as now constituted did not
exist, but there was but one family of masons; and any sufficient number of
masons met together, with the consent of the civil magistrate, to practise
the rites of masonry, without warrant of constitution as a lodge.

On the death of Prince Edwin, Athelstan himself presided over the lodges;
but after his decease, we know little of the state of the masons in
Britain, except that they were governed by Dunstan, Archbishop of
Canterbury, in 960, and Edward the Confessor in 1041. But in 1066, William
the Conqueror appointed Gondulph, Bishop of Rochester, to preside over the
society. In 1100, Henry the First patronised them; and in 1135, during the
reign of Stephen, the society was under the command of Gilbert de Clare,
Marquess of Pembroke.

From the year 1155 to 1199, the fraternity was under the command of the
grand master of the knights templars.

In 1199, Peter de Colechurch was appointed grand master; and the society
continued to increase and flourish in the successive reigns of Henry III.,
Edward I., Edward II., and Edward III. This last prince revised the
constitutions of the order, and appointed deputies to superintend the
fraternity, one of whom was William a Wykeham, afterwards Bishop of
Winchester. He continued grand master under the reign of Richard II.; was
succeeded by Thomas Fitz Allen, Earl of Surrey, in Henry IV.'s reign; and
on Henry V.'s accession, Chichely, Archbishop of Canterbury, presided over
the society. We have records of a lodge held at Canterbury, under his
patronage, where Thos. Stapylton was master, and the names of the wardens
and other brethren are given. This was in 1429, four years after an act of
parliament, passed early in the reign of Henry VI., against the meetings of
the society, which was caused by the enmity of Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of
Winchester, towards Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the king's uncle, a great
patron of the craft. But this act was never enforced, and in 1442 the king
was himself initiated, and he patronised the society.

In the meantime, under the auspices of James I. of Scotland, masonry
flourished in that country. It had been nursed, during the wars which
ravaged Europe, in the humble village of Kilwinning, in the west of the
country; from whence it at length burst forth, and communicated its light
to the lodges in the south. The records of this lodge actually go back to
the beginning of the fifteenth century, as also do those of a l