Jacobite Connection

This company of masons, carpenters (and various other trades) has been written about by many erudite masonic scholars such as Gould and Mackey. However, the well known Scottish author, Bro. A. S. MacBride, has written an interesting comparison in his Speculative Masonry (1914). I quote some of these:  The name Sons of Solomon reminds us of our own fraternity cf Widows’ Sons  Accepted companions  Passed companions  Every companion was eligible and able to vote for office  Belief in God

 Sequence of degrees  Conventional knocks

 A living circle (in other orders)  Oath of secrecy and pass words  Use of squares and compasses  Similar regalia  Use of test questions

 Possession of the ‘Hiramic legend’

What was unique was their twisted canes and flowing colours round their hats. Today, they function more like an Incorporation or Guild than anything like freemasonry in that they support young craftsmen and women into the various trades. However, a rich history they most certainly have!

While Charles Edward managed to escape to France, many captured ‘rebels’ were taken to London to await trial. Of the six Jacobite Grand Masters of Scotland and England, Wemyss had worked behind the scenes and avoided prosecution despite his family’s support of the prince. His estranged wife had given a ball for Charles Edward in Edinburgh, where she danced with the prince. His younger son Francis Charteris did not publicly join the rebellion, but he privately provided funds for the prince. He would later serve as Grand Master of Scotland in 1747-48 and secretly participate in the international network of Jacobite Masons who organised the Elibank Plot. His oldest son Lord Elcho, member of the prince’s life guard, escaped to France, where the family continued to send him funds over the next years. Kilmarnock, Cromarty, and Balmerino joined Maclean and Derwentwater as prisoners in London.

From the Tower, Kilmarnock wrote to Lord Boyd, advising him to “continue in your loyalty to his present Majesty, and the succession as by law established.” Never let your regard for your family “drive you on the rock I split upon, when on that account I departed from my principles and brought the guilt of rebellion…on my head.” He then urged him to “use all your interest to get your Brother pardoned and brought home as soon as possible, that his circumstances, and the bad influence of those he is among, may not induce him to accept of foreign Service and lose him both to his Country and Family.” The effort to recall Charles Boyd to Hanoverian loyalty was unsuccessful, for he remained in France and continued to support Jacobite invasion plans into the 1750s. Lord Boyd and two younger brothers would join the Stirling lodge in 1749, and Boyd would serve as Grand Master of Scotland in 1751-52. As we shall see, they may have been among “the Whiggers” who covertly supported the Elibank Plot.

Kilmarnock’s critics claimed that it was pressure from his Jacobite wife and an aunt, who threatened to disinherit him, that prompted his reluctant support of Prince Charles. He told his former Whig colleague, the 3rd Duke of Argyll, that he cared not a farthing which king prevailed: “but I was starving, and, by God, if Mahommed had set up his standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck close to the party, for I must eat.” This cynical comment makes the overlypious account of Kilmarnock’ s last days by the Presbyterian

minister James Foster seem more self-serving than accurate.

Kilmarnock pleaded guilty and appealed to George II, Cumberland, and the Prince of Wales for mercy, especially given the misery of his wife and many children. According to Reverend Foster, he claimed that his wife, “tho’ bred in different sentiments,” was “now more inclined to Whiggish than Jacobite principles.” Reports circulated that her maid had revealed to Lady Kilmarnock a horrifying vision by second sight, in which Kilmarnock’s bloody head rolled towards her. Despite the emotional pleading of the countess, who threw herself at the king’s feet and then fell unconscious, the earl was condemned for high treason. Horace Walpole reported that Cumberland “interposed for Lord Kilmarnock’ s execution,” while the Prince of Wales advocated mercy for the rebel lords. At the trial, Walpole noted that Kilmarnock looked younger than his forty-one years, “tall and slender, with an extreme fine person,” and that he behaved with a “most just mixture between dignity and submission.”

Despite his guilty plea, the earl would not accept the charge that the Young Pretender would have imposed popery, arbitrary government, and slavery on the British people. While Foster pressured him to condemn the prince’s autocratic papism, Kilmarnock insisted that in all his conversations with Charles Edward, he never sensed anything but a practical desire to uphold the laws and constitution of England. He vehemently denied that he had received or given orders to treat prisoners or the wounded with inhumanity, a canard that was spread by Cumberland to counter his own growing reputation as the “Butcher of Culloden.” Though many prominent men petitioned for a reprieve, the high rank of Kilmarnock, his position as a lowland Scot, and his