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Proofs of a Conspiracy, by John Robison: Chapter I. Schisms in Free Masonry

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This is a chapter from John Robison's 1798 conspiratorial history *Proofs of a Conspiracy*, tracing the origins and alleged hidden purposes of Freemasonry. Robison argues that Masonry descended from ancient operative builders' guilds — including the Dionysiac architects of Asia Minor — and that its transition from a working trade fraternity to a gentleman's society in 17th-century England opened it to political manipulation. He contends that during the English Civil War and Restoration, Royalist sympathizers and Jesuit agents infiltrated the lodges, adapting Masonic ritual to signal loyalty to the Stuart cause and to screen the political sympathies of candidates. The public rhetoric of "universal benevolence" and brotherly charity, Robison claims, was a later rationalization — a respectable face concealing the society's original function as a covert political network. When the Stuarts fled to France after 1688, Robison argues they carried Masonry with them, where Jesuit influence intensified and new "higher degrees" (such as the Écossais or Scots Knight degree) were invented to make the fraternity more appealing to Continental aristocrats. The piece is distinctive for treating Masonry not as benign fraternal philanthropy but as an institution whose secrecy was always instrumentalized — first for dynastic politics, later for whatever purposes its infiltrators chose.

Proofs of a Conspiracy, by John Robison: Chapter I. Schisms in Free Masonry

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