cution of the laws, and all that related to the civil magistrate, centred in him: a fortunate circumstance for the Masons at this critical juncture. The duke, knowing them to be innocent of the accusations which the bishop of Winchester had laid against them, took them under his protection, and transferred the charge of rebellion, sedition, and treason, from them, to the bishop and his followers; who, he asserted, were the first violators of the public peace, and the most rigorous promoters of civil discord.

The bishop, sensible that his conduct could not be justified by the laws of the land, prevailed on the king, through the intercession of the parliament, whose favour his riches had obtained, to grant letters of pardon for all offences committed by him, contrary to the statute of provisors, and other acts of præmunire; and five years afterwards procured another pardon, under the great seal, for all crimes whatever, from the creation of the world to the 26th of July, 1437.

Notwithstanding these precautions of the cardinal, the duke of Gloucester drew up, in 1442, fresh articles of impeachment against him, and presented them in person to the king; earnestly

the late act of parliament against the excessive wages of those trades, had given out many seditious speeches and menaces against certain great men, which tended much to rebellion:* That the Duke of Gloucester did not use his endeavour, as he ought to have done in his place, to suppress such unlawful assemblies; so that he feared the king, and his good subjects, must have made a field to withstand them; to prevent which, he chiefly desired the Duke of Bedford to

come over.'

As the Masons are unjustly suspected of having given rise to the above civil commotions, I thought it necessary to insert the foregoing particulars, in order to clear them from this false charge. Most of the circumstances here mentioned are extracted from Wolfe's Chronicle, published by Stowe.

*The above particulars are extracted from one of Elias Ashmole's MSS. on the subject of Freemasonry.

entreating that judgment might be passed upon him, according to his crimes. The king referred the matter to his council, which was at that time composed principally of ecclesiastics, who extended their favour to the cardinal, and made such slow progress in the business, that the duke, wearied out with their tedious delays and fraudulent evasions, dropped the prosecution, and the cardinal escaped.

Nothing could now remove the inveteracy of the cardinal against the duke; he resolved to destroy a man whose popularity might become dangerous, and whose resentment he had reason to dread. The duke having always proved a strenuous friend to the public, and, by the authority of his birth and station, having hitherto pre. vented absolute power from being vested in the king's person, Winchester was enabled to gain many partisans, who were easily brought to concur in the ruin of the prince.*

A

To accomplish this purpose, the bishop and his party concerted a plan to murder the duke. parliament was summoned to meet at St. Edmonds

* The bishop planned the following scheme at this time to irritate the Duke of Gloucester: His duchess, the daughter of Reginald Lord Cobham, had been accused of the crime of witchcraft; and it was pretended, that a waxen figure of the king was found in her possession; which she, and her associates, Sir Roger Bolingbroke, a priest, and one Margery Jordan of Eye, melted, in a magical manner, before a slow fire, with an intention of making Henry's force and vigour waste away by like insensible degrees. The accusation was well calculated to affect the weak and credulous mind of the king, and gain belief in an ignorant age. The duchess was brought to trial, with her confederates, and the prisoners were pronounced guilty: the duchess was condemned to do public penance in London for three days, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment; the others were executed.

The protector, provoked at such repeated insults offered to his duchess, made a noble and stout resistance to these most abominable and shameful proceedings; but it unfortunately ended in his own destruction.

bury in 1447, where they expected he would be entirely at their mercy. Having appeared on the second day of the sessions, he was accused of treason, and thrown into prison; where he was found the next day, cruelly murdered. It was pretended that his death was natural; but though his body, which was exposed to public view, bore no marks of outward injury, there was little doubt of his having fallen a sacrifice to the vengeance of his enemies. After this dreadful catastrophe, five of his servants were tried for aiding him in his treasons, and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. They were hanged accordingly, cut down alive, stripped naked, and marked with a knife to be quartered; when the Marquis of Suffolk, through a mean and pitiful affectation of popularity, produced their pardon, and saved their lives; the most barbarous kind of mercy that can possibly be imagined!

He

The Duke of Gloucester's death was universally lamented throughout the kingdom. He had long obtained, and deserved, the surname of GOOD. was a lover of his country, the friend of merit, the protector of Masons, the patron of the learned, and the encourager of every useful art. His inveterate persecutor, the hypocritical bishop, stung with remorse, scarcely survived him two months; when, after a long life spent in falsehood and politics, he sunk into oblivion, and ended his days in misery.*

6

• The wickedness of the cardinal's life, and his mean, base, and unmanly death, will ever be a bar against any vindication of his memory, for the good which he did while alive, or which the money he had amassed could do after his death. When in his last moments, he was heard to utter these mean expressions: Why should I die, who am possessed of so much wealth? If the whole kingdom could save my life, I am able by my policy to preserve it, or by my money to purchase it. Will not death be bribed, and money do every thing? The inimitable Shakspeare, after giving a most horrible picture of despair, and a tortured conscience, in the

After the death of the cardinal, the Masons continued to hold their Lodges without danger of interruption. Henry established various seats of learning, which he enriched with ample endowments, and distinguished by peculiar immunities; thus inviting his subjects to rise above ignorance and barbarism, and reform their turbulent and licentious manners. In 1442, he was initiated. into Masonry, and, from that time, spared no pains to obtain a complete knowledge of the Art. He perused the Ancient Charges, revised the Constitutions, and, with the consent of his council, honoured them with his sanction.*

Encouraged by the example of the sovereign, and allured by an ambition to excel, many lords and gentlemen of the court were initiated into Masonry, and pursued the Art with diligence and assiduity. The king, in person, presided over

person of the cardinal, introduces King Henry to him with these sharp and piercing words:

Lord Cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,
Lift up thy hand, make signal of that hope.

He dies, and makes no sign.

Hen. VI. Act 3.

• The memory of the wicked shall rot, but the unjustly persecuted shall be had in everlasting remembrance.'

* A record in the reign of Edward IV. runs thus: The company of Masons, being otherwise termed Freemasons, of auntient staunding and good reckoninge, by means of affable and kind meetyngs dyverse tymes, and as a lovinge brotherhode use to doe, did frequent this mutual assembly in the tyme of Henry VI. in the twelfth yeare of his most gracious reign, A. D. 1434.' The same record says farther, That the charges and laws of the Freemasons have been seen and perused by our late soveraign king Henry VI. and by the lords of his most honourable council, who have allowed them, and declared, That they be right good, and reasonable to be holden, as they have been drawn out and collected from the records of auntient tymes,' &c. &c.

From this record it appears, that before the troubles which happened in the reign of this unfortunate prince, Freemasons were held in high estimation.

While these transactions were carrying on in England, the

the Lodges, and nominated William Wanefleet, Bishop of Winchester, Grand Master; who built, at his own expense, Magdalene college, Oxford, and several pious houses. Eton college, near Windsor, and King's college, Cambridge, were founded in this reign, and finished under the direction of Wanefleet. Henry also founded Christ's college, Cambridge; and his queen, Margaret of Anjou, Queen's college, in the same university. In short, during the life of this prince, the arts flourished, and many sagacious statesmen, consummate orators, and admired writers, were supported by royal munificence.

SECT. IV.

History of Masonry, in the South of England, from 1471 to 1567,

MASONRY Continued to flourish in England till the peace of the kingdom was interrupted by the civil wars between the two royal houses of York and Lancaster; during which it fell into an almost total neglect, that continued till 1471, when it again revived under the auspices of Richard

Masons were countenanced and protected in Scotland by king James I. After his return from captivity, he became the patron of the learned, and a zealous encourager of Masonry. The Scottish records relate, that he honoured the Lodges with his royal presence; that he settled a yearly revenue of four pounds Scots (an English noble), to be paid by every Master-mason in Scotland, to a Grand Master, chosen by the Grand Lodge, and approved by the crown, one nobly born, or an eminent clergyman, who had his deputies in cities and counties; and every new Brother, at entrance, paid him also a fee. His office empowered him to regulate in the Fraternity what should not come under the cognizance of lawcourts. To him appealed both Mason and lord, or the builder and founder, when at variance, in order to prevent law-pleas; and in his absence, they appealed to his Deputy or Grand Warden, that resided next to the premises.