Arras, Primordial Chapter of

Arras, Primordial Chapter of. It is asserted that a Sovereign Primordial and Metropolitan chapter of Rosicrucian Freemasons (called Eagle and Pelican) was established at Arras, France in 1747, and a portion of the supposed charter is given in Ragon’s Orthodoxie Maconnique. This chapter created others, including one at Paris in 1780 named Chapter of Arras in the Valley of Paris and, in 1801, this chapter united with the Grand Orient of France. It was declared first suffragan (subordinate) of the Scottish Jacobite Chapter, with the right to constitute others. All of this may be quite true and may furnish an example of the myriad of orders that swarmed through France in the latter half of the 18th century. But a question arises when it is asserted that the House of Stuart or the Jacobites instituted the Arras Chapter in 1747 or had any connection with it or other Hauts Grades (q.v.). This theme was stressed hard by a number of French writers and others with more repetition than proof. An attempt at proof was made in 1853, when Count de Hamel, Prefect of the Department of Pas de Calais, in which Arras is located, published what was claimed to be an authentic copy in parchment of the so-called charter of the Arras body, asserted to have been issued by the Young Pretender, April 15, 1747. It reads:

”We, Charles Edward, King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, and as such Substitute Grand Master of the Chapter of H., known by the title of Knight of the Eagle and Pelican, and since our sorrows and misfortunes by that of Rose Croix, wishing to testify our gratitude to the Masons of Artois, and the officers of the city of Arras, for the numerous marks of kindness which they in conjunction with the officers of the garrison of Arras have lavished upon us, and their attachment to our person, shown during a residence of six months in that city,”

”We have in favor of them created and erected, and do create and erect by the present Bull, in the aforesaid city of Arras, a Sovereign Primordial Chapter of Rose Croix, under the distinctive title of Scottish Jacobite, to be ruled and governed by the Knights Langneau and Robespierre; Avocat Hazard, and his two sons, physicians; J. B. Lucet, our upholsterer, and Jerome Cellier, our clockmaker, giving to them and to their successors the power not only to make knights, but even to create a Chapter in whatever town they may think fit, provided that two Chapters shall not be created in the same town however populous it may be.”

”And that credit may be given to our present Bull, we have signed it with our hand and caused to be affixed thereunto the secret seal, and countersigned by the Secretary of our Cabinet, Thursday, 15th of the second month of the Year of the Incarnation, 1747.
Charles Edward Stuart
Countersigned, Berkley.”

This may be a copy of the original charter, but that does not mean that Charles Edward Stuart signed or ever saw it. That many persons were issuing charters, patents, deputations, and declarations of various kinds in great numbers with various degrees of pretended Masonic authority has been known for years, and the old stories, for there were several of them, about the use of Masons and Masonry to further the cause of the deposed House of Stuart is now discredited by most modern authorities. It is clear that someone tried to make use of Charles Edward Stuart, the Bonnie Prince Charlie of the Scots and, without his consent and probably without his knowledge, constituted him hereditary chief of various Rose Croix, Heredom, Strict Observance, and like ventures. It has to be observed that, even in England, the Grand Master, generally a nobleman and often a Peer of the Realm, seldom came near the Grand Lodge and sometimes the same was true of the Acting Grand Master or Pro Grand Master, hundreds of warrants and deputations being sent out continuously by the Deputy Grand Master or even the Grand Secretary all under the name and seal of the Grand Master. It can be imagined how the mails could be flooded with documents bearing the names of such persons as the various Stuarts. It is surprising that no more have been preserved. (See STUART MASONRY.) Waite (New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. I, p. 406) states: ”Since the charter is manifestly fraudulent as to the source from which it emanated, it is otherwise natural to conclude that it is also mal*cious in respect of date.” He assigns it to 1774 or 1779, to which W. L. Cummings agrees.