A TALE OF TWO PRINCES Part One: The Life and Times of HRH Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, Provincial Grand Master, Oxfordshire 1876-1884. W Bro Dennis G Perrin PJGD. Copies from the author at 4 Le Boulevard, La Grande Route des Sablons, Grouville, Jersey JE3 9FN. £5.00 (inc p&p). Cheques to ‘DG Perrin’. All proceeds to the RMBI.

We must all be grateful to W Bro Perrin for cramming so much information into the 43 pages of this booklet. The all too brief masonic career of HRH Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany (1853-1884), fourth son of Queen Victoria, is a worthy subject and this opus will stand as an invaluable reference work for years to come.
    Prince Leopold’s family was drenched in Masonry. As Perrin writes: “Going back to the early 18th century, we find he had two great great great uncles, three great great uncles, a maternal grandfather and five great uncles, two uncles and two older brothers all of whom were kings, princes or dukes of the British Royal Family and all of whom held up to the highest offices in English Freemasonry.” Six years after the King of Sweden initiated his brother Edward Prince of Wales in St John’s Lodge, Stockholm, Prince Leopold came to the masonic light on 1 May 1874 at Oxford’s Apollo University Lodge No 357. Less than two years later, he was installed as Provincial Grand Master for Oxfordshire at a ceremony held in the magnificent Sheldonian Theatre. Before one wonders about the place of equality of opportunity in the Craft, it should be appreciated that the Prince’s elevation led to a remarkable rise both in masonic membership and seriousness in the Province, following a long period of demotivating apathy and sluggishness. Things can move fast in Masonry, given the right impetus. The present Prince of Wales might well consider how he has missed out on a great spiritual and social resource by breaking with family tradition and eschewing the Craft. His loss is ours also, judging by the electrifying masonic career of Prince Leopold. His decade of masonic life brought him to the Royal Arch, Mark (he was the first of the Queen’s sons to enter the degree), Knights Templar and the Ancient & Accepted Rite (33º). He died suddenly after a short life of delicate health and refined sensibility on 28 March 1884 – much mourned and much loved.
    The booklet contains two fascinating appendices on contemporary reports of the Prince’s Installation as PGM for Oxfordshire and the laying of the foundation stone of the Banbury Masonic Hall on Friday 17 November 1882, when the Prince made a moving speech on the true value of the Craft, as valid today as it was on that cold day over a century ago. I was particularly struck by a message sent by George Tamaio 33º of the Italian Grand Orient to the Installation at Oxford on 23 February 1876: “Happy the people among whom men of the loftiest social standing appreciate and practice the grand principles of that humanitarian progress which it is the object of Masonry to vindicate and to diffuse throughout the civilised world!” Masonic history, rightly understood, gives us all the ammunition required in our own hour of need.
    Tobias Churton.