Thursday, June 2, 2022

‘Grand Master on the balcony’

    

The Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England took his rightful place on the palace balcony alongside Queen Elizabeth II this morning following the Trooping the Colour portion of the Platinum Jubilee celebration. Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, is a cousin of the Queen.

Elected Grand Master in 1967, the 250th year of the Grand Lodge, he is the longest serving Grand Master in English history. He was initiated into the fraternity in Royal Alpha Lodge 16 in 1963. He was Passed in 1964. Sunday the fifth will be the fifty-eighth anniversary of his Master Mason Degree. He served as Worshipful Master of Royal Alpha in 1965.

He and Prince Michael, Grand Master of Mark Master Masons, are the two princes who hold Masonic membership. Freemasonry in England has cultivated relations with the royal family for three centuries by electing kings, princes, dukes, and others to membership and to high office.

He will turn eighty years old July fourth. Perhaps he will be the last royal to preside over Grand Lodge.

This year’s Prestonian Lecture is titled “The Royal Family and Freemasonry,” which Bro. John Hawkins is presenting to Masonic audiences around the country.
    
     

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