Royal Arch Masonry
As with Craft Freemasonry, there is debate as to the origins of the Royal Arch, not helped by the paucity of surviving evidence. From that evidence we know that the Royal Arch was known in London, York and Dublin by the late 1730s. In extant Lodge Minute Books of the 1750s we know that the Royal Arch was being worked within Craft Lodges under both the premier and the Antients Grand Lodges in England, and in Lodges under the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland.
The first Grand Chapter
The Minute Book exists, in the Grand Chapter archives, of an independent Chapter meeting in London in 1765. The first Minute is dated 22 March 1765, and the Minutes show the Chapter to have met at the Turk's Head Tavern, Gerrard Street, Soho on the second Friday of every month.
At its meeting on 11 June 1766 the Chapter exalted the Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge, Cadwallader, 9th Lord Blayney, who immediately became its First Principal. The Chapter had been drawing its membership from the senior members of the premier Grand Lodge, and therein lay a problem. The Grand Lodge regarded the Royal Arch as an innovation, additional to the Craft, and began to object to its being worked in Lodges. The Chapter meeting at the Turk's Head provided a solution. At its meeting on 22 July 1766 the Companions present, including Lord Blayney, signed a beautifully engrossed and illuminated document, now known as the Charter of Compact, by which they converted themselves into The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem, the first Grand Chapter in the world.
From its inception the Grand Chapter had a dual function: being the regulatory body for the Royal Arch, as practised by members under the premier Grand Lodge, and continuing to act as a private Chapter regularly exalting new members. The Charter of Compact as well as being the authority for the Chapter to act as a Grand Chapter also included the first eleven rules for the government of the Royal Arch, covering regalia and jewels, the qualification for admission, the chartering of new Chapters and the fees for a Charter, a seal for the Grand Chapter, meetings of the Grand Chapter and the election of Grand Officers.
It took the new Grand Chapter a little time to begin its regulatory work. The first seven charters for new Chapters wee issued in 1769, two for London and one each in Manchester, Portsmouth, Burnley, Colne, Bury and Bristol. The preponderance of Chapters in Lancashire was undoubtedly due to the influence of John Allen, a signatory of the Charter of Compact, First Grand Principal in 1772 and Provincial Grand Master for Lancashire 1769 - 1806. By 1813 the Grand Chapter had chartered 120 Chapters to meet in England, Wales and territories overseas. The Chapters were given their own names and numbers, separate from the Lodges from which they drew their membership. They were supposed to make an annual return of members to the Grand Chapter but the rule was rarely observed until the passing of the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799, under which they had to make an annual return to the local Clerk of the Peace, which they then copied to the Grand Chapter.
To stimulate the growth of the Royal Arch the office of Grand Superintendent in and over a Province was introduced in 1778 when John Allen was appointed to Lancashire and Cheshire; Thomas Dunckerley to Essex and the Isle of Wight; Capt George Smith for Kent; and William Spencer for Yorkshire. Dunckerley was to become almost ubiquitous as a Grand Superintendent being appointed to eighteen Provinces, from Durham in the North to Cornwall in the West. The Provinces were based on the then existing Counties.
Connections between the Royal Family and the English Royal Arch began in 1772 when, on 12 December, in the Grand Chapter acting as a private Chapter HRH Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland (brother to King George III) was exalted. In 1774 he was elected Grand Patron of the Royal Arch, a portrait of him in his robes for that office still hangs in Freemasons' Hall. In 1776 he was elected First Grand Principal and was annually re - elected to that office until 1785 when, because of his duties as Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge, he asked to be released from office but was continued as Grand Patron. On his death, in 1790, he was succeeded as Grand Patron by his nephew HRH William, Duke of Clarence (later HM King William IV), who remained as Grand Patron until 1817.
The Antients Grand Lodge had the opposite view to the Royal Arch to that of the premier Grand Lodge, regarding it as an integral part of their system and working it in their Lodges as a fourth degree. Indeed, their Grand Secretary, Laurence Dermott, described the Royal Arch as "the root, heart and marrow of Masonry". They believed that their Lodge warrants entitled them to work any of the known degrees in Masonry, and extant Minute Books for Antients Lodges provide valuable evidence for the working of the Royal Arch and other degrees in the late eighteenth century.
Dermott was a great promoter of the Royal Arch. He became Deputy Grand Master of the Antients in 1771 and, jealous of the existence of the Excellent Grand and Royal Arch Chapter, engineered a debate in the Antients Grand Lodge as to whether or not that body was a suitable forum to debate Royal Arch matters as there would always be present brethren who were not Royal Arch Masons. Those present agreed with him that the Antients Grand Lodge was a proper forum to discuss any matter relating to Freemasonry but that details of the Royal Arch should first be discussed only by those qualified to do so.
So came into existence the so-called Grand Chapter of the Antients. In reality, it was no more than a Committee of qualified members of the Antients Grand Lodge. The Minutes of that body shows that the Grand Chapter met on a number of occasions but its Minutes have not been found. It had no separate Grand Officers; issued no Charters; had no Provincial system; and its decisions and code of Regulations (first published in 1783) had to be approved by the Antients Grand Lodge itself before they could be promulgated.
Much work was involved in reorganising the Craft after the Union of the two Grand Lodges was achieved on 27 December 1813, so that it was not until 1817 that HRH The Duke of Sussex was able to turn to the Royal Arch. On 18 March 1817, the Royal Arch members of both of the former Grand Lodges were summonsed to a meeting at Freemasons' Hall. The Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter were opened in one room, and the Royal Arch members of the former Antients Grand Lodge opened a Chapter in a second room.
Both groups then processed into the Grand Hall where they were greeted by the Duke of Sussex who formed them into the United Grand Chapter, addressed them on the Royal Arch, appointed Grand Officers and a Committee to provide Regulations to govern the Order.
To placate the former Antients Grand Lodge members the meeting was referred to, and announced to the United Grand Lodge, as a Union, but that was a pious fiction. There had been no separate Antients Grand Chapter, the Antients Grand Lodge and its Committees had ceased to exist on 27 December 1813 and the "new" body was simply a continuation of the original 1766 Grand Chapter with the addition of those members of the former Antients Grand Lodge who were Royal Arch Masons. The fiction was continued by styling the body the United Grand Chapter of England, but that title was quietly changed to Supreme Grand Chapter in 1821.
The Committee appointed to formulate Regulations worked quickly and presented a draft to Grand Chapter on 15 April 1817. They were accepted and set the seal on the future arrangement and development of the Grand Chapter. They also demonstrably marked the new relationship between the Craft and the Royal Arch and the interdependency of the two. To mark that interdependency:
certain designated Officers within the Grand Lodge, if properly qualified, automatically held equivalent office in Grand Chapter
Chapters were to be no longer independently chartered but were to be sponsored by a Lodge, to whose warrant the Chapter was to be attached, and whose number and, later, the name they were to bear
Chapters with charters from the original Grand Chapter were to return those charters in exchange for a Charter attaching them to a Lodge of their choice
former Antients Lodges were to cease working the Royal Arch within their Lodges, the Royal Arch members petitioning for a Charter forming them into a Chapter attached to that Lodge
a preamble to the Regulations was to state that any matter not specifically covered therein was to be considered as being governed by the Book of Constitutions of the United Grand Lodge.
The Grand Chapter was to be comprised of the present and past Grand Officers, the three Principals of each Chapter and, for the first time, Past First Principals who remained subscribing members of English Chapters. The Grand Chapter was to meet four times a year, with Convocations in August, November and February and the Annual Investiture on the day following that of the Craft. In 1948 the August Convocation was moved to July, and in 1960 the July meeting was dispensed with. There rarely being much substantive business for Grand Chapter, the custom of having talks, demonstrations and organ recitals at the February and November Convocations grew up in the 1960s. In 2002 the February Convocation was dispensed with and Grand Chapter now meets on the second Wednesday in November and the day following the Annual Investiture of the Craft, with the Grand Principals retaining the power to summons an Emergency Convocation should need to arise.
For the first time, a Committee of General Purposes was appointed, to be comprised of members appointed by the First Grand Principal and others to be elected by Grand Chapter from amongst the present and past First Principals. The Committee was to have no executive powers but was to formulate policy and to enquire into and report on any matter referred to it by either the First Grand Principal or the Grand Chapter.
The prerogative of appointing Grand Superintendents was to remain personal to the First Grand Principal, but their powers were clearly defined. All Chapters within a Province or District were to come under the authority of the Grand Superintendent. He had to call a meeting of his Provincial or District Grand Chapter at least once a year, at which he was empowered to appoint Provincial or District Grand Officers. Appointments in Grand, Provincial and District Grand Chapters were only to active ranks. Appointments to past ranks were exceedingly rare. Towards the end of the 19th century, limited appointments to past ranks were permitted as part of national or Masonic celebrations, but the general awarding of and promotions in past ranks did not begin until the 1920s.
One area which had not been looked at in 1817 was the ritual. In the 1820s a number of Chapters in the Provinces had written in requesting guidance, which had not been forthcoming. Complaints were raised and in 1834 the Duke of Sussex set up a special Committee to decide what the Royal Arch ceremonies were and to demonstrate them to the Grand Chapter so that they could be approved and adopted by all Chapters. The Committee duly deliberated and their work was approved by Grand Chapter.
The aim of producing a standard ritual, however, was not achieved, as Grand Chapter would not allow the revised rituals for the exaltation and installation ceremonies to be printed. A Chapter of Promulgation was chartered to give demonstrations in London, to which Chapters were invited to send representatives. The new system being passed on by word of mouth inevitably led to local differences in detail developing. Grand Chapter having settled the ritual in 1834 adopted the position that it still maintains: that matters of principle in the ritual are the concern of Grand Chapter but matters of detail are the concern of individual Chapters and the governing bodies which developed in the later 19th century to superintend the various workings that developed.
That attitude was clearly shown in the 1970s and 1980s when ritual again became a subject of discussion. In the 1970s, it was a question of the sharing of the work between many Companions rather than overloading the Principals and Principal Sojourner. Grand Chapter suggested how the ceremony and Lectures might be split up but left the detail to Chapters to decide. In the 1980s, it was the physical penalty in the obligation, the Royal Arch word and the misinterpretation of Hebrew that came under discussion. Again, the major principle was decided by Grand Chapter, but the detail of how those elements were removed was left up to Chapters and the ritual working groups.
The ritual was returned to again in 2004. The definition of "pure ancient Masonry" in 1813 and the revision of the ritual in 1834 had led to the Royal Arch being stated to be the completion of the Master Mason degree. Over the years, this had led to an argument as to how this could be. The Master Mason degree was obviously complete in itself, as was the exaltation ceremony. Were those Master Masons who did not enter the Royal Arch in some way incomplete or inferior? - a patently absurd notion. In December 2003 the nettle was grasped in the United Grand Lodge when it was resolved to add the following statement to the definition of pure ancient Masonry, which had been the preamble to the rules in the Book of Constitutions since 1853:
"At the Quarterly Communication of 10 December 2003 the United Grand Lodge of England acknowledged and pronounced the status of the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch to be 'an extension to, but neither a superior nor a subordinate part of, the Degrees which precede it'."
At the same time, a Ritual Committee had been set up to look at the effect of the addition to the definition on the Royal Arch ritual and to consider the Principal's Lectures. The Committee recommended the dropping of 27 words from the exaltation ceremony, the dropping of the Installed Master's qualification for the Third Principal's Chair and recommended revise texts of the Principal's Lectures. These were demonstrated to the Grand Chapter in November 2004 and adopted. The dropping of the 27 words and the Installed Master's qualification became mandatory but the new Lectures were optional, each Chapter having the right to choose either to stay with the old texts or adopt the new or use a mixture of both.
The earliest reference to external relations in the Grand Chapter Minutes came in 1808 when it was ordered that Companions exalted in Scotland and Ireland should be admitted to the Grand Chapter and its subordinate Chapters. With the new arrangements after 1817 and the growth of Grand Chapters in other constitutions, a nice question arose. Although Supreme Grand Chapter was sovereign over the Royal Arch, it was not wholly independent of the United Grand Lodge. Could it, therefore, accord recognition to other sovereign bodies? A neat compromise was achieved. Grand Chapter does not accord formal recognition to or exchange representatives with other Grand Chapters but if a foreign Grand Chapter draws its membership from a Grand Lodge recognised by the United Grand Lodge then inter-visitation and fraternal relations will happily take place.