Canongate Kilwinning

Lodge Cannongate Kilwinning No. 2

In recent months we have featured brief historical sketches of some of the oldest Scottish Lodges. This was undertaken as part of an ongoing programme of Masonic Education, which we felt would be in line with the Grand Lodge Ad Hoc report and would be of great benefit to our Right Angle readers.

To understand how a Lodge was to be Chartered by Mother Kilwinning in what is now the centre of Edinburgh, we must look back to the time and indeed the place, where Cannongate actually stood, outside the old city boundary.

"As the main avenue from Holyrood Palace into the City it has borne upon its pavement the burden of all that was beautiful, all that was gallant, all that has become historically interesting in Scotland for the last six or seven hundred years".

Thus Dr. Robert Chambers describes the Canongate. Off the Canongate runs St. John`s Close and St. John St. and from both these entries admittance is gained to the Chapel of St. John. Marked on the causeway nearby is the site of St. John`s Cross, denoting the Ancient Temple lands of the Knights of St. John. Although outside the city wall, the authorities in Edinburgh claimed jurisdiction over the Canongate as far as St. Johns Cross, despite the fact that Canongate was a Burgh of Regality and maintained its rights as a burgh until the middle of the nineteenth century.

The traditions of Lodge Canongate Kilwinning date back to the building of the Abbey of Holyrood, when by Royal Warrant skilled builders and craftsmen were brought from far and near to assist in the work. The Abbey was founded by King David 1 in 1128 for the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and dedicated to the Holy Rood or Cross brought to Scotland by his mother, the pious Margaret.

By the time of the Reformation of the sixteenth century had swept away the authority of the Church, the Burgh of Canongate had become of sufficient importance to confer rights of freedom of trade apart from the protection of the Church. The trade societies of the Canongate never owed any allegiance to Edinburgh, and the somewhat arrogant attempts made by the trades of the latter to exercise control in the Canongate led to indignant repudiation. The Canongate Masons, however, while dating their corporate privileges from King David's Charter to the Canons of Holyrood and the Constitution of the Burgh of Canongate, and while being entirely separate from and independent of Edinburgh, identified themselves with the general body of Freemasons in Scotland in 1677. In that year they accepted a warrant from the Lodge at Kilwinning in Ayrshire which was at the time exercising the functions of a Grand Lodge. Mother Kilwinning as it is now known had a traditional connection similar to that of Canongate with the skilled ecclesiastical architects and builders of the time. It is from the foregoing connection that No. 2 derives its title of Canongate Kilwinning.

Owing to the incompleteness of documentary evidence of earlier existence, its precedence thus runs conventionally from a much later date (1677), than the real inception of the Lodge warrants. In respect of its constitution at this date as a purely speculative Lodge, independent of and uncontrolled by any trade organisation or incorporation , it takes rank as one of the very oldest of existing lodges. It is one of the few which cannot, and does not, produce to candidates or anyone else any "charter or warrant of constitution from the Grand Lodge of Scotland". Indeed, the initiative in forming Grand Lodge was taken by Lodge Canongate Kilwinning and one of its members, William St. Clair of Rosslyn became fist Grand Master Mason of Scotland.

The Lodge holds its Annual Festival on St. John the Baptist`s Day, corresponding with the Summer Solstice, and its bright red clothing and apt motto, Post Nubila Phoebus (After the clouds the sun), both pointelly refer to the dawn of day in the East and to ancient Sun Worship. As the sun never sets but to rise again, so, according to the oldest forms, at every communication the work is closed, but the Lodge is never closed - only adjourned. The Lodge preserves the ancient Scottish arrangement of the interior, having the Master`s and Wardens Chairs at three points of a triangle, the Masters chair forming the apex. This is the correct and most ancient arrangement of a Scottish Lodge, corresponding with the so called Higher Degrees and also with continental masonic systems, but differing from the English and American.

Prior to the foundation of Grand Lodge there were seven Lodges in Edinburgh and district, Mary`s Chapel; Canongate Kilwinning; Kilwinning Scots Arms; Leith Kilwinning; Canongate and Leith, Leith and Canongate; Journeymen Masons; Holyrood House. An invitation was extended to all Lodges throughout Scotland to meet in Edinburgh on St. Andrew`s Day 1736, to form a Grand Lodge was sent out in the name of the first four mentioned above. Of these four Lodges two have now gone out of existence, Kilwinning Scots Arms and Leith Kilwinning, and their names have disappeared.

The history of the Lodge prior to the Charter of 1677 and to the earliest extant minute of February 1735 was apparently well known to the Brethren, for in March 1735 we find them addressing a letter to Mother Kilwinning requesting a renewal of the earlier Charter. Fortunately, Mother Kilwinning was in a position to verify their claim and the Charter now in our possession recalls the circumstances of both petitions, and is recorded in the books of Grand Lodge in 1737. What happened to the records prior to 1735 is a matter for conjecture. It may well be that they were deliberately destroyed for the greater safety of Scottish noblemen associated with the Lodge who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, or of those who were active in subsequent years preparing for the second rising in 1745.

References in the minutes are brief but significant; for example, 27th. December 1738 reads, "unanimously admitted John Murray Esq., of Broughton". On 1st. December 1742 John Murray`s signature is appended to the minute as Junior Warden: "The Lodge on this occasion was visited by the Most Worshipful the Earl of Kilmarnock", and he signs as Grand Master. On 4th. December 1745 , " the Lodge met, having been adjourned on the 4th. September last to this day on account of the trouble in the country ..... and the Lodge is hereby adjourned to the first Wednesday of any other month on which the times will admit the Brethren to meet".

It will be remembered that the "glorious adventure" of Bonnie Prince Charlie commenced with the raising of his standard at Glenfinnan on 19th. August 1745 and collapsed at Culloden on 16th. April 1746. John Murray of Broughton had long been in correspondence with Prince Charles Edward Stewart before he came to Scotland, and from the landing until the final defeat and flight acted as his private secretary.

For his part in the rising the Earl of Kilmarnock was one of those executed, but Murray of Broughton, Hume Brown writes in his History of Scotland; "Most pitiable of all was the fate of Murray, who while the cause yet lived, had been not the least efficient instrument of its partial success. But he was not of the mould which heroes or martyrs are made, and brought face to face with the doom that certainly awaited him, in weakness rather than from deliberate treachery, he bartered his honour for his life. No further comment is needed than to note that the minute which records Murray`s admission is defaced by the scoring out of his name and these words are interlined: " Expunged by unanimous concent of the whole Lodge".

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Revised: November 10, 2007 .