of Scotland asked to be admitted into the masonic lodge at Perth, and he continued to participate in the fraternity’s affairs through the rest of his reign.[63] The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617, and styled himself “King of Great Britain and Ireland.” After becoming king, James proclaimed himself “Great Britain’s Solomon.” Many of James’ new English subjects openly ridiculed his Jewish identification and mocked his aversion to pork; and his natural magic and second sight.[64]

James VI had translated the poetry of Guillaume de Salluste, Sieur de Bartas (1544 – 1590, a French Protestant, who included the Solomonic themes and terminology of operative masonry in his magnum opus, the Semaines (“Weeks”), two epic poems which freely expand on the account in the Book of Genesis of the creation of the world and the first eras of world history. James VI translated Du Bartas’ Uranie, which reinforced for his conceptions of architectural and masonic revival:

...Hirams holy help it war unknowne
What he in building Izraels Temple had showne,
Without Gods Ark Beseleel Jewe had bene
In everlasting silence buried clene.
Then, since the bewty of those works most rare
Hath after death made live all them that ware
Their builders; though them selves with tyme be failde,
By spoils, by fyres, by warres, and tempests quailde.[65]

            Of particular relevance was the section of Semaines called “The Columnes,” in which Du Bartas argued that the masonic traditions of Seth’s two pillars were preserved by the Jewish Kabbalists. Drawing on the Sepher Yetzirah, Du Bartas described the number mysticism which could produce great architecture. In 1587, James VI invited Du Bartas to Scotland, where they translated each other’s works and exchanged ideas about God as Divine Architect, Solomon as visionary architect, and Kabbalists as masonic word-builders.[66] James VI was at the time reading French editions of the Book of Maccabees, Philo, Josephus, and Leo Hebraeus, or Judah Leon Abravanel ((c. 1460 – c. 1530), the son of Isaac Abarbanel.[67] When Du Bartas returned to France, he praised James VI as the embodiment of the great Jewish kings, referring to him as “the Scottish, or rather th' Hebrew David,” whose religious poetry “shal sound in high-built Temples”:

For He (I hope) who no lesse good then wise,
First stirr'd us up to this great Enterprise,
And gave us hart to take the same in hand,
For Levell, Compasse, Rule, and Squire will stand;
And will not suffer in this pretious Frame
Ought that a skilfull Builders eye may blame...[68]

James was defended by John Gordon (1544 – 1619), a Scottish Hebraist and friend of Du Bartas, who was named Dean of Salisbury by the king.[69] In 1565, Gordon had been sent to pursue his education in France, having a yearly pension granted him by Mary, Queen of Scots. In June 1565 he was sent to pursue his education in France, having a yearly pension granted him by Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary commended him to the French king, and he enjoyed the post of gentleman ordinary of the privy chamber to Charles IX, Henry III, and Henry IV. In 1574, he exhibited his Hebrew learning in a public disputation at Avignon with the chief rabbi Benetrius. His second wife Genevieve Petau de Maulette taught French to James’ daughter Princess Elizabeth.

In Enotikon, or a Sermon on Great Britain (1604), Gordon explained how “the order Architectonicke of building” is based on Hebrew traditions of Kabbalistic word-building, which justify the king’s building projects and ceremony.[70] A critic complained that “Deane Gordon, preaching before the king,” used “certain hebrue characters, and other cabalisticall collections” to approve Papist-style art and ceremonies.[71] The “Judaizing” Gordon devoted much and time expense to the masonic repair of the Gothic cathedral at Salisbury. Further support came from Joshua Sylvester, who dedicated to James his English translation of Du Bartas's Divine Weeks (1605), which featured an architectural poem in the shape of two pillars that form a temple and another that forms a pyramid--both emblematic of the Temple of Jerusalem.[72]

James was a knowledgeable scholar in his own right, being the author of works such as Daemonologie (1597), The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), and Basilikon Doron (1599). James’ interest in witchcraft, which he considered a branch of theology, was sparked by his visit to Denmark, which was rife with witch-trials.[73] James’ obsession with the subject was revealed in his Daemonologie, a tract inspired by his personal involvement in Scottish. Daemonologie is a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic. Included is a study on demonology and the methods demons used to harass human beings, also touching on topics such as werewolves and vampires. Its intended purpose was to educate Christian society on the history, practices and implications of sorcery and the reasons for persecuting witches under the rule of canonical law.

[1] Alan Macquarrie. Scotland and the Crusades, 1095-1560 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1985), pp. 10, 14-17.

[2]. J. Toland. Reasons, p.37.

[3] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 61.

[4] John S. Torell. “How World Government Rules the Nations.” European-American Evangelistic Crusades, Inc. July 1999 Newsletter. http://www.eaec.org/newsletters/1999/NL1999jul.htm

[5] Philip Coppens. The Stone Puzzle of Rosslyn Chapel (Adventures Unlimited Press, 2004).

[6] Napier. A to Z of the Knights Templar.

[7] G.A. Campbell. Knights Templar: Their Rise and Fall (Literary Licensing, LLC, 2013), p. 335.

[8] Rev. A Maclean-Sinclair. The Sinclairs of Roslin, Caithness and Goshen (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island: The Examiner Publishing Company, 1901).

“Family Stories - William 'the Conqueror.” St. Clair Research. Retrieved from http://www.stclairresearch.com/content/storiesConqueror.html

[9] George of Plean Way & Romilly of Rubislaw Squire. Collins Scottish Clan & Family Encyclopedia (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1994). pp. 322–323.

[10] Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman & Donald N. Yates. When Scotland Was Jewish: DNS Evidence, Archeology, Analysis of Migrations, and Public and Family Records Show Twelfth Century Semitic Roots (McFarland & Company, 2006) p. 31.

[11] Ralls. The Templars and the Grail, p. 117.

[12] p. 317.

[13] Marsha Keith Schuchard. Masonic Rivalries and Literary Politics: From Jonathan Swift to Henry Fielding (CreateSpace, 2018).

[14]. J. Swift, Works, V, 328-29.

[15] Mark Strachan. Saints, Monks and Knights (North Ayrshire Council, 2009) , p. 7

[16] Hugh Young. “A Brief History of Lodge Mother Kilwinning No. 0.” Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/www/Masonry/Reports/kilw.html

[17] Ronald McNair Scott. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots (Canongate Books, 1999), p. 196.

[18] A. A. M. Duncan. “Bernard (d. 1330/31).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

[19] Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, ed. Francis H. Groome (Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh, 1882-1885).

[20] James Paterson. History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. V. - II - Cunninghame. (Edinburgh: J. Stillie, 1863–66), p. 482.

[21] Kilwinning Past and Present. Kilwinning and District Preservation Society (1990), Section 8.15.

[22]. Historical Manuscripts Commission 29: 13th Report, Appendix ii, Portland MSS. (1893-94), II, 56.

[23]. Gilbert Hay, The Buik of King Alexander the Conqueror, ed. John Cartwright (Edinburgh: Scottish Texts Society, 1986), XVI, ix-xx, 8, 12; XVIII, 22-23.

[24]. G. Hay, Prose, I, ix; W.F. Ryan and Charles Schmitt. Pseudo-Aristotle, the Secret of Secrets: Sources and Influences (London: Warburg Institute, l982), 55-72.

[25] “The History of the Order of the Fleur-de-Lys.” Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/

[26] “The History of the Order of the Fleur-de-Lys.” Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/

[27] “The History of the Order of the Fleur-de-Lys.” Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/

[28] “The History of the Order of the Fleur-de-Lys.” Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/

[29] “Cosimo de Medici and the Sforzas.” Retrieved from

https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/cosimo-de-medici-and-the-sforzas/

[30] “Rene de Lorraine“ The Order of the Fleur de Lys. Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/rene-de-lorraine/

[31] Edward Gelles. The Jewish Journey (Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition), p. 57.

[32] Edward Gelles. The Jewish Journey (Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition), p. 62.

[33]. For his experience in Scotland, see Jerome Cardan. The Book of My Life, trans. Jean Stoner (New York: E.P. Dutton, l930), 16, 97, 130, 299 n. 20.

[34]. Harry Friedenwald. The Jews and Medicine (l944; rpt. New York: Ktav, l967), I, 232, 246.

[35] Marsha Keith Schuchard. “Judaized Scots, Jacobite Jews, and the Development of Cabalistic Freemasonry.” Revision of Paper Presented at Symposium on “Western Esotericism and Jewish Mysticism,” 18th International Congress of International Association for History of Religions (Durban, South Africa, August 2000).

[36]. J.M. Ragon. De la Maçonnerie Occulte et de l'Initiation Hermétique, rev. ed. Oswald Wirth (Paris: Émile Nourry, l926), 66-67.

[37] “The History of the Order of the Fleur-de-Lys.” Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/

[38] Baigent & Leigh. Temple and the Lodge, p. 154.

[39] Baigent & Leigh. Temple and the Lodge, p. 154.

[40] Robert J. Knecht. The French Wars of Religion 1559–1598. Seminar Studies in History, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman., 1996), p. 195.

[41] Keith M Brown. “Reformation to Union, 1560–1707,” in R.A. Houston and W. W. J. Knox, eds., The New Penguin History of Scotland (2001), p. 185.

[42]. P. Hume Brown, George Buchanan: Humanist and Reformer (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1890), 18; I.D. Macfarlane, Buchanan (London: Duckworth, 1981), 4-5, 40-41; John Durkan, "Buchanan's Judaizing Practices,” Innes Review, 15 (1964), 186-87.

[43] Keith Schuchard. “Judaized Scots, Jacobite Jews, and the Development of Cabalistic Freemasonry.”

[44]. J.N. Hillgarth. Ramon Lull and Lullism in Fourteenth-Century France (Oxford: Clarendon, l971), 214-15; Anthony Bonner, Selected Works of Ramon Llull (Princeton: Princeton UP, l985), I, 292n.26.

[45]. Philip E. Hughes. Lefèvre: Pioneer of Ecclesiastical Renewal in France (Grand Rapids: W.E. Eerdmans, l984), p. 19, 24.

[46]. Eugene Rice, “The De Magia Naturalis of Jacque Lefèvre d'Etaples,” in Philosophy and Humanism: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. E.P. Mahony (New York: Columbia UP, l976), p. 23.

[47] Marsha Keith Schuchard. “Dr. Samuel Jacob Falk: A Sabbatian Adventurer in the Masonic Underground.” Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, Volume I, p. 207.

[48] Moshe Idel, “The Reification of Language," in Mysticism and Language, ed. Steven Katz (New York, l992), p. 43.

[49] George Seton. A History of the Family Seton during eight centuries (Edinburgh: T. & A. Constable, 1896).

[50]. David Stevenson. The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's century 1590 - 1710, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 26-28.

[51]. James VI, New Poems of James I of England, ed. Allan Westcott (New York: AMS, l966), xxi-xxii, 80-81; and Minor Prose Works of James VI and I, eds. James Craigie and Alexander Law (Edinburgh: Scottish Texts Society, l982), 9.

[52] Stevenson. The Origins of Freemasonry. p. 28.

[53] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 281.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Second Schaw Statutes.

[56] Richard Augustine Hay. Genealogie of the Sainteclaires of Rosslyn (Edinburgh: Thomas G. Stevenson, 1835), p. 134.

[57] “The Gypsies of Roslin Glen.” The Secrets of Rosslyn, p. 14. Retrieved from https://erenow.net/common/the-secrets-of-rosslyn/14.php

[58] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 236.

[59] The Newsroom. “Rosslyn, Templars, Gypsies and the Battle of Bannockburn.” The Scotsman (November 9, 2005). Retrieved from https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/rosslyn-templars-gypsies-and-battle-bannockburn-2463275

[60] Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision, p. 236.

[61] Ralls. The Templars and the Grail.

[62] R.S. Mylne. The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1893), pp. 128-30.

[63]. Claim made in masonic document dated 1658; quoted in Robert Mylne. The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland and Their Works (Edinburgh, 1893), pp. 128-30; Anderson claimed that “Claude Hamilton Lord Paisley (Progenitor of our late Grand Master Lord Abercorn)” presided over James VI’s initiation; see Constitutions (1738), 91.

[64]. A. Williamson. “A Pil,” pp. 245-47; James Harington. The Letters and Epigrams of Sir James Harington, ed. N.E. McClure (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP, l930), pp. 110-11.

[65]. James VI. The Poems of James VI of Scotland, ed. James Craigie (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, l955), I, pp. 31-32.

[66]. ibid., I, 117, 119, 218, 274-75, 295, 328; II, 431-37, 490, 673, 717.

[67]. George Warner. The Library of James VI, 1573-1583. Miscellany of Scottish Historical Society, XV (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1893), pp. xxvi, l-liii.

[68]. Du Bartas. Divine Weeks, II, pp. 490-91.

[69]. Dorothy Quinn. “The Career of John Gordon, Dean of Salsibury, 1603-1619,” The Historian, 6 (1943), pp. 76-96.

[70]. John Gordon, Enotikon (London: George Bishop, 1604), pp. 2-3, 22-26, 33-41.

[71]. V. Hart. Art and Magic, p. 111.

[72]. G. Parry. The Golden Age Restor'd: The Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603-42 (New York: St. Martin's, l983), p. 24.

[73] David Harris Willson. [1956], King James VI & I (London: Jonathan Cape 1963), p. 103.

Volume One

Introduction

1. Babylon

2. Ancient Greece

3. The Hellenistic Age

4. The Book of Revelation

5. Gog and Magog

6. Eastern Mystics

7. Septimania

8. Princes' Crusade

9. The Reconquista

10. Ashkenazi Hasidim

11. The Holy Grail

12. Camelot

13. Perceval

14. The Champagne Fairs

15. Baphomet

16. The Order of Santiago

17. War of the Roses

18. The Age of Discovery

19. Renaissance & Reformation

20. Kings of Jerusalem

21. The Mason Word

22. The Order of the Dragon