Brethren of the Mystic Tie

“I have been asked many times why I started to write books about Scottish Freemasonry and the clue lies in the question itself. A number of people including from places as diverse as New Zealand, England and more than a few from the continent and north America chose to write about my country and the kind of Freemasonry practised here. As Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum and Library I had little choice but to read such books as they dealt with a subject that I was, and am, intimately acquainted. Yet the puzzling thing was that none, let me repeat that none, of the authors who wrote/write about Scotland, Rosslyn Chapel, Freemasonry (of necessity, therefore, Scottish Freemasonry), the St. Clair Charters, the Schaw Statutes, the Knights Templar and a host of associated subjects had ever visited Freemasons’ Hall, or communicated with the Grand Lodge of Scotland, for information, the accuracy of what they intended to publish, or not even simply that organisation’s opinion. This is akin to writing the history of, say, Rolls Royce, but never driving one of their magnificent automobiles, contacting the company or examining the archive material held in it’s Museum.”