Few subjects provoke more discussion than the origins of Freemasonry. Although most Masons have become habituated to taking pronouncements beginning with, “Masonic tradition informs us,” with more than a grain of salt, there yet remain substantial disagreements between the proponents of the Authentic School and all others, especially the champions of the Templar School, with its romantic associations with Scotland and Rosslyn Chapel. The origins theory presented in this paper suggests another time than either the 14th or the 18th centuries, and another place than either Scotland or the London tavern where the first Grand Lodge was formed in 1717. Rather, one speaks of the time of Elizabeth I, and a world of conspiracies, secret organizations, cipher codes and the beginnings of the Scientific Enlightenment.

Central to the story of what subsequently became Freemasonry is the putative Grand Master himself, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Said to be the secret son of Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Alfred Dodd, The Marriage of Elizabeth Tudor, London W 1, Rider & Co.,1940), he supposedly was not told of his royal birth until shortly before his journey to France in 1577.1 He was hailed as one of the greatest men of his time, only to be later disgraced by charges of bribery and corruption, and sentenced to the Tower of London. His death in 1626 is doubted by some Baconians, who believe that his fatal illness was feigned, and that he was spirited away to France, where he lived out his remaining years in peaceful obscurity.2

Sir Nicholas Bacon, into whose care the infant Francis was said to have been placed, raised the child as his own. His fortunes and property increased greatly from the time Francis was added to the household, and the belief is that these better times were occasioned by royal assistance. He was known as a good man, deeply philosophical, well connected on the Continent and in England with the best minds of his time. Nicholas Bacon saw to it that the young Francis was surrounded by the finest and brightest youths of England and France, his companions in learning during the formative years. He died in 1579, while Francis was in France.3

Sir Nicholas, having built a new home at Gorhambury, was visited by Queen Elizabeth when Francis was seven years old, and told that more space was needed to accomplish the educational program which she had directed her personal tutor, Sir Roger Ascham, to devise. Room was required for the visiting scholars who were to be the companions in learning to young Francis. Extensive gardens of royal dimensions were to be planted so that the mysteries of nature could be observed, and which would serve as academic groves through which the young scholars and their masters might stroll, discussing philosophical matters in the Platonic mode. Since the Queen planned frequent visits to Gorhambury in order to oversee the education of young Francis, Sir Nicholas was also charged with the task of building an additional wing to accommodate the royal visits. When Gorhambury was completed, it displayed Masonic pillars at its front entrance. These were of the Tuscan order, with examples of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian elsewhere. Within, paintings depicted the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences, reminders to Francis and his associates of what were the purposes of the daily study. Quite naturally, this place of light and learning came to be known as The Temple.4

Of special interest to Masons is the name of a certain meeting place, a Lodge, if you will, where Francis Bacon and his secret organizations were wont to meet during his adult years, the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem. There were several lodges that met in the old priory, the entrances to which were closely guarded by outer and inner guards to prevent the approach of cowans and eavesdroppers. The labors which Bacon and his circle were about involved the writing, rehearsal, and production of plays. The plays were destined for performance before the Queen, and were often for the purpose of pointing out to her just where she might be in need of correction, a role not unlike that of the Jester, who was shielded by his office from the royal wrath, it being considered in the Queen’s interest that someone had to be empowered to speak the truth. And so, the play was frequently the thing, wherein to catch the conscience of a queen. Comedies served this purpose with greater success than tragedies, although there were times when the monarch was not amused, in which case the Lodge would be placed under a royal edict of inhibition, during which time the company was to produce or perform no plays.

Neither the production of the plays nor their rehearsal was stopped by the inhibitions; but to evade capture and arrest, the outer guards kept strict watch for the approach of the queen’s men, and, at the alarm, the company would flee to the tunnel connecting the Priory with Canonbury Tower across the way, thereby making their escape.5 The final inhibition came in 1591, lasting until 1599, thereby closing down the Lodge of St John of Jerusalem.
During the course of his life, Bacon either directed, devised, or inherited at least three secret organizations; the Knights of the Helmet, the Fra Rosi Crosse Society, and the Acception Masons. The thesis set forth in this paper is that Freemasonry as we know it is a survival and further development of the Acception Masons. The proponents of this thesis explain the secret organizations as representing stages of Francis Bacon’s personal vision, starting with the French Academy in his youth and ending with the prototype of Freemasonry which survived until the emergence of the Grand Lodge of 1717.

The Knights of the Helmet may have actually been begun by Nicolas Bacon during the time of the French Academy and the Platonic Gardens. By the time Francis was fifteen, however, he had already manifested those qualities of leadership which would entitle him to take over the direction of the organization. The helmet spoken of in the title was that of Athena, more often called Minerva. Her helmet had the power to bestow invisibility on its wearer, invisibility being the watchword for the society. The members were to pursue their projects on behalf of Bacon’s great plans with invisibility; avoiding all public notice, and staying in the background rather than seeking honors or recognition for good works. Of course, their very identities as members of Bacon’s society was to remain unknown or invisible to the profane. As goddess of Wisdom, Minerva typified Bacon’s lifelong commitment to the advancement of learning.6

The Fra Rosi Crosse Society maintained the vow of invisibility, but emphasized the practical and experimental approach to the quest for knowledge, taking as their model the alchemy and healing arts associated with the Rosicrucians, knowledge for the sake of benefiting mankind. The New Atlantis,7 although never finished, gives an indication of the social, political, and scientific direction in which Bacon’s ideas were taking him. It was during this time that the activities at the Lodge of St. John of Jerusalem may have flourished, carrying over to the time of the Acceptance Masons.8

With the inauguration of the Acception Masons, Bacon settled on the most mature, complete form of his vision for the betterment of mankind. His great work, The Advancement of Learning, is his manifesto of what he entitled the Great Instauration,9 a comprehensive model for ensuring continuous progress in human knowledge which addressed every level of human activity, physical, mental and spiritual. The theory of Bacon Masonry is not so much that speculative Masons infiltrated operative lodges of Free and Accepted Masons, but that men of learning and position, having infiltrated operative lodges had then sought initiation into Bacon’s Acception Masonry The classic example of this was Nicholas Stone, Master Mason to King James VI of Scotland (James I of England). Stone, who was already noted as an enrolled member of a Company of Masons in 1621, was granted admission to a Lodge of the Acceptance in 1639.10

Proponents of the Bacon theory of Masonic origins cite resemblances between the facts and rumors of Bacon’s life and the rites and lectures of modern Freemasonry. These include the high place given by modern Freemasonry to the Liberal Arts and Sciences, compared with Bacon’s advocacy of the universal advancement of learning; the noble qualities and cruel fate of Hiram the widow’s son, compared with the refusal of the Virgin Queen to acknowledge her own son and his right to the throne; the similarity of symbols and tools of the Bacon secret societies with those of modern Freemasonry; and the use of plays by Bacon’s brothers of the Lodge of St John of Jerusalem to carry a moral message, compared with the drama of the Builder comprising the latter half of modern Freemasonry’s Third Degree. The relatively high level of educational achievement of modern Freemasons compares favorably with that of the initiates of Bacon’s Order of Acceptance, in contrast to the lower levels of education common to members of the Craft in the Operative Lodges. No single one of these points of comparison and contrast, taken by itself, is especially compelling; but collectively, a profile of reasonable arguments seems to emerge. Further investigation of this emerging profile adds yet more weight to the claim.

There was much more to fear, as a member of one of Bacon’s secret societies, than the mere loss of secrets of the builder’s trade. The fact that Francis was an heir to the throne made him an immediate target for assassination. His associates would also have been marked men, being considered members of a conspiracy to frustrate other would-be monarchs. The invisible work of the Bacon circle, that of advancing the cause of learning and the diffusion of scientific knowledge was considered the exclusive domain of the Crown; one had to ask permission simply to ask questions; and any visible attempt to conduct experiments would have been considered a punishable offense. For such a circle of Brothers and Companions, it was a matter of life and death to see that the Lodge was tyled.

Francis Bacon had his joys as well as his fears. His greatest joy was the pursuit of his life mission, that of discovering the concealed mysteries of Nature, thereby creating a store of useful knowledge for the benefit of mankind. He understood this mission to be the acting out of the Divine Plan. A passage from the 25th chapter of Proverbs served him throughout his life as his Pattern upon the Trestleboard:
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings to search out a matter. The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.
How like another familiar passage from yet another familiar source:
By geometry we may curiously trace nature through her various windings to her most concealed recesses. By it we discover the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Great Artificer of the Universe and view with delight the proportions which connect this vast machine.

Geometry and the tools of geometry played a vital role in the symbolic work of Bacon’s secret societies. The square and compass figured prominently, and they were arranged in the regular Masonic manner. Frequent mention of Solomon’s temple is found in Bacon’s writings, and he, himself is often referred to as King Solomon. In connection with the square and compass, one often finds three rods in the usual place of the “G.” Elsewhere, and later in Bacon’s career, the rods are actually replaced by the “G.” The All-Seeing Eye regularly appears on engravings illustrating Bacon’s books; and there is mention of the metaphorical Raising of the Dead.

The three rods refer to a legend of Bacon Masonry in which King Solomon possessed a rod five feet in length; Hiram, king of Tyre’s rod was four feet long; and Hiram Abif’s, three feet. When placed together, the three rods formed a right angle triangle; and with that figure the Master Architect could lay out perfect squares of any size for building the Temple. The rods symbolically represented the three parts of the Syllogism – the fundamental premise, the secondary premise and the conclusion. In the search for a reasoned basis for discovering truth, especially moral truth, Bacon held the Syllogism in high regard. It was only after experiencing the inevitable frustrations that accompany the exclusive use of the Syllogism – the faulty premise – that Bacon abandoned that method and instituted the process of Induction. It was then that Bacon replaced the three rods with the “G,” representing the newly preferred reasoning. Induction, according to Bacon, was based on the joyful insight that Creation was limitless in its concealed mysteries, and that God’s help was required to aid the searcher in uncovering the treasures which He had concealed. After all, was it not the glory of God to conceal and the honour of kings to search out that which, though apparently Lost, was merely Concealed, awaiting discovery?

The All Seeing Eye is generally considered as symbolic of the infinite vision of God, whose eye is on the sparrow, as well as on everything and everyone else. Such was not the interpretation given by Bacon. To Bacon and to his fellow searchers, the All Seeing Eye represented Man in his endless search for that which was, not Lost, but Concealed. As the quest for greater knowledge proceeds, the eye of man becomes more all-seeing, seeking out the knowledge which the Divine Plan calls him to lay up in store for the good of all.
That search for knowledge to which mankind is called by his Creator, is further represented in the metaphor of raising the dead. In J.M.S. Ward’s Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, there is a plate of a painting from the mid 17th Century by Guercino entitled “The Raising of the Master.” The original is in the possession of the Supreme Holy Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland. The painting depicts one man leaning over a dead body taking the measurement of the corpse with a rod. Another man is leaning over an adjacent wall, taking the dimensions of the grave with the compasses. A third man, beside the man with the compasses, stands with his arms raised as if in great grief or distress. All this in a painting from the time of Bacon, long before Masonic scholars of the Authentic School would ever admit to a second part of the Third Degree! Bacon’s thoughts on this matter were such that in searching for the knowledge to which kings are called, it is not sufficient to limit one’s search to what is presently available for observation or experiment. It is also necessary to consult the Wisdom of the Ancients – to “raise the dead,” as Bacon would say, to see what knowledge the Past Masters of mankind might have to help future generations in the search for more Light. It would not, in this sense, have been out of order for Bacon, as King Solomon, to order his Fellows to search diligently on or about the bodies of the ancient masters for the secrets of a Master Mason or a key thereto.11

One of the joys of Masonic research, or even the sort of casual inquiry represented by this paper, is the pleasure of role playing. Clothing oneself with the Tudor costume of a Baconian, and pursuing a line of inquiry wherever one’s fancy may lead him, can give rise to a renewed interest in history and a zest for what may become true scholarly pursuit. Besides, any pretext which leads one to read or reread Shakespeare is sufficient cause for celebration. As with the less rational proponents of the Rosslyn Chapel school, reading some Baconians can lead one into mental dialogues with a few writers who might seem to have taken leave of their senses. Nevertheless, such conversations can point the seeker after Masonic light in the direction of true induction, — the sort of light which led Sir Francis Bacon through the dark and dangerous places of what might have been his protomasonic life.

NOTES
1 William T. Smedley, THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON (London: Robert Banks & Son, 1912), p. 36

2 Alfred Dodd, FRANCIS BACON’S PERSONAL LIFE STORY (London: Rider & Co., 1938), p. 356

3 Smedley, p. 42

4 Dodd, p. 57

5 R.Warwick Bond, THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN LYLY (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902),
p. 38

6 George V. Tudhope, BACON MASONRY (Berkeley: Kessinger, 1954), p. 24

7 Ibid. p. 31

8 Ibid. p. 32

9 Francis Bacon, ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, Edited by Joseph P. Devey (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1905), pp. 9-10

10 F.L. Pick and G.N. Knight, THE POCKET HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY (London: Frederick Muller Limited, 1953), pp. 9, 45

11 Tudhope, pp. 47, 49, 51