In this country an act was passed against Masonry in the third year of Henry VI., at the instigation of the Bishop of Winchester. It was however never enforced, and Henry himself afterwards countenanced the brethren by his presence at lodges of masons. It was also patro nised by James I. of Scotland : but it was no longer indispensable to the church, which accordingly withdrew its protection—an event that would otherwise have been occasioned by the Reformation.
Freemasonry revived again in this country about the time of the civil war, yet merely in semblance, being altogether different in object and character from what it had been, and becoming merely "specula tive " or modern Masonry, an institution in nowise connected with architectural practice. From this country it was first introduced into France about the year 1725; into Spain in 1728, and into Italy in 1733, when the first masonic lodge was established at Florence. It was afterwards however the object of persecution not only in France and Italy, but also in Holland and Germany. Some writers, more espe
cially Abbd Barnet and Professor Robison, have made it a charge against freemasonry that it has been converted into an organised secret conspiracy against religion and existing governments. If the charge has been unjustly made, it must be owned that the profound mystery in which it has cloaked itself gave some colouring to such charges, it being but natural to infer that if there was anything to call for such extraordinary degree of secrecy, it could hardly be aught for good, or In accordance with the interests of society at large. The greater probability is, that there is nothing either good or bad to conceal ; that the mystery of freemasonry is nothing more than an innocent mystification ; and that its symbols and instructions, whatever meaning or purpose they may originally have had, arc now become mere forms and signs retained by the brethren, or "free and accepted masons," as they style themselves, for the purpose of conferring peculiar importance on their harmless social meetings.