It is well known that the origins of modern Freemasonry are still shrouded in mystery. On the face of it, it would appear there is little early evidence of the movement before 1717, with the notable exception of the making of Elias Ashmole as a ‘Free Mason’ on the 16th October 1646, at Warrington in Cheshire. Yet in the course of researching a forthcoming book, I have discovered new material that may cast some further light on the origins of our craft and which also helps to expose some fatal flaws in the accepted reasoning of how Freemasonry emerged.
    Traditionally, as little is known about the other members Ashmole’s lodge, it is widely believed that it was an early form of ‘speculative’ lodge, and therefore distinct from a craft organisation. Following this line of thought, it is also suggested that Ashmole was a ‘speculative’ mason. But what exactly does this mean?
    The earliest apparent use of the term is thought to have occurred in a letter written by Dr. Manningham, Deputy Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge in London, who was writing to a Bro Sauer at the Hague on the 12th July, 1757. Ever since, this term has been unquestioningly taken by generations of writers to mean that a speculative mason is not an actual working mason. However, in 1703 a book was published whose fifth section deals with the ‘Freemason’s Work’, and under the heading of ‘House’ construction its says:
    “Some ingenious Workmen understand the Speculative Part of Architecture or Building: But of these knowing sort of Artificers there are few because few workmen look any further than the Mechanical, Practick or Working part of Architecture; not regarding the Mathematical or Speculative part of Building, …” (Richard Neve, The City and Country Purchaser and Builders’ Dictionary: or the Compleat Builders’ Guide. Pub: TN Philomath, London, 1703,p.143)
    So when we refer to ourselves as speculative rather than operative, I believe we are making an erroneous distinction. Craftsmen could also speculate. I would therefore suggest that the original term of ‘Free and Accepted’ is most probably a more accurate description of the modern craft. But what does Free and Accepted mean?

Free and Accepted

The term Freemason originally emerged in late 14th century England, and was almost certainly an abbreviation of the term ‘freestone mason’. Freestone is a special type of lime or sandstone ideal for sculpting, because it is free of natural faults, so the carver does not have to follow any inherent lines. Due to the superior nature of these materials, the men who worked with them were usually the highest qualified in the masons’ craft, and it is from their ranks that the majority of masters were appointed. The guild system in England, like the term freemason, also emerged during the 14th century and in 1472 The London Company of Freemasons was awarded its Arms (see above, left).
    The skill of the freemason reached its zenith in the final stages of the uniquely English style of perpendicular, a style of great complexity, visible today at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge and the Henry VII Chapel, in Westminster Abbey. The Henry VII Chapel appears to have been a fitting end to the style of perpendicular gothic in England, and with the arrival of the first wave of immigrant craftsmen it began to give way to other architectural fashions.
    Great changes were also brought as a result of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, and most craftsmen began to rely upon the patronage of rich merchants or the landed aristocracy, working on their country houses and monumental tombs. Yet, in spite of these changes the term Freemason survived and in London the Freemasons and Marbelers merged for a period into one company.
    At the dawn of the 17th century the term freemason was in common use in many parts of the country, and “the London Company of ffreemasons” consisted of a master, two wardens, a court of assistants, (the ruling body), a livery, and a body of freemen or yeomanry. It was amid this cultural milieu that the west-country mason Nicholas Stone was indentured and learnt his craft, before rising to become one of England’s most celebrated sculptors, and whose story may offer a fresh insight into the way we view the origins of the modern craft.

Nicholas Stone

Nicholas Stone was born in 1586, and is traditionally thought to have been the son of an Exeter quarryman of Woodbury, Devon. At a relatively tender age, the young Nicholas went to seek a career in London before travelling to Holland as the apprentice of the Dutch sculptor Hendrik de Keyser. Stone worked with the Dutch family for a number of years and ended up marrying de Keyser’s daughter Maria. By Dutch law his father’s consent was required for the marriage, which appears to have been attested by John Bury, the vicar of Sidbury, and it is believed that Stone’s father was then living there. Although Sidbury church was tragically destroyed by fire in the 19th century along with all its records, there is a plaque in the chancel of the local church of St. Giles believed to be that of Stone’s father. The inscription’s union of craft and symbolic (speculative) elements makes both interesting and suggestive reading:

An epitaph upon ye Life and Death
of JOHN STONE, FREEMASON, who,
Departed Ys Life ye first of January, 1617,
& Lyeth heer under buried.
On our great Corner Stone this Stone relied,
For blessing to his building loving most,
to build God’s Temples, in which workes he dyed, and lived the Temple, of the Holy Ghost, in whose lov’d life is proved and Honest Fame, God can of Stones raise seede to Abraham.

In 1615 Nicholas Stone returned to London and established himself in an atelier situated in west-end of Long Acre near Covent Garden, being recorded as a ‘citizen and freemason of London’. In the same year he was actively engaged on an inspiring monument dedicated to Henry, 1st Earl of Northampton, which incorporated figures intended to represent the cardinal virtues: temperance, fortitude, prudence and justice. Before long, his obvious talent was recommended to the King and he was sent up to Edinburgh to carry out work at the chapel of the old Stuart Palace of Holyrood.
    On the 12th January 1619, the second Banqueting House in Whitehall, was destroyed by fire and a number of state papers stored in its basement were subsequently lost. By June of the same year, work began on a new Banqueting House under Surveyor of Works, Inigo Jones, but the job ran into trouble over both materials and labour, and the Portland stone required was in short supply. Meanwhile, many of the craftsmen, especially the masons, absconded to other jobs which were better and more regularly paid. The King’s Master Mason, who was also described as a “citizen and freemason of London”, also neglected the proceedings, and Jones complained that he did not attend the building works, and consequently the thirty-three year old Nicholas Stone was called to act as master of the work in his stead.
    The Banqueting House was not only the greatest achievement of Stone but also of its chief designer, Inigo Jones. Charles I later instructed Jones to prepare further designs for rebuilding the whole of the Whitehall Palace, designs that are known to have drawn heavily upon the architecture of the Escorial Palace near Madrid. This is significant as the Escorial was based on the idea of the Temple of Solomon and conceived as a large cube.

The Escorial

King Philip II of Spain instructed his architect Juan de Herrera to create a special plan for a magnificent library, in an effort to rival the Vatican’s. It was to house a magnificent collection of books in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic on a vast array of topics, chiefly specialising in medicine, geometry, music and astronomy. Of its 40,000 manuscripts, many dealt with Platonism, astrology, Hermeticism and alchemy: subjects that enthralled both the king and his master builder.
    The ceiling of the library was decorated with paintings depicting the seven liberal arts and, at its entrance, on the edge of a spacious quadrangle, stood six life-size statues of Old Testament builder Kings, as if guardians to a gateway of learning. Solomon carried the plans of his Temple, Manasseh a square and compasses, while Josiah brandishes a scroll.
    King Charles I travelled to Spain in the 1630’s, accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham, and was greatly impressed by the Spanish royal palaces and art collections, even attempting at one stage to try and recruit the Surveyor of the Spanish Royal Works.
    The Spanish Ambassador at the time was the artist Rubens, who Charles commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Whitehall Banqueting House. On the panel immediately above the royal throne Charles had Rubens depict his father King James in the guise of Solomon, sitting majestically between the two pillars of the temple.
    Hermes also appears on the central panel, and is also important in Masonic tradition, not least because he was sometimes confused with Euclid. The Graeco-Egyptian Thoth/Hermes was also known to the Romans as Mercury who, as messenger of the gods, was also associated with the invention of writing, sciences, geometry and temple design. This may well be significant as he looks down upon a building of symbolic proportions: a double-cube (110 feet in length, 55 feet in width and 55 feet in height).
    This was in keeping with Biblical measurements concerning Solomon’s Temple and the ideas of Vitruvius who had stipulated that a basilica should be twice as long as it is wide. Certainly the influence of the Escorial popularised the idea of emulating the Temple in Jerusalem. Its architect, Juan de Herrera, even wrote a mathematical treatise dealing with the magical properties of the cube. One of Herrera’s students, the Jesuit Juan Bautista Villalpando, was also responsible for a popular reconstruction of Solomon’s Temple, a work King Charles I is known to have studied during his incarceration at the end of the Civil War (J.Prado and JB Villalpando, In Ezechielem explanationes, ii, 1604).
    The artistic set to which Stone and Jones belonged was consumed with a passion for the cultural influences sweeping in from the continent, influences that embraced alchemical and Hermetic ideas that all seemed to regard architecture as a discipline supreme, infused as it was with Vitruvian ideals and mathematical symbolism.
    One of Inigo Jones’ court masques stressed the importance of the dual nature of the architect, both as practical artisan and philosopher. In this play (Albion’s Triumph, 1632) Jones used two female figures to exemplify this duality of the architect. Theoretica looked up to heaven and on her head was a pair of gold compasses, their points also pointing upwards, whereas Practica dressed more humbly, looking down to earth, carrying in one hand a long ruler and in the other a pair of iron compasses.
    Jones contested the traditional view of the architect as craftsman, arguing that architecture was a liberal rather than a mechanical art. The work of building was thus the realisation of a Platonic ideal. John Dee, the Elizabethan magus who had studied both Alberti and Vitruvius, wrote a preface to a translation of Euclid published in 1570. Dee made a plea for the inclusion of architecture among ‘Artes Mathematicall’, and dedicated it to the artisans of London (Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry, CUP, p.114).
    In 1625 Charles I ascended the throne, and Stone once again found himself the recipient of royal favour, receiving a patent naming him as Master Mason at Windsor. He also served as Renter and Upper Warden of the London Company, and in 1631 he sculpted a monument to the poet, philosopher and Dean of St Paul’s, John Donne. It still stands in St. Paul’s Cathedral and is held to be the finest in London.
    The following year, Stone was appointed King’s Master Mason, and he proceeded to the Chair as Master of the London Company, remaining in that office for two consecutive years (1632-33; 1633-34. See Renter Warden accounts of the Masons’ Company, Guildhall, Library of the Corporation of London, MS. 5303, folios 43,71,92,99).
    Stone frequently supplied Roman portrait busts or mythological figures, such as a head of the Greek god Apollo for Kirby Hall. In 1638 his second son, Nicholas Stone the younger, a carver freemason, was sent to Rome for the purpose of furthering his education where he under-studied a number of masters including the great Gianlorenzo Bernini. As his diary records, his trip was also partly undertaken to purchase casts and drawings for his father’s workshop, and one consignment from Livorno in the summer of 1640 included “two plaister heads one Venus the other Cicero …a plaster head of Satyre and Bacchus in plaister”. There was also “a book of perspective of Vignola”; another on “the fountaines of Rome”; and a third on the “Archytecture of Vitruvius”. There were also “113 small pieces of severall sorts of marbles” for the London yard, to “send for England according to my father’s command” (Diary of Nicholas Stone Junior, Walpole Society, 7, 1979, p.197). The extent and depth of this work makes the familiar masonic distinction between speculative and operative something akin to an insult to the men who ‘speculated’ with their hands as well as their heads.

The Acception

It was at this time that a key event occurred, the significance of which has been overlooked by historians. In the Renter Warden’s accounts of the London Company of ffreemasons for 1638, five names are registered as having been received into a mysterious body for which they each paid ten shillings:

Pd wch the accompt [accountant] layd out wch was more than he received of them wch were taken into the Accepcon whereof xs[10 shillings] is to be paid by Mr.Nicholas Stone, Mr. Edmund Kinsman Mr. John Smith, Mr. William Millis, Mr John Colles.

(Renter Warden Accounts, London Company, Guildhall Library. The date of this meeting is not given in the accounts but it appears to have taken place between March and the Lord Mayors’ day, which was then a moveable feast, but probably occurred before midsummer’s day).
    This means that in all the time Stone was a mason, he had not been made an accepted mason. He was a qualified master freemason and citizen of London, who had served as Master of the London Company, was a member of the Court of Assistants and was the King’s Master Mason, yet despite all these accolades, the ‘Acception’ appears to have eluded him. So what exactly was it? John Hamill in his book The Craft asserted that: “Accepted masonry simply seems to have appeared in England as a new organisation without any prior connections with the operative craft.” (John Hamill, The Craft, p.19, Wellingborough, 1982.) The evidence clearly contradicts this view, as it is known that all the names cited, were craftsmen and members of the London Company of Freemasons. In fact, Edmund Kinsman had been employed at Syon House in 1604-5, where he was described as a “freemason”, and had already worked with Stone, and served as Master of the London Company in 1635 (HM Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840, p.588).
    From the scant records, it appears to have involved some kind of a meeting, followed by a dinner paid for those who had been ‘accepted’. Was it that the acception dealt with the symbolic and so-called ‘speculative’ side of architecture? Certainly Stone mixed in sophisticated and fashionable circles, and it is evident from his handwriting style in his account and sketch books that he was well educated. He knew much concerning mythological and religious themes, was well acquainted with mathematics, the theories of Vitruvius, the Renaissance architecture of Palladio and Serlio and of course his Master, the Surveyor of Works, Inigo Jones. What is more, an early 17th century publication shows that the metaphorical and allegorical usage of masonic practices was not unknown: ‘As the Freemason heweth the hard stones ... even so God, the Heavenly Free-Mason, buildeth a Christian Church’. (Cawdrey, Treasure of Similes, London, 1609, p.342)
    Another example can be found on a grave of a mason in the west of England, dated the 4th May, 1639. The grave itself in the churchyard has lines of poetry running lengthways on the tomb:

Christ was thy Corner-stone, Christians the rest,
Hammer the word, Good life thy line all blest,
And yet art gone, t’was honour not thy crime,
With stone hearts to worke much in little time,
Thy Master saws’t and tooke thee off from them,
To the bright stone of New Jerusalem,
Thy worke and labour men may esteem a base one,
Heaven counts it blest, here lies a blest free-Mason.
(Devon & Exeter Gazeteer, 8 Oct. 1909, p.7. See also WJ Williams, AQC.48, 1935; use of word Freemason before 1717, p.256).

The civil war delivered a devastating blow to the work of Nicholas Stone and the building industry in general, as Parliamentary forces inflicted great damage to many churches up down the country, and cathedral libraries were looted and ransacked. It is perhaps an irony of history that Stone’s Banqueting House ended up as the venue for the execution of his beloved King Charles.
    Virtually nothing is known of the rest of Stone’s life and he passed away on the 24th August at his residence in Long Acre, aged 61, and was laid to rest in the parish church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Stone left a substantial estate which included five houses together with the workshop in Long Acre, and was described in his will as ‘Esquier’, having earned well in excess of £11,000, a sum few of his contemporaries could match.
    His youngest son John, also a freemason, took over the family business, having been originally intended for the church, and educated at Westminster School and Oxford University. When he died in 1667, his foreman sculptor took over the reins of the business and went on to carve the phoenix over the door of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
    It is perhaps curious to note that in 1718, when the Grand Master George Payne requested brethren to bring to Grand Lodge “any old writings and Records concerning Masons, ..to shew the usages of Antient Times”, that it was also recorded that “several very valuable manuscripts” were tragically lost. Interestingly, the Rev. James Anderson specifically records that one particular manuscript “writ by Mr. Nicholas Stone the Warden of Inigo Jones, were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous Brothers, that those Papers might not fall into strange hands” (Anderson’s Constitutions, 1738, p.111).
    Could it be that there was a ritualistic form of Accepted Freemasonry prior to 1717 that was unpalatable to those who wished to ‘revive’ the movement in the 1720’s?

Matthew Scanlan, MA, is the former Assistant Curator at the Library & Museum at Freemasons’ Hall, London, and is currently working as a Doctoral student at Leiden University, Holland. He holds membership of CEHME, the centre for Masonic studies at the University of Zaragosa, and the Duke of Wharton Research Lodge, No.18, under The Grand Lodge of Spain.