The Royal Order of Scotland

Do you know the Royal Order of Scotland (Royal Order of Scotland)? If you live in an English-speaking country, certainly. But if you reside in a country of Latin culture, it is less likely. The Royal Order of Scotland is a Masonic order of British origin, with a very Christian ethos, which in a way consecrates the mythical link between Freemasonry and the Scottish crown. The Royal Order of Scotland, which has incorporated the Rosicrucian legend, is reputed to be the oldest system of Side Degrees, second in antiquity only to Craft Freemasonry. What is the real story behind this Royal Order of Scotland? Is it really that old? How is it organized? And in which countries has the Royal Order of Scotland established itself?

The origins of the Royal Order of Scotland

As is often the case when studying the origin of the higher degrees of the AASR and Masonic Side Degrees, legend largely competes with history. This is particularly true for the Royal Order of Scotland, which claims to marry Freemasonry with attachment to the Scottish crown and thus clearly played a role in the political project of the Stuarts within so-called Jacobite Freemasonry.

Legend has it that the Order dates back to the reign of King David I of Scotland (1083-85?-1124) and that the King of Scotland has always been its hereditary Grand Master. The Order would then have consisted of only one degree. And it was King Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) who supposedly added the second degree, that of Rose Croix, after the famous Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Legend here joins other Masonic legends, which claim that Robert the Bruce created an Order (often referred to as the Order of St Andrew of the Thistle) to thank the Templars who had helped him at the Battle of Bannockburn. All legends, of course.

The authentic history of the Royal Order of Scotland nevertheless remains quite difficult to establish. Some argue that the Royal Order of Scotland was founded in London between 1721 and 1741, with the intention of reconnecting with the explicitly Christian heritage from which the Masonic rituals of the Grand Lodge of London (the Moderns) had moved significantly away. It appears that such an Order is mentioned in the archives of the Grand Lodge of London in 1741. Official histories of the Royal Order of Scotland seem not to have made the connection with a little-known form of Freemasonry whose existence in London is attested by 1732 at the latest: so-called Harodim Freemasonry, explicitly Christian and cultivated by the Jacobites, described by Jan Snoek in British Freemasonry, 1717-1813, volume 3: Rituals II – Harodim Material and Higher Degrees (New York: Routledge, 2016). This form of Freemasonry, distinct from that of the Moderns of the Premier Grand Lodge of London as well as that of the Ancients who federated into a Grand Lodge in 1751, was probably the first form of Freemasonry to be established in France as early as the 1725s, as the first Grand Lodge of France founded in 1728 was largely dominated in its early days by Jacobite personalities.

The first degree of the Royal Order of Scotland is called Order of Heredom of Kilwinning and it is obviously tempting to see in Heredom a form of Harodim. But some believe that Heredom comes from the Latin Heredium, inheritance: Heredom of Kilwinning would therefore speak to us of the Masonic heritage of Kilwinning Lodge, which is one of the oldest Scottish Mother Lodges and today holds No. 0 on the roll of the Grand Lodge of Scotland; but the term Heredom could also simply designate the Stuart lineage. For others, it refers to a mythical Scottish mountain that is said to have housed the Grail, Mount Heroden or Heredom; this term would transcribe the Greek Hieros Domos, which can be translated as Sacred Dwelling or Holy Temple.

It seems unlikely to us that the second part of the Royal Order of Scotland, entitled Knighthood of the Rosy Cross, dates back to the 1720s/40s, given that the Masonic degree of Knight Rose Croix, of French origin, only appeared in the 1760s.

Be that as it may, a charter dated 1750 was granted to a certain William Mitchell for the creation of a Lodge of this mysterious Order in The Hague (Netherlands). In 1752/53, Mitchell travelled to Scotland, where he founded a Provincial Grand Lodge of the Order, the first written traces of which are found in 1766. And in 1767, this body became the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland, which remains to this day the governing authority of this system worldwide.

Only a close study of period documents and ancient rituals, which we have not been able to undertake, would resolve the many uncertainties regarding the origin and Scottish patriotic character of this system. However, in the current state of our knowledge, we can formulate the following hypotheses:

An early form of what was to become the Royal Order of Scotland, and which can reasonably be equated with the mysterious Freemasonry of Harodim, existed in London by 1732 at the latest. Was it already an Order mythically linked to the Crown of Scotland? If it was indeed formed of Jacobites, it is more than likely. Did it already include the Rose Croix degree? As we wrote above, this is unlikely.

Around 1750, William Mitchell founded a first Provincial Lodge in The Hague, then did the same in Edinburgh between 1752/53 and 1766. It was perhaps in The Hague, where many Jacobite exiles resided, that the resolutely Scottish dimension of the Order was introduced, if it was not already present.

In 1767, the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland was officially founded. The date is perhaps significant: the previous year had seen the death of James Francis Stuart (the Old Pretender), the son of James II Stuart. Might the Royal Order of Scotland, as we know it today, with its emphasis on the hereditary Grand Mastership of the Kings of Scotland, be a tribute to the deceased Pretender and an attempt to revive the zeal of the supporters of his son Charles Edward (the Young Pretender), who had lost all international credibility after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746?

As for the Rose Croix degree, we believe that it could not have been introduced into the Order before the 1760s, and perhaps even only in 1767. There was certainly no shortage of Jacobite Freemasons who had received the Knight Rose Croix degree in France and who may have incorporated it into the Order at that time.

The Royal Order of Scotland is often presented to us as the oldest system of higher Masonic degrees and possibly the origin of all higher degrees, including Knight Rose Croix. In our view, this is not quite the case. In its present form, the Royal Order of Scotland is a late form of the Harodim stream of Freemasonry, which developed in other branches: in France, it appears to have been at the origin of the rather surprising ritual published in 1744 under the title of Le Parfait Maçon and the rituals of Adoption Freemasonry. And in England, it developed from 1733 in the county of Durham (north-east England), where it eventually structured itself into a Grand Lodge in 1787.

Decline and rebirth of the Royal Order of Scotland

The Order was present in the Netherlands as early as 1750 and established itself in France in 1786, where it appears to have remained active until 1873. However, it does not seem to have spread elsewhere at the time and its growth was short-lived. By 1819, it had virtually disappeared. This is quite understandable if the Order was born primarily out of Jacobite fervour: with Charles Edward having died in exile in Rome in 1788, abandoned by all and forsaken by the King of France, who cared about it some thirty years later?

In 1839, the Order was revived by a coachbuilder named Houston Rigg Brown and by the renowned botanist George Arnott Walker Arnott (1799-1868) who, from 1843, established new Provincial Grand Lodges in Scotland and England.

The Royal Order of Scotland has now spread worldwide and has over 90 Provincial Grand Lodges established in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Gibraltar, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Bermuda, the Philippines, Barbados, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and France. The total number of members is estimated at around 15,000.

While Provincial Grand Lodges are attached to the Grand Lodge of the Order headquartered in Edinburgh and recruit exclusively from regular Craft Grand Lodges (that is, recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England), there is nevertheless an exception: the English Federation of Le Droit Humain also practices the rites of the Royal Order of Scotland.

The particularities and customs of the Royal Order of Scotland

The Royal Order of Scotland is characterised by at least five particularities worth mentioning.

First, the Royal Order of Scotland has only one Grand Lodge, that of Edinburgh, and all other structures are Provincial Grand Lodges. Nothing surprising at first glance, but what is very peculiar is that there are no private Lodges and the Order only meets at the Grand Lodge and Provincial Grand Lodge levels.

Second, the hereditary Grand Master of the Order is the King of Scotland. The President of the Grand Lodge therefore takes the title of Deputy Grand Master. Furthermore, during meetings of the Grand Lodge, a vacant chair adorned with an ermine mantle is placed on the right of the Deputy Grand Master, to signify the Grand Mastership of the King of Scotland. At the level of Provincial Grand Lodges, however, there is indeed a Provincial Grand Master.

Third, members of the Royal Order of Scotland were originally required to be Scots or of Scottish descent. This requirement has now been dropped.

Fourth, entry into the Royal Order of Scotland is strictly by invitation, on condition of having been a Master Mason for at least five years and professing the Trinitarian Christian faith, which thus excludes a certain number of so-called Unitarian Protestants. This last requirement may surprise Continental Freemasons, but it is found in other systems of higher degrees and Side Degrees used in Anglo-Saxon countries. It should be noted that the Royal Order of Scotland of the English Le Droit Humain does not require any Trinitarian confession of faith.

Fifth, Provincial Grand Lodges have genuine autonomy and can add other conditions for the admission of new members. In some, one must be a Mark Master Mason, Royal Arch, 18th or 32nd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or a Knight Templar of the York Rite.

Regarding rituals, the Royal Order of Scotland has two degrees. The first, entitled Heredom of Kilwinning, is conferred during a rather long ceremony, with numerous instructions by question and answer. This degree constitutes a grand tapestry, encompassing the symbolism of Craft Freemasonry, the Temple, and more generally the History of salvation from a biblical perspective. It features many biblical figures, most of whom appear in other Masonic higher degrees or Side Degrees (Noah, Moses, Solomon, Bezalel, Cyrus, Zerubbabel, Enoch, etc.), but in an atmosphere of very pronounced religiosity. This degree culminates in the invocation of the sacrifice of Christ. 

The second degree is the Knighthood of Rose Croix (Knighthood of the Rosy Cross), much shorter and more austere than the previous one. Most of the teaching of the Order is indeed contained in the first degree, and the Knight is merely a kind of honorary consecration. The ceremony is reduced to verifying that the candidate is indeed a member of the Order of Heredom of Kilwinning, taking the obligation, reading an instruction, and transmitting the secrets of the degree. The word of this degree is the same Christogram as the one used in the degree of Knight Rose Croix in other rites (Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Traditional French Rite, Rite of Memphis-Misraim…) and thus attests to a relationship with the Rose Croix that appeared in France around 1760. However, this connection seems fairly distant, given how much the two forms of rituals differ.

When studying the Royal Order of Scotland, one is struck by a feeling of both familiarity and strangeness. It is, of course, a Masonic Order, containing the constituent elements of the three Craft degrees, as well as allusions to numerous episodes reported in the higher degrees and Side Degrees of other systems. At the same time, the atmosphere is completely different, and the rhyming ceremonies have an incantatory and mystical character found in no other Masonic rite in use today.

Heredom or Harodim?

The terms Heredom and Harodim, mentioned above, call for a brief digression, as both terms are also known in other Masonic higher degree rites and systems. Heredom scarcely appears except in documents relating to the degree of Knight Rose Croix, where it generally refers to the specific practices of the Royal Order of Scotland. This is, for example, the case in Vuillaume's Tyler (1830).

But Harodim has its own existence in the world of Masonic higher degrees: it is particularly found in the 7th and 8th degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. A persistent, though entirely erroneous, Masonic legend continues to claim that the Harodim were the 3,600 Superintendents or Overseers of the works of the Temple of Solomon according to the First Book of Kings. According to usual Masonic literature, Ha-RoDiYM means those who rule, those who direct, which is in itself correct. However, Harodim is never mentioned in the Book of Kings: those in charge of overseeing the building of the Temple are called Sārim, meaning princes or chief officers, and 1 Kings 5:30 describes them precisely as SāRéY HaNīTSāBiYM LiSHeLoMoH, that is, the princes appointed by Solomon. There is no more mention of Harodim in the Second Book of Chronicles, which presents a later version of the account of the construction of the Temple: the famous overseers are named there as Menatsim (MeNaTSeCHiM), literally those who are appointed (2 Chronicles 2:17).

So where do the Masonic Harodim come from? Certainly from that mysterious current that was Harodim Freemasonry. But where does the term itself originate? Does Harodim come from Heredom, or does Heredom come from Harodim? Here is an historical mystery that we will not manage to solve today.