Page 22 - The Early History of The Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. UGLE

THE NINE MUSES, THE ROYAL ARCH
AND OTHER ORDERS

HE CHARACTERISTIC of tolerance and reason present in the Lodge of
the Nine Muses is again demonstrated by their very positive attitude towards
Tthe Order of the Holy Royal Arch and its interest generally in all other
forms of Masonry which were then arriving from abroad.
The Charter of Compact, which set up the first Grand Chapter, was instituted by a
number of influential ‘Modern’ Masons in 1765, even though the Premier Grand Lodge
refused it recognition. The ‘Antients’ required no Grand Chapter because their Grand
Lodge recognised and controlled the Order and encouraged their Lodges to practise it.
Had it not been for the foundation of the Grand Chapter, there would undoubtedly
have been further defections from the ‘Moderns’ to the ‘Antients’, especially in London.
Despite this lack of recognition, Lord Blayney, the Grand Master of the ‘Moderns’
(1764-1766), became the first of the First Grand Principals of the Order. Later,
the forgery of a date was made in the Charter of Compact in an attempt to prove
that Lord Blayney was not the Grand Master at that time. One cannot help but
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wonder whether this forgery was not part of a sequence which included the Thomas
Edmondes letter referred to above. Someone may have been trying to show that
changes, then being entertained by the ruling set in the Premier Grand Lodge, were
not in fact changes at all. Although several of that set were exalted, none of them
actually signed the Charter. Then, in 1774, H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland became
Patron of the Order eight years before he was elected Grand Master, and the Duke of
Manchester did sign the Charter.
Many early members of the Lodge of the Nine Muses were exalted in the Grand
Chapter itself and many of these became Grand Officers, Ruspini being the First
Grand Principal in 1780. In 1792, Grand Chapter decided that in future it would
only exalt noblemen. Since that year, both the Lodge of the Nine Muses and the
revived Lodge of Antiquity have sent their sons for exaltation to the Chapter of St.
James, No. 60 (now No. 2), and in 1795 Ruspini was made an Honorary Member of
that Chapter. The Crescent on the place of honour on the shield of the Lodge of the
Nine Muses could possibly have a reference to the Royal Arch. 28

27 AQC. 64. “The falsification of the RA. Chapter of Compact.”— J. R. Dashwood.
28 Prestonian Lecture for 1948. “The Deluge.”— F. L. Pick.