use a system of signs, tokens and passwords in accordance with medieval masonic practice, and the Great Lights and working tools of lodges include various implements associated with architectural design and building: compasses (dividers), a setsquare, a ruler (called a 24-inch gauge), a plumb line and so forth. But that really is about as far as lodge-working goes in symbolic stonemasonry terms, apart from allegorical representations to alignment, rectitude and perfection in life as they might be construed in practical building.
It is only since the 18th century that the term ‘speculative’ has fallen into common masonic use since its inclusion in a letter from the Deputy Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge in London to a colleague at The Hague on 12 July 1757. Significantly, however, an earlier building trade publication in 1703 had used the term in a very specific way, explaining:
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.1
In architectural terms, a building is speculative before it becomes a physical reality. That is to say, when it is the province of the speculator—the architect—rather than the builder. At that stage, when at the drawing board, the architect is free of the masonry, but must have knowledge of all the operative practicalities. This includes not just an awareness of stone and building materials, but also the scientific aspects of stresses, strains and other such matters. The true free-mason is therefore the architect, just as Hiram was the architect for King Solomon’s Temple, while in a broader sense the Supreme Being of Freemasonry is defined as the Great Architect of the Universe.
Historically, architects and surveyors have often been practical builders too, and have certainly operated as site overseers or masters of works. In this sense, speculative masons are not, therefore, a product of modern symbolic Freemasonry. Back in 1620, when operative members were ‘admitted’ into the Worshipful Company of Masons of the City of London, it was stated that speculative mem bers were also ‘accepted’.2
When considering the furniture and tools of Freemasonry, their scope moves from the compasses of the architect to the trowel of the artisan, with the compasses and square being two of the Three Great Lights along with the volume of Sacred Law. In the 18th-century, William Blake portrayed the Great Architect with his compasses in his depictions of the Ancient of Days (see plate 1), but this was not a newly contrived image. The French illuminated Bible Moralisée used the same theme back in 1245 (see page 236), as did the vernacular encyclopedia, Li Livres dou Tresor, by Dante Alighieri’s mentor, Brunetto Latini, from the same era.
Greatly admired by Isaac Newton was the Rosicrucian alchemist Michael Mair (b. 1566), physician to the German Emperor Rudolph II and a colleague in England of Robert Fludd. His book Atlanta Fugiens became one of the earliest textual models for the Royal Society.3 In this work, Mair introduced the image of a master mason using compasses to prepare the architecture of the Philosophers’ Stone as described in the Rosary of the Philosophers4—the Rosarium Philosophorum:
Make a round circle of the man and the woman, and draw out of this a square, and out of the square a triangle. Make a round circle, and you will have the stone of the philosophers.
For his symbol of London’s rebirth from the fire, Christopher Wren selected the phoenix—the mythical bird which rose from the ashes in a blaze of new enlightenment. The great phoenix effigy which commands the south portico pediment of St Paul’s Cathedral was carved by the Danish sculptor Caius Cibber, who also produced the distinctly masonic plaque at the base of the Monument. This image shows London as a collapsed and grieving woman,5 holding the sword of the City (see plate 32). Accompanying her is the figure of Expedition and some citizens, with the buildings aflame behind them. To the right of the plaque, the masons construct the new city, while Envy skulks in the gutter below. Peace and Plenty survey the scene from above, and King Charles II approaches (wearing Roman attire), along with Justice, Victory and Fortitude. Central to the scene is Natural Science, accompanied by Liberty and Architecture who carries the requisite square and compasses.6 And between the figures of London and Natural Science there is a beehive.
Not only are bees the biblical creature most associated with King Solomon, the beehive is also a recognizable emblem of Freemasonry, and it denotes industry. Honeycomb, being constructed of hexagonal prisms, was considered by philosophers to be the manifestation of divine harmony in nature, and bees have always been associated with insight and wisdom, as defined in the Proverbs of Solomon 24:13-14:
My son, eat thou honey, because it is good…So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul.
The hexagon is formed by dividing the circumference of a circle by chords equivalent to its radius. This produces a figure of six equal straight sides, as found in the cells of some organic life. Consequently, bees were held to be endowed with geometrical forethought, employing strength with economy of space as their guiding principles. King Solomon’s Seal (two interlaced equilateral triangles within a circle) incorporates a natural hexagon, and the resultant hexagram symbolically denotes the unity (if not the harmony) of opposites: male and female, fire and water, hot and cold, earth and air, and so on. The bee was also a traditional device of the Royal House of Stuart, and is often seen engraved as a distinguishing mark of Jacobite glassware.
To the early Merovingian Kings of the Franks (AD 451-751),7 King Solomon was the model of earthly kingship, and the bee was a most hallowed creature. When the grave of the 5th-century King Childeric I was unearthed in 1653, some 300 small golden bees were found stitched to his cloak. Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte had these attached to his own coronation robe in 1804—claiming his right by virtue of a family descent from James de Rohan-Stuardo, the natural son (legitimized 1677) of Charles II Stuart of Britain by Marguerite, Duchesse de Rohan. In modern Freemasonry, the beehive is used as an emblem of industry, bonding and mutual service.
The New Foundation
Following the death of Sir Christopher Wren in 1723, those at the forefront of Hanoverian Freemasonry began to formulate an historical backdrop for their evolving, non-operative Craft. Such things as tolerance and benevolence were cemented as objectives, while signs and tokens were established, along with the aim of building a socially aware community. There was little similarity between this and the more scientific or architecturally based movements whose format they endeavoured to emulate, but a convenient biblical metaphor was to hand—the building of Solomon’s Temple. By way of allegory and symbolism, the methods of the Hiramic masons of Jerusalem could be used as emblematic models for building an exemplary Craft culture—and within such a framework it was logical enough to adopt the guise of a stonemasons’ guild. That apart, there does appear to have been some friction at the outset between the premier Grand Lodge and the operative trade guilds with which they sought alignment, but this was soon overcome.8 This seems to have been effected by enticing high-ranking nobility into the fold, with John, 2nd Duke of Montagu accepting the Grand Mastership in 1721, followed by Philip, Duke of Wharton on 17 January 1723.
Only from that date were any Minutes kept of the meetings. Anderson’s first Constitutions were officially sanctioned, and it was determined that new lodges could only be considered ‘Regular ‘ (legitimate) if they were constituted by the Grand Master or an appointed deputy. So, in spite of the initial socially-minded objectives, the first real moves in the process of establishing an institute of fraternal ‘equality’ were actually the denial of freedom in the field, and the creation of a dictatorial hierarchy! In parallel, much the same was happening within the confines of the Royal Society as it became more bureaucratic and exacting in the Georgian style.
Although installed as King of Britain in 1714, George I
