Author: Leonardo Monno Anglisani

The 18^th century was an age of wars and social changes. In Europe in particular it was also the time that marked the birth of the Enlightenment – or “Age of Reason” – which inspired the drama of the French Revolution. To that bloody upheaval there followed a revolution of a different kind and one that saw the beauty and terror of science sweeping through Britain and Europe, producing a new vision of the world, of nature and religion.

The whole Era was one of revelation and vision for man.

London was then a European Capital city which shockingly and generously also provided entertainment of a sophisticated and extraordinary sexual nature.  In his book entitled “The Secret History Of Georgian London” the historian Dan Cruickshank writes: “Although Georgian London evokes images of elegant buildings and fine art, it was, in fact, the Sodom of the modern age…Teeming with prostitutes – from lowly street walkers offering a ‘ threepenny upright’ to high-class courtesans retained by dukes – Georgian London was a city built on the sex trade“.

Georgian London hosted many whorehouses, “Bagnios”, flagellation brothels and homosexual clubs called “Molly houses”. The latter were dwellings were young men, or “mollies”,   dressed as women and assumed effeminate voices and mannerism. They addressed each other as “my dear” and sold unnatural sex to wealthy male patrons. They even enacted, for entertainment, childbirth scenes in which a “molly” delivered a doll at the end of the proceedings.

The Molly Houses were frequented, indifferently, by both intellectuals and randy rascals; they were mostly inner city inns but parties were also held in private houses, the most famous being “Mother Clap’s” in Holborn. It catered, every night, for up to 40 mollies!

England ‘s society was renown to be one of the most tolerant in Europe and it was one where cross-dressing  and homosexuality  were not just exclusive to the wealthy and bored gentry. It is therefore not surprising to find in such scenario that sexually and morally deviated individuals, after they had come to visit England, were unwilling to return home and choose instead to remain.

One such individual – the Chevalier  –   is the subject of this essay. He was a Frenchman and a diplomat who, whilst living in London, was even allowed to join the Order of the Freemasons, albeit for all the wrong reasons.  His life can be described as extraordinary in every respect and separating facts from fiction in it remains, to this day, still a huge task.

THE EARLY LIFE

Born in Tonnere, Burgundy, on 5^th October 1728, D’Eon was baptised with a string of mixed male and females names: Charles Genevieve Louis Auguste Andre’ Thimothee  de Beaumont. It was almost as if his life had been sealed with ambiguity from birth!

His father Louis was a penniless lawyer and his mother – Francoise de Chevanson – came from a noble family and stood to inherit a large estate at the birth of a male heir from her union. For unknown reasons Francoise dressed up Charles-Genevieve as a girl and kept calling him Marie for the first seven years of his life, after which Louis took charge of the child and started treating him as a boy. Had Francoise behaved that strangely because she considered her husband unworthy of inheriting her wealth, or had she simply recognised and accepted the effeminate features and nature of her offspring? We shall  never know.

Charles-Genevieve was a clever child and at the age of twelve was sent to the College Mazarin in Paris, where he received an education that included the Classics and where he learned to hold himself against the bullies who would target him for his girlish appearance.

At college he also cultivated the art of fencing in which he later excelled and which became the principal passion of his life. Charles-Genevieve was blond, of medium height and slim but with unusually developed breasts and with a pair of small feminine hands and feet.

A document found in the French Foreign Ministry describes him so: “(He) stood out because of his blue eyes, unusual high pitched voice and especially because of his youthful and fresh face complexion”, the latter characteristic being rather rare in an age when the populations were vexed by smallpox, venereal diseases and illnesses of other kind and also suffered from the side effects of the dangerous pot-pourri of chemicals used in the makeup products. Charles-Genevieve left college in August 1748 and a year later he obtained a degree in Common Canon Laws.

A good orator, fluent in foreign languages, excellent in the art of fencing and blessed with an exceptional memory, Charles-Genevieve possessed all the abilities that make a good diplomat and an excellent spy. Soon he was brought to the attention of King Louis XV who recruited him in his personal secret service called “Le Secret du Roi”. It was a private network of spies who answered solely to the King.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN RUSSIA

Since 1684 Russia had been co-jointly ruled by Peter the Great and his brother Ivan V.  After the death of the former, his brother became the sole sovereign of all Russia in 1696. But when the latter also met his maker in February 1725, it was Anna Ivanovna [1] – Duchesse of Courtland [2] and second daughter of Ivan V – who became Empress of Russia over the head of her cousin Elizabeth Petrovna[3].

Elizabeth was the young daughter of Peter – who had been the real artificer of Russia’s greatness – and thought the she was the rightful heir to the throne. When she discovered in 1740 that she was again going to be overlooked by Anna’s choice of heir in Ivan de Brunswick [4],she begun to plot. A year later, aided by two hundred faithful grenadiers, Elizabeth stormed the Royal Palace and declared herself Empress of all Russia.

Meanwhile in France Louis XV was being concerned by the fate of Poland, the Country of birth of his Queen, on whose throne he was hoping to place his cousin the Prince de Conde and thus take that geopolitical area away from Russia’s control.

Elizabeth had always been an admirer of France and liked its Ambassador, M. De La Chetardie. But when the pro-England Chancellor, Alexis Bestucheff,  intercepted a letter in which De La Chetardie criticised Elizabeth, all Frenchmen were barred from Court.
The way things were shaping up in Europe, Russia had to be prevented from aligning itself with England or it would have become too strong an adversary. It was imperative that France retained someone at the Court of Saint Petersburg who would report back on any political and military development;   but after Bestucheff’s exclusion order, only French females were allowed in the presence of the Tsarina. This was a setback for France‘s intelligence but not for King Louis XV whose next move proved to be a stroke of genius!

Fully aware of the physiognomies and brilliant social skills of Charles-Genevieve, the King sent him on a mission to Russia in a female role, to play the part of the clever and flirting Lea de Beaumont. D’Eon won the trust of the frail forty-six years old Tsarina and persuaded her to write a letter to her cousin King Louis XV in which she promised to continue supporting France. With that accomplished, D’Eon returned to Paris and personally delivered that letter to Louis XV, expecting some recompense in return.  But the King ignored him and, instead, sent him straight back to St. Petersburg to continue the negotiations. Except that this time Charles-Genevieve  D’Eon was to play the part of Lea de Beaumont’s own brother (or uncle, some say) as the Secretary to the French Ambassador!

D’Eon’s permanence in Russia lasted a total of four years and required a number of return trips to Paris together with a long and extenuating game of cross-dressing;  D’Eon had to appear as Lea de Beaumont when she attended the Russian Court and himself when he had to report matters to the French Ambassador.

In the end a treaty between England and Russia was never signed, much to the satisfaction of Louis XV!

Charles-Genevieve D’Eon’s last trip from St Petersburg to Paris took place in 1760. He was feeling exhausted  and with his health weakened by his repeated extenuating journeys and the stressful  game of spying ,    fell seriously ill with smallpox just outside  Paris. The King realized it was time to withdraw the character of Lea Beaumont

character of Lea Beaumont from stage and he retired Charles-Genevieve from his private spy network. The cross-dressing game had been going on for too long and now that D’Eon  had been struck by an illness that would have, no matter how superficially, scarred his face and body for life, the risk of detection had increased exponentially. Louis appointed  D’Eon captain of his elite troops the Dragoons, and sent him to fight with them in the Severn Years War that was raging in Europe. Perhaps D’Eon’s detractors were hoping that the effeminate but brilliant individual  would have found life difficult on the battlefields and in the war camps. Hopefully he could have been killed or he would evaded the responsibilities and rigors of military action by fleeing abroad to live incognito.

But despite all expectations Charles-Genevieve  distinguished himself in battle – D’Eon was wounded a number of times – and later he even displayed great skills in conducting the diplomatic role that he played in the Anglo-French peace negotiations.

It was the year 1761. This time King Louis rewarded  D’Eon with a handsome sum of money and retired him from the Dragoons.  D’Eon’s military career was over, much to his displeasure. But in the meantime the political European events had begun to take a different turn!

LONDON

By the year 1762 France was bankrupt and had lost most of its colonies to the English who were ruled by the Hanoverian King George III. Elisabeth of Russia had died and had been succeeded by Peter of Holstein [5] who reversed all her policies and allegiances. Louis XV wanted to have peace and in order to know England’s intentions with regards to the negotiations he sent D’Eon to London as the Secretary of the French Ambassador, the Duke de Nevers or Nivernais [6]. Both men arrived in September of 1762.

According to  D’Eon,  His Majesty’s undersecretary  Mr Wood – who was said to be very fond of the wine from Burgundy –  naively accepted the Duke’s invitation to dine at the French Embassy one night.  Nivernais was just another character considered to have very little manhood.

On his arrival in England the newspapers had sarcastically commented that France had sent “a preliminary of a man to conduct the preliminary negotiations”.

By now the dinner at  the French Embassy , to which even the cross-dresser D’Eon took part , appears as some excuse licentious games to take place , albeit it was undoubtedly accompanied by some very good food and by an interrupted flow  of  the excellent Burgoigne wine , Tonnere.  D’Eon recorded in his memoirs that whilst the meal  was being consumed’ , he noticed in Mr Wood’s diplomatic bag an official document of great importance. Taking advantage of the situation in which the inebriated English diplomat and the Duke were engaged, he copied the missive and dispatched it to Versailles on the following morning.  That document detailed the way England intended to conduct the peace negotiations  and it proved to be of an extraordinary importance for France.

King Louis XV this time rewarded  D’Eon with a life annuity and invested him with the Cross of Saint-Louis which gave  the right to call himself “Chevalier”, the equivalent of “Sir”.

After the treaty of Paris[7] was signed in 1763, the King appointed the aristocrat de Guerchy as the new France Ambassador to London. Nivernais was recalled and D’Eon was sent to London with the title of Ministre Plenipotentiary, to manage the Embassy whilst awaiting the arrival of the Comte de Guerchy.

DISMISSAL

The Comte de Guerchy was from Burgundy like D’Eon and a wealthy nobleman. He was a snobbish, mean and ambitious man who had been nominated Ambassador by the King only on the insistence of Madame de Pompadour who was jealous of  and wanted him disgraced. Charles-Genevieve would later describe Guerchy as and individual: “timid in war, brave in peace, ignorant in the City, tricky at Court, generous with other people’s money but stingy with his own” [8] .

The two men never got on well together and became mortal enemies. To expect that they should work closely together was pure illusion.

D’Eon arrived in London in May 1763 and immediately started acting as if he was the Ambassador for France.

Both Charles-Genevieve and his imaginary sister Lea de Beaumont soon became regular and welcomed visitors at the English Court although, for obvious reasons, they never made an appearance together.  D’Eon even spent long evenings in the company of Queen Charlotte as her French reader and always wore the Cross of Saint-Louis on his female dresses.  D’Eon also organised galas at the French Embassy, bought expensive wines, took on servants.   In short, he lived on a grand scale whilst earning only 25,000 livre. He worked zealously and at all hours of day and night.  He did so only for the love and interest of France, often at the cost of his own health; but when he fell in debt by 20,000 livres and asked the French Ministry for a refund, his letters went unanswered. In contrast to D’Eon’s salary, Guerchy’s emoluments as Ambassador had been set at 150,000 livres a year plus another 50,000 for gratuities. For D’Eon this represented an injustice and an insult and in retribution he continued spending lavishly. Except that he would no longer use his own money, but that from the French Embassy’s chest.

When Louis XV officially wrote to George III to inform him that D’Eon was being removed from his diplomatic  post – which to D’Eon meant the loss of his title of Ministre Plenipotentiary with all the privileges that came with it –  and  that the Comte de Guerchy was to take charge of the Embassy’s affairs, Charles-Genevieve realised that, for his safety, he needed to double play.

He left his apartment at the Embassy and retrieved in a house in Dover Street with all his secret and important correspondence, refusing to return to France as he had been ordered. He never accepted that he had de facto been “deposed” as Ministre Plenopotentiary.  The “Ordre de Congede” bore a royal stamp but not the King’s original signature and D’Eon considered it to be a fake for as long as he lived. He believed that the document had been forged by Guerchy himself.

One day, whilst Guerchy was away, D’Eon had dined at the Embassy and fallen ill for two lengthy weeks. He believed that an attempt to poison him had been perpetrated and when he discovered that his locksmith had taken an impression of the locks of his Dover Street residence, he suspected that kidnapping was also on the cards. In a letter to King Louis XV D’Eon wrote: “Subsequently I discovered that M. Guerchy caused opium – if nothing worse – to be put in my wine, calculating that after dinner I should fall into a heavy sleep onto a couch and instead of my being carried home, I should be carried down to the Thames where probably there was a boat waiting ready to abduct me”.

For the next six year D’Eon went to live at 38 Brewer Street, Golden Square and kept his secret documents locked up in the basement, constantly guarded by some faithful grenadiers who had fought with him in the Dragoons.  He mined the rooms and he kept a lamp burning day and night to show that the premises were constantly occupied. When the King of France wrote to George III to ask him to seize those papers from D’Eon, the Chevalier openly complained of his treatment to a number of his influential friends. But nobody helped him and he decided to retaliate. He gathered all his secret documents and correspondence – minus France’s plans to invade England, of course – and published them in a book which he called “Lettre , memoires et negotiations particulieres”.  It became a best seller in Europe and made the Chevalier  famous.

Although for different reasons – D’Eon accused Guerchy of attempted poisoning and Guerchy accused  D’Eon of libel – they both began litigation in Court and both lost.  But whereas Guerchy was able to call upon his diplomatic indemnity and carry on with his official duties,  it cost D’Eon an exile from France of fifteen years.

 D’EON AND WOMEN IN FREEMASONRY

Whilst he lived in London, Charles-Genevieve was initiated into Freemasonry in May of either 1766 or 1768. He joined the London based French speaking “Loge de l’Immortalite de l’Ordre” also known as the “Lodge of Immortality No. 376”, which met at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand. The records show that he served the office of Junior Warden in the Masonic year 1769-70.

Charles-Genevieve joined the Order because he was searching for a safe heaven from a society that was pushing him to a reclusive life but also to seek protection from France’s repeated plots to have him killed or kidnapped.

D’Eon always mentioned the Craft in a most flattering manner and there are many portraits of him dressed in female attire, wearing both the Freemason’s apron and the Cross of St Louis. However the initiation of  by the Moderns in the Masonic Order, gave the traditional Ancients Freemasons room for ample criticism. The Modern’s practice of “initiating women” was seen as a clear sign of extravagance and allowed the Ancients to claim that they were the only faithful preservers of the traditional usages and customs of Freemasonry.

But the phenomenon of women joining Freemasonry was nothing new. From the early part of the 18^th century women had attempted to be initiated or to obtain the secrets of Freemasonry.  The Grand Lodge of Scotland has posted on its website some of the cases of women who were initiated in the Craft. For example:

Case 1 – In 1710 the Viscount Duneraile , a Freemason, was carrying out some repairs to Donaraile Court. One night the Viscount’s daughter, Elizabeth St Leger, awakened by the voices of the masons who were engaged in a meeting, decided to peep through a hole made in the wall , whilst at the same time causing noises herself and be found out.  On trying to escape, she was caught by the Tyler and to ensure that the Freemason’s secret did not became public, she was initiated there and then. From thereafter she was sworn to silence.

Case 2- Melrose Lodge No. 1Bis, preserves a tradition that Isabella Scoon  “had somehow obtained more light upon the hidden mysteries that was deemed at all expedient and after due consideration, it was resolved that she must be regularly initiated into Freemasonry”. She later distinguished herself for her charity work.

In France, on the other hand, women were freely allowed to join the Order; a tradition that continues to these days. Although the French Brotherhood initially remained within the letter of Anderson’s constitution – which excluded women from joining – it saw no reason to ban women from their banquets or religious services. During the 1740s, there appear to have been Lodges which were attached to regular ones (i.e. for men only) but which allowed women, although those admitted were mainly wives or relatives of Freemasons. The lodges were called Lodges of Adoption and in 1774 they fell under the jurisdiction of The Grand Orient of France.  The system was made up of four degrees:

1. Apprentie, or Female Apprentice.
2. Compagnonne, or Journeywoman.
3. Maîtresse, or Mistress.
4. Parfaite Maçonne, or Perfect Masoness.

The idea of women Freemasons spread widely in Europe, but whereas the practice never established itself either in England or in America, it flourished in France at the start of the French Revolution.  Even Napoleon’s wife Josephine presided over one of those Lodges of Adoption in Strasburg in 1805.

The English Freemasons never forgot D’Eon and allowed him to remain a member even after he had been legally declared a woman. There is evidence that the Master of the London Lodge of the Nine Sisters, who enlisted famous English and foreign respectful characters, invited him to celebrate the departure to the Gran Lodge above of a one of their Brothers.

The Master wrote this note to D’Eon :

“I endorse an invitation to this fete where you have a place reserved for you, as Mason, as belletrist (intellectual)  as one who is an honour to her sex after having been an honour to ours. It is permissible only for Mlle  to surmount the barrier which forbids access to our work to the most beauteous (charming) half of humanity. The exception begins and finishes with you; do not refuse to enjoy you right” [9]

It is not recorded whether D’Eon ever took part.

THE HELL FIRE CLUBS

In the 18^th century there were a number of clubs in the British Isles which engaged in violent and sometimes murderous pranks. Drinking and whoring were regular activities for their members.  The clubs were frequented by Aristocrats as well as by members of the political world and often they also enlisted Freemasons. Indeed it is reported that none other than the Grand Master of the English Grand Lodge from 1722/23 – the Duke of Wharton – had co-founded the first Hell Fire Club in 1719. After Wharton’s Club was closed down by Walpole’s government Proclamation against “obscene” associations in 1721, the Duke set up a so called “Schemers Club” in 1724. The latter being just another assembly of mischievous men who proclaimed themselves dedicated to the “advancement of flirtation”.

There was a Hell Fire Club also in Dublin and it too had been founded by an aristocrat – the 1^st Earl of Rossen – another Freemason and Ireland’s Grand Master in 1725. But the most well known of the Hell Fire Clubs was the one called “The Order of St. Francis” , which was founded around 1740s  by Sir Francis Dashwood, a member of the Parliament as well as  a Freemason.

It met initially in a disused Cisternian Abbey in the village of Medmenham (Buckinghamshire) but later moved to some caves situated above the village of West Wycombe (Buckinghamshire), not far from the Estate of the Dashwoods. Secret meetings and week-end parties are said to have been held in that underground labyrinth of caves which led to a chamber called the Inner Temple , situated directly beneath the local Church of St.Lawrence  where mass is still being celebrated on Sundays to these days.

Some of those “Franciscans” were notable Freemasons like John Wilkes, William Hogarth, Benjamin Franklin and our intriguing Chevalier .

The sexual games, orgies and perverted acts that went on in those underground vaults must have   appealed to the ambiguous genre of the Chevalier  who later had the boldness to claim that he had joined Freemasonry only for a chivalric reasons!

RETURN TO FRANCE

Following the death of Louis XV, D’Eon was recalled to France by his successor Louis XVI who was anxious to gather back all those secret and dangerous documents that the Chevalier had been guarding back in London, as well as removing for good from the scene the embarrassing character of Lea de Beaumont.

But D’Eon dumbfounded France by deciding to blackmail the King. He declared he would not give up any of those sensitive documents – among which were the plans to invade England –  unless His Majesty paid him an enormous amount of money and promised to protect him from his enemies. Louis XVI wanted to stop waging wars and heal the financial state of his Kingdom, so in 1775 he sent over his top secret agent Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaunarchais, to negotiate with the Chevalier.

An agreement was reached whereby , when back on France soil,  D’Eon would have been publicly and legally declared a woman and be in receipt of a sum of money large enough to pay off all his debts and to provide him with a comfortable living. At the age of forty seven, with a pension and a debt free status, Charles-Genevieve D’Eon deemed himself to live the rest of his life as an individual of the opposite sex;  but at least he could again attend the French Court and be allowed in the company of the Queen Marie Antoinette. Indeed the Queen even helped Charles-Genevieve  with the choice of a female wardrobe, his wigs and make up.  D’Eon lived in Versailles for many years and whilst there he wrote his autobiography: “La vie militaire, politique et privee de Mademoiselle ”.

However when France joined the American War of Independence against the English, D’Eon’s love for the military life resurfaced and he wrote to the French Minister for permission to re-enter service. He was immediately arrested and put into a dungeon from where he was released only after he solemnly promised never to wear male clothes again, abandon Versailles and return to his home in Tonnerre, Burgundy, to live with his mother.

Yet in 1785,  D’Eon appeared once again to betray his promise and he was seen riding in his estate dressed in a dragoon uniform. The King, noting Charles-Genevieve’s restlessness and unwillingness to settle down in an anonymous life, decided to send him back to England to continue the work of gathering and returning to France his compromising documents. This time, however, D’Eon  never returned to France.  It was the dawn of the French Revolution and he  did not share those ideals, nor would anyone who saw all of his friends guillotined by the Jacobins !

Furthermore, the Revolution deprived him of his annuity and he had to spend seven months in prison for debts.

On his return to London in 1785 , D’Eon had declared that England was “a Country more free (sic!)  than Holland and well worth visiting by any man (who is) a lover of liberty. …” and libertinage, I would add!

He had returned as Lea de Beaumont and was never to dress as a man again. He had made his final choice of gender and perhaps done so at the wrong time of his life, when his voice had turned deep and cavernous and his mannerism vulgar and noisy. The writers Horace Walpole and James Boswell were never taken in by  feminine attire and portrayed him as a transvestite, a cross-dresser ante litteram in total contrast to the great philander Giacomo Casanova who wrote in his memoirs: “It was at that ambassador’s table that I made the acquaintance of the Chevalier , the secretary of the embassy, who afterwards became famous.  This Chevalier  was a handsome woman who had been an advocate and a captain of dragoons before entering the diplomatic service; she served Louis XV as a valiant soldier and a diplomatist of consummate skill.  In spite of her manly ways I soon recognized her as a woman; her voice was not that of a castrato, and her shape was too rounded to be a man’s.  I say nothing of the absence of hair on her face, as that might be an accident.”

Later on in his memoirs the great lover took the opposite view and recounted the story of a 20,000 guinea bet placed on the gender of the Chevalier. The bet was never either won or lost because the Chevalier refused to be examined.

LATER YEARS

D’Eon supported his income whilst living in London by challenging men at duel for monetary prizes. On April 9^th   1787, at Charlton House, Lea Beaumont confronted a French sword champion twenty years his younger and won. The publicity he gained from that event enabled him to set up a successful fencing Academy which toured the Country and performed in packed public halls. 

Life was again good to Charles-Genevieve until on a tragic day at Southampton in August 1796, an opponent wounded him and made him bedridden for two long years.

D’Eon never recovered from that mishap and spent the last years of his life in misery and poverty, sharing a house with a Mrs Mary Cole, an admiral’s widow he had met in 1795. D’Eon passed away peacefully in his bed on May 21 1810 having spent forty nine years of his life passing as a man and thirty three as a woman. At his death, Mrs Cole’s priest – Father Elysee – made the following account of the body of the Chevalier as he laid on the bed:

“The body presented unusual roundness in the formation of the limbs; the appearance of a beard was very slight, and hair of so light a colour as to be scarcely perceptible was on the arms, legs and chest. The throat was by no means masculine; shoulders square and good; breast remarkably full; arms, hands, fingers those of a stout female….and she has a cock”.

Later on  a cast was taken of his body and a thorough examination carried out in the presence of the Prince de Conde, the Earl of Yarmouth Sir Sidney Smith  and a number of surgeons, lawyers and former regimental friends of D’Eon . Afterwards, the witnesses signed a declaration that certified that “the body is constituted in all that characterises man , without any mixture of sex”.

How mystifying !

Charles-Genevieve ‘s body was buried in St Pancras’s cemetery and his tombstone is still present there today.

It is curious to note that now the phenomenon of transgenderism is in the open, a Society called “The Beaumont Society” has been set up in UK to support the cross-dressing and transsexual’s community.  In its website it is stated that the Society “keenly promotes the better understanding of the conditions of transgender, transvestism and gender dysphoria in society, thereby creating and improving tolerance and acceptance of these conditions by a wider public.”  The same tolerance that even the United Grand Lodge of England has displayed by declaring in August 2018 that if transgenders had joined the Order as men, they should be allowed to remain Freemasons. The UGLE’s guidance warns that using a mason’s transition as a reason for excluding him/her from a man-only Lodge, would constitute “unlawful discrimination”. A decision that only time will tell whether it has been  harmful to the image of the Order and cause it a downfall.

The Chevalier told the world that he was a woman who had disguised herself as a man. In fact he was a man pretending to be a woman who was now admitting to be a man.  – by Richard Bernstein, New York Times

By W.Bro. Leonardo Monno Anglisani – IPM of NHL 6557 in the Prov. of Middlesex, England

The author forbids any reproduction or publication of this article, in full or in part, without his explicit authorization. 

[1] Moscow 7/2/1693 – St Petersburg 28/10/1740

[2] Now western Latvia

[3] Moscow 29/12/1709 – St Petersburg 5/1/1762

[4] Anna Ivanovna ‘s German grandnephew. Born in Saint Patersburg 23.08.1740, he died in Shisselburg 16.07.1764. Only two months old when he was proclaimed Emperor and after Elizabeth Ivanovna seized power in 1741 he was put into prison  and killed twenty three years later, whilst still confined.

[5] Born in Kiel in the Dukehy of Holstein in February1728 and died in July 1762 in Ropsha. He reigned as Peter III, Emperor of Russia for only six months in 1762.

[6] Louis-Jules Barbon Mancini-Mazarin, Duke de Nevers (16 December 1716 – 25 February 1798)

[7] The Treaty of Paris in 1762 ended the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the United States, recognized American independence and established borders for the new nation.

[8] Royal Spy by Emma Nixon, page 80

[9] « La Femme du Grand Conde’ » by Octave Homberg et Fernand Jousselin and a mentioned by Edna Nixon in « Royal Spy » page 222.

Sources 


- “Royal Spy” by Emma Nixon

- “Initiation in male Lodges” –  Grandscottishlodge.com

- “The strange destiny of the Chevalier ” by Wm E. Parker – The Northern Light magazine, June 1983

- “Hell Fire and Freemasonry” – angelfire.com

- “Sir Francis Dashwood “by David Harrison, The Square magazine, March 2014

-  Noonobservation.com

-  BeaumontSociety.org.uk

-  Gay.it/cultura

-  Lastampa.it/2006/08/17/cultura

The life of Thomas Dunckerley was one of a major importance to the Craft. No other 18^th century English Freemason occupied so many distinguished offices as he did. His story is an engaging reading that will also fill your mind with questions. Thomas ’s motto was  “Fato non Merito” [1]  and nothing  summarises his life better than those words.

Thomas Dunckerley was born in London on 23 October 1724, the child of Mary Bolness,  wife of  Adam Dunckerley who became a porter at Somerset House.  Although Mary’s husband deserted her when he found out she was carrying an illegitimate child, Mary was able to support – for reasons that will be disclosed to you later   –  Thomas’s private education at boarding school. That experience, however, proved an unhappy one for the child who, at the age of ten, decided to run away from the institution and never return.  His  grandmother took him under her mantle and cared for him until, still a child, he joined the Royal Navy’s “Boy Service“  as a “Powder monkey or “Nipper‟.

In the 18th century there were very many adolescent boys serving aboard British ships. Some of them were orphans or foundlings, others were just delinquent and troublesome juveniles.  Although  the Navy did not provide an apprenticeship leading up to an independent trade, it gave long-term employment to those who were fit and healthy.  The Navy recruited from a wide spectrum of the society and even practiced impressment, a custom of forcing any men of age 18 and upwards to serve the Nation  for a specific time  and in situations of war, even against their will. Many such individuals and children stayed on and  progressed through the ranks , reaching captaincy and receiving commissions . A few even ended their service as Admirals.

Geometry was a science that all ship gunners had to learn as it was used to calculate the correct inclination of a cannon in relation to the target and the speed of the ships in combat. By distinguishing himself in that task, Thomas became “Master Gunner” at only 24 years of age. However, he remained in that rank until he retired twenty-six years later. During his time in the Navy Thomas travelled extensively, taught Maths to his ship’s crew, engaged in many sea skirmishes and took part to the siege of Quebec [2] during the Seven Years’ war.

Throughout those years at sea, Thomas received much commendation and tokens of friendship from all the Officers under whom he served.  However, merit and seniority were not the only elements required to secure a career; the influence of friends in prominent places was also a crucial factor and sadly Thomas had none.

THE ROYAL SEDUCTION STORY

In 1760, Mary Dunckerley had passed away and Thomas, on his return to London from  Quebec, was to discover a story that put him in a new and extraordinary light. On her deathbed, Mary had confided to her neighbour that she became pregnant with Thomas as the result of a brief relationship with the Prince of Wales, the future King George II of England (in the portrait below).

Mary Dunckerley was the daughter of a physician and she lived and worked in the household of the Right Hon. Robert Walpole – a subsequent Prime Minister of England – at Houghton Hall in Norfolk.   Mary had gained a solid education, and it is realistic to assume that she was Lady Walpole’s personal assistant rather than one of  her servants.  The philandering German speaking Prince of Wales, had become fond of the Walpoles [3] and being a recurrent visitor to Houghton Hall, on one such visit he seduced Mary.  Lady Walpole did not fail to notice what was taking place under her roof and swiftly moved to bring the embarrassing situation to an end.  She schemed an expedient whereby she would find a husband for Mary and then despatched the married couple to live and work hundreds of miles away from Houghton Hall.

Lady Mary Walpole confided in her friend the Duke of Devonshire [4] whom recommended that the future consort of Mary should be an anonymous Adam Dunckerley. He summoned the young man at his Chatsworth House and kept him there until the terms of the arranged marriage were accepted. Clearly either Adam or Mary, if not both, must have had a few reservations. Perhaps their different social status and education played a part in the dithering. After the wedding the couple moved to London where Adam, in exchange for free accommodation, took up the post of porter at Somerset House. The trade of a porter in the early 18th century London entailed carrying wealthy and important individuals in sedan chairs – which provided protection from mud, snow, rain or sun –   back and forth through the unpaved streets of London. Porters also loaded and offloaded luggage from horse carriages, cargo from river boats and so on. Theirs was a demanding job, but one that greatly contributed to the growth of the economy in the Capital.

Somerset House (in the picture above) is a beautiful palace just off the Strand, famous worldwide for being immortalised in a painting by Canaletto. The architect Christopher Wren, whom some believe was a Freemason, refurbished it magnificently in 1685. A few decades later , however, the structure fell into disrepair and ceased offering  adequate accommodation to foreign Royals, Aristocrats and  diplomats. Instead, it provided simple lodgings in exchange for grace and favours.

When in November 1723 Adam Dunckerley left Somerset House to do some errands for the Duke of Derbyshire  – he was absent for five months, until May 1724!  –  he left Mary with much idle time to occupy herself.  With Christmas approaching, she set on visiting some of her friends and acquaintances. One of those cronies was Lady Margaret Ranelagh (1672-1728) who lived at 83-84 Pall Mall, London.

On her deathbed Mary confided to Ann Pinkney – the wife of another porter at Somerset House –that one day she went into the parlour of her host’s house and found the Prince of Wales whom she “had too well known” before her unhappy marriage. “At his request and for I could deny him nothing” – said Mary – “I stayed at the house for several more days during which time the Prince made five visits to me” and in one encounter made her pregnant!  For the cuckold Adam Dunckerley, this proved too much to bear.  He opted out of Mary’s life and disappeared from the records.

The events that followed seem to endorse the argument that Thomas truthfully had a royal  “connection”.  Proof of it is that the expecting Mary, whom under different circumstances would have been  left to her destiny, was instead surrounded and tended for by people of status.  The Royal Midwife Mrs Sydney Kennion, for example, assisted the child’s birth with the doctor to the Prince of Wales and to the Walpoles – Dr Richard Meade (1673-1754) [5] – in attendance.

Indeed after Thomas’s birth, the Prince of Wales gifted Mary with fifty pounds; enough  money to buy a house in those times. Dunckerley recounts: “This information” – the affair with the Prince of Wales –  “gave me great surprise and much uneasiness; and as I was obliged to return immediately to my duty on board the Vanguard, I made it known to no person at that time other than Captain Swanton. We were then bound a second time to Quebec, and Captain Swanton promised that on our return he would try to have me introduced to the King, and that he would give me a character reference; but when we came back to England the King (George II) was dead.”

Thomas’ grandmother had been a nurse to Sir Edward Walpole – son of Sir Robert Walpole, a Freemason – and Dunckerley had been hoping in vain that such a connection would have helped him rise in the Navy‘s ranks. But now – it was the year 1760 – Thomas realised  that in the light of his mother’s revelations, he could play the ace card of claiming to be a royal bastard and obtain “employment in any department that is adequate to my (…) abilities and which would not depress me beneath the character of a Gentleman”.

By the end of 1763, the year he had retired from the Navy, Thomas had accumulated debts of  £150, a sizeable amount of money that he had no hope on earth of repaying in his life. He was drawing a very good pension from the Navy but he was spending it all on medical bills for his sick daughter and his son [8] who needed to be repeatedly bailed out from his gambling liabilities. With the certainty of ending his days in the debtors’ prison, Thomas made a runner.

In 1764 he signed on as a crew member of the HMS Guadeloupe and sailed away to avoid arrest and imprisonment.  On board with him was Lord William Gordon, a fellow Freemason who kept good guard on him. Having become ill with the scurvy, Thomas disembarked at Marseilles and underwent treatment at the home of none other than England’s ambassador in town.  When he was restored to a good health, Thomas travelled to Paris to rejoin Lord Gordon  who gave him £200.00 and dispatched him back to England to clear all his liabilities.

But money never changes hands without good reason!

Only after the death of Thomas’s alleged royal parent in 1766, Thomas’s claim was brought to the attention of  the King. The newly crowned [6] George III (in the portrait above) was said to have been very impressed at the number of intimate information in Mary’s deathbed confession. He made enquires into Thomas Dunckerley’s character and being satisfied, he assigned him an annuity of £100 [7]  and gave him the use of private apartments at Hampton Court Palace.  He also allowed Dunckerley to bear a Coat of  Arms that showed the motto “Fato non Merito” and to sign himself as “FitzGeorge” (son of George).

At the age of forty-six Thomas had at last achieved the prestige and economic security he had longed for.

 MASONIC CAREER AND WORK

In contrast to his experience in the Navy,  Dunckerley’s Masonic career proved glistening.  Thomas was initiated into Freemasonry in 1757 and believed to have gone through the three degrees at the “Lodge of the Three Tuns N.31”, one of the Navy Lodges of Portsmouth which met at the pub with the same name.  To substantiate that assumption is the fact that he ended his speech – called “The Light and Truth of Freemasonry Explained “ and delivered before the Lodges of Plymouth in 1757 – with words of apology for having boldly written about the subject whilst still very new to Freemasonry. Two years later he reaped his strong enthusiasm for the Craft by becoming the Grand Master of two Plymouth Lodges.

In 1767, Dunckerley received the appointment to Prov. Grand Master of Hampshire and  founded several naval Lodges in the County. That first Provincial rank appointment in Freemasonry was a token of true esteem by the Grand Lodge of England  – particularly by its Royal Patrons the Prince of Wales (Grand Master of the Order),the Duke of Clarence (Patron of the Holy Royal Arch) and the Prince Edward (Patron of the Masonic Knights Templar Order).

Dunckerley also became the Pro Grand Master for the Masonic Provinces of Bristol, Dorset, Essex, Gloucester, Hereford, Somerset, Southampton & the Isle of Wight.  He was also the Grand Superintendent for Kent, Nottingham, Surrey, Suffolk, Sussex and Warwick and the most eminent Grand Master of The Knights of Rose Crucis, Templar, Kadosh and he received the appointment to Past Senior Grand Warden.

However, of far more importance in the Craft was the office that Dunckerley occupied as an instructor of Masonic Lodges  and a reformer of Freemasonry. The Grand Lodge of England had in fact authorised him to revise the existing ritual which resulted in Thomas’s removal of part of the third degree ritual and assigning it to the Royal Arch instead. In September 1769, Dunckerley introduced the Mark Mason Degree.  Nobody is certain of where he got the idea, but we know that he conferred it for the first time to the Brethren of the Portsmouth Royal Arch Chapter of Friendship No 257. It is also interesting to note that initially there was a “Mark Man” Degree given to Fellow Crafts and a “Mark Master” Degree conferred on Master Masons.

About a hundred years later, the Grand Lodge of England  backed off from its initial recognition of Mark Masonry and the Mark could no longer be worked in a Craft Lodge.  The Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons was hence constituted, turning Mark Masonry into a separate and independent Masonic body.

Dunckerley also introduced  new Masonic symbols such as the ‘Parallel Lines’ – which represent the two Saint John –  and ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. He  wrote Masonic songs and hymns, many well-written letters and presented many Lectures.

HIS LATE LIFE

Thomas married young in life and to a much older woman; but the couple lived happily together and even had four children. When Thomas laid the foundation stone of a new Church at Southampton in 1792, he  said that “if the structured had been finished by the time he had completed fifty years in wedlock, he should think himself justified in following the practice of some Nations he had travelled in, viz., that of keeping a jubilee year” and being remarried in that Church!

Thomas Dunckerley  was a very generous Brother and he continued to give frequent Masonic and social events even when he lived at Hampton Court.  He attended public meetings and festivals of the Craft and helped the poor fellows whenever he could.  But such benevolence and the regular expenses he incurred for attending all the events of his many Provinces, were costly and caused Dunckerley to effectively lead a poor life.

Dunckerley died in Portsmouth at 71 years of age, in 1795. He had expressed a wish of being buried in the Templars’s Church, London, but was instead laid to rest in St Mary’s Parish Church (shown in the photo above) , Portsea, Portsmouth, in an unmarked grave. An arrangement that speaks volumes!

CONCLUSIONS

Thomas did not show any desire for a classical education and run away from college when he was 10 years old.  The excellent proficiency in Maths that he showed later in life, does not compensate for  an intellectual education that was never installed onto him.   He served in the Navy for twenty-six years – a third of his lifetime! –  yet he rose no higher than Master Gunner. He also fell into debt and dishonorably fled the Country. He regained his integrity and avoided imprisonment only thanks to a substantial financial donation – but I suspect we should call it a “lifetime loan”  or a bounty – from a Brother Freemason if not from the Grand Lodge of England itself!

How do we otherwise explain that a person with such a background and limited education progressed so significantly in the Craft’s hierarchy, composed Masonic songs, delivered eminent lectures, inspected [9] revised and reformed Freemasonry and even introduced the new Order of Mark Masonry. And he did all that just on his own merit?  Why was his body not laid to rest with the reverence and respect that royal blood require?

Susan Sommers is a historian and a recent biographer of Dunckerley, in her article published in the Masonic magazine “The Square” [10]  inspirationally states that the 18th century, with its Enlightenment, military wars and civil unrest,  was a time of rapid changes which provided the perfect conditions for some men to leave their inglorious, murky or boring past behind and reinvent themselves.

I feel this might be just what Dunckerley did.

Back home and into a civilian life after twenty-six years spent at sea, Thomas stared at financial ruin. What saved him were his human qualities. He was an intelligent, articulate, affable, caring, generous and gregarious individual who got on with everybody. But  above all he was a Freemason with a canny physical resemblance to King George II, and with a captivating story that took him out of an anonymous life and gave him the status of a gentleman.

Having escaped incarceration, Thomas very determinedly dedicated the later  part of his existence, to the service and glory of Freemasonry.  He took  on endless work and responsibilities, he entertained, revised, developed and  changed all things Masonic.

As the illegitimate child of an English Monarch and a person gifted with noble looks and deportment, Thomas Dunckerley fitted perfectly the profile of a faithful agent for the mysterious and political designs of the 18th century English Freemasonry.And no matter what status he attained later in life, I believe his true worthiness remains shrouded by a thick veil of  fabrication.

The author forbids any reproduction or publication of this article, in full or in part, without his explicit authorisation. 

[1]  It  means  “by fate not by merit”

[2] It  saw the British snatching the Province of Quebec in Canada  from the French in 1759

[3] In his role of  King ,  George II relied more and more on the political dexterity of  Lord Walpole to govern his realm

[4] William Cavendish, the IV Duke of Devonshire (1720-1764).  Duke of Devonshire was just the name of the Title. The Cavendishes were not the Duke of the County of Devon.

[5] Member of the Royal Society of Physician and a Freemason

[6] King George III,  grandson of George II

[7] Later increased to 800 pounds.

[8] He was reported to have died in a cellar in St Giles’s prison

[9] In 1760 he received a commission  “to inspect the Craft wheresoever he might go”

[10] Thomas Dunckerley –  A Masonic hero and/or imposter ? “The Square” – Sept 2013

SOURCES

"History of the Mark Degree" by the E. Lancashire Prov. Grand Lodge

“Thomas Dunckerley and English Freemasonry” by Susan Mitchell Sommers

“The late Brother Thomas Dunckerley” – The Freemasons’ Quarterly Review, March 1842

“Who was Thomas Dunckerley” by WBro. Bro Ken White, Lodge Gosforth, August 1999

“WBro. Dunckerley” – by Edgar W Fentum

In the minutes of the London Lodge “The Nine Muses” is recorded that on 13th February 1783  the “Marquis Paul de Arconati, Viscount of Milano” was admitted as a member.

Since it was founded on 14thJanuary 1977 at the Thatched House Tavern in James’s Street, “The Nine Muses”  Lodge has had a large number of Italians in its lists , so it comes as no surprise that Paul de Arconati fancied it over all the others. The esteemed Chevalier Bartolomeo Ruspini[1]  – jointly with few other respectful characters –  had established “The Nine Muses” and had been its Grand Master in 1976.  His name still appears on a Lodge Certificate dated 1801 as a testimony not only of his longevity but also that he may have been occupying the Chair for period much longer than it is custom nowadays.

But exactly which noble title did Arconati hold, Marquis or Viscount ?

He was a Marquis with the double barrelled family name of Arconati-Visconti/  Perhaps the casual omission of the hyphen in his name might have confounded the Lodge’s secretary and the “Marquis Arconati-Visconti” became the “Marquis Arconati, Viscount of Milano”. It is not uncommon to find in old   Masonic lodge minutes, members’ names which have been recorded with an unintelligible handwriting, are mis-spelt or even incomplete, particularly if those names were foreign.

Paolo Arconati-Visconti was born in 1754 and was the third son of Giangaleazzo Arconati-Visconti, third Marquis of Busto Garolfo[2]and most importantly :  Chamberlain of the Austrian Empress Marie Therese ! The Arconati-Visconti was a family from Milano that even to these days is highly regarded for having been patrons of the arts in its generations.  One of Paolo’s ancestors – Galeazzo Arconati – possessed for a while the collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches known as “The Atlanticus Codex”, which contains some of his futuristic visions on subjects like the flight, new weaponry, mathematics and so forth.  In 1747 Giangaleazzo had married the youngest daughter of the last Baron Scockaert [3]Count of Tirimont , one of the richest and  most influential Flemish aristocrats of the time. The couple moved to Milano in 1750.

In the circle of aristocracy only the first born male child has the right to inherit the title, but Paolo received that privilege following the unexpected death of both his two older siblings. When the Marquis  inherited a large estate in the Flanders he  took off  there and made the Castle of Gaasbeek his summer  residence whilst holding lodgings at the  Hotel De Croy  in the Place Royale, Bruxelles , for when he travelled there on business. It is claimed that he joined the  Lodge “Les Vrais Amis de l’Union” in Bruxelles and that he was involved , whilst there, in many charitable and philanthropic projects.

The Marquis had began his adult life as a captain in the light cavalry regiment of the Hussars, fighting for Austria in the seven years war; a conflict in which all the European nations were involved from 1756 to 1763 and that saw Great Britain and France fighting as usual on opposite sides,  each one forging rather fluid alliances  with other smaller Countries which often swapped sides during the conflict.

The Marquis  travelled far and wide and everywhere he went he studied and immersed himself in the culture of that Country. It was during that time of his life that he visited England and was initiated into Freemasonry. He was a liberal man but his eccentricity was not seen in the right light and  people often assumed  that he was a revolutionary.

Italian by birth, raised in Austria and French by circumstances, he was only able to occupy official government positions after the French revolution of 1795 , when he was elected to represent the department of Dyle.[4]

Paolo greatly admired Napoleon Bonaparte for having successfully  brought order where,after the revolution, there had been chaos. So when Napoleon visited Liege, the Marquis made sure he attended the presentation and gave the First Consul his personal welcome.

Napoleon was swayed by him. Perhaps the fact they shared a common Italian-French  heritage played a good part into that. Certainly the First Consul’s opinion of the natives was quite shocking for he is reported as having said : “You Belgian are quite different from the French, Austrian, Dutch or English. You like yourselves too much and your main characteristics  are apathy and selfishness”. No wonder even to these days the dislike between the two nations is still latent !

During a visit to Turkey, the Marquis had developed a great taste for the oriental fashion. He loved the satin tunics, the turbans and yellow slippers and on his return home he regularly dressed as an Ottoman nobleman ,with turban and sabre. It is reported that after Napoleon had appointed him Mayor of Bruxelles, the Marquis attended meetings and received the local officials dressed as a Turk !  He also travelled in a carriage pulled by six horses and driven by coachmen with blackened faces.  His jaunts were such a great spectacle to watch that the desperate local impresarios had to beg the Marquis to reschedule his pleasure outings so that there would be no clash with the theatre performances, many of  which were being cancelled because of him.

Paolo Arconati’s admiration for Napoleon was such that he even attempted to erect a 100 meter tall pyramid on the road to Bruxelles-Mons, with the bust of his hero displayed at the top.  The material for the construction would have had to come from the demolition of the Amiens Cathedral. It was a foolish idea and was rejected,  of course. In the end, he had to settle for an arch of triumph erected in the middle of the park of his residence in Gaasbeek.

A physical description of the Marquis is provided in a report that an English officer wrote during the battle of Waterloo.   The 23rd Battalion of the King’s  Light Dragoons had been posted in Gaasbeek  and its commander had decided to turn the Marquis’s Castle into the sleeping quarters for the British officers. But when he arrived outside the Castle he was met by a bunch of reservists and farmers whom  the Marquis had assembled to protect his property. In perfect English, the Marquis asked the captain  why he wished to invade his home. The captain, being aware of the eccentricity of the Marquis’ character, removed  his hat in sign of respect and  explained that he was simply following the rules of war but that no harm would be brought to anyone there.  The gentlemanly manner with which the officer had spoken, greatly impressed the Marquis who then relented.

The British captain ‘s name was Mercer and he described the Marquis as a person with a tanned look and of above average height although , because of his age, his spine was a little curved. He was  otherwise quite active  and of a very alert mind and dressed like a Turk, with a dirty turban enriched by many precious stones. In his right hand he held a “lance” and in his left a horn. The old man was not only flamboyant but probably a little  deaf too !

The Marquis’ other residence in the centre of Bruxelles  had been occupied by the Allied Forces Commission whose members committed a considerable amount of damage, estimated in the region of 11,500 francs. The Marquis attempted to recover the sum from the Duke of Wellington but his claim was rejected and he sold off the property in disgust. After the Treaty of Vienna, William I (King of Holland) became the ruler  of the Low Countries. Paolo Arconati-Visconti had to lay low for a while as all privileges and noble titles from the old regime were abolished.  He became known simply as “citizen Arconati” until in 1816 King William restored  the Marquis tile to him. From then on he called himself Paul Marie Remy Arconati-Visconti, Marquis of Busto. It was however dutifully pointed out to him that a carriage pulled by 6 horses  was a privilege reserved only to  Kings. “No matter” he replied and he then ordered that his coach be pulled by only five horses plus a  mule !

The Marquis had a daughter , Sophie,  in 1789 but their relationship was rather strange right to the  very end. She addressed  him as  “tutor” or “guardian” but never as her father and he never recognised her as his child. Sophie went on to marry a Frenchman who fought with  General Lafayette. The couple  did not  inherit any part of  the Marquis’ fortune which went instead to Paolo’s nephew: Giuseppe Arconati-Visconti.

In his final days,  the old eccentric  Freemason slept in a coffin lined with  wool and red brocade to become  accustomed to the place where he would rest when his time came. But when in 1821 he suffered a heart attack, he was unable to reach for the sarcophagus; having climbed onto the nearest table , he laid himself there and died.  The Marquis Paul Arconati-Visconti was buried at Gaarsbeek and the epitaph on his tomb reads:

“Man is born to enlighten his soul for only a very short time”.

— *** —

I based most of the material of this paper on an article written by P.J.Dawson, Past Grand Master of the Lodge of the Nine Muses in London. It had been translated into Italian and published in a Masonic magazine that I had seen displayed in a newspaper kiosk in Bologna over fifty years ago. My curiosity drove me to buy it, and I never anticipated I’d become a member of the Craft decades later. I hid it in a safe but forgotten part of my house, and it was only recently found by chance.

[1] Born in Romacoto near Bergamo , Italy,  in around 1727 or 1728 , Ruspini  came to England in 1750  and died here in December 1813. He was the founder in 1788 of a Charity now known as  the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls.

[2] This is a village 30 miles north east of Milano

[3] Alexander Louis Scockaert of Tirimont

[4] Dyle was a department of the First French Empire in what is now Belgium

In the year 1748 the powerful King of Prussia Frederick II sent a letter of commendation[1] to a little known Italian nobleman who had written an essay called “Best practices of military operations for the foot soldiers”. The author was Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of San Severo born on 30^th January 1710 in Torre Maggiore near the major town of Foggia, in the southern Italian Region of Apulia.

What Frederick did, however, was both astonishing and baffling. Did he not realise that by writing such letter he was on the one side disquietly exposing the incompetence of his generals and on the other praising the excellence of mind of a mere minor foreign aristocrat ?

Raimondo was admired in life not only for his knowledge of the military arts and for inventing a new type of archibugio[2] ; he was also an accomplished alchemist, a genius of technology, a philanthropist and amongst many other things also a high ranking Freemason. In our times the Prince’s family name  is  known in  Naples for its association with the Chapel of Sansevero, a shrine  that had been built by the Prince’s  ancestors  in 1590 and  magnificently  refurbished by him  between 1749 and 1771.

This wide angle picture shows that the inside of the Chapel in question contains several monuments, many of them beautiful and some also famous all over the world, like the “Veiled Christ” by the sculptor Giuseppe Sammartino. According to legend, that masterpiece was created  in 1753 by the artist working in a hypnotic state induced by the Prince who, after completion,  blinded the Sammartino to prevent him from replicating the secret technique applied to achieve such a stunning result. That exceptional sculpture represents Jesus Christ in death covered by a transparent looking marble shroud.

Some experts assert that the shroud and the subject were carved from one block of stone whilst legend states that Sammartino supplied the Prince with a suitable piece of cloth and the nobleman and alchemist , through a secret chemical process, transmuted it into that marble-like creation that covers the face and torso of the Christ.  Displayed in the Chapel is the “Disinganno” – or “Disillusionment” –  which is another excellent artwork that Raimondo commissioned to Francesco Queirolo[3].

He dedicated it to his father Antonio di Sangro whom, after years of turmoil  following the early death of his wife, returned to Naples in old age and committed the rest of his days to religious life.  The human figure is shown in the act of disentangling itself from a net representing the many human sins, whilst the globe symbolises the earthly passions and the little winged Genie embodies the human intellect whose help is offered to assists man in his quest. At the base of the monument there can also be seen an open Bible and a square with compass which, together with the terrestrial globe, are all allegories used in freemasonry.

The other pieces of art put on show in the Chapel are some beautiful sculptured  tributes to human virtues like modesty, decorum, truthfulness and sobriety, to mention but a few. To enlarge on what was the inspiration behind them would however be outside the scope of this paper.

Raimondo was the son of Antonio di Sangro, a noble Neapolitan and VII Prince of Sansevero and Cecilia Gaetani dell’Aquila di Aragona Sanseverino who also descended from an old patrician family.  Her ancestor Benedetto Gaetani [4] , to mention one, had become Pope Bonifacio VIII in 1294.  In fact Raimondo’s whole family genealogy is excellent; it stems from the Duke of Burgundy and has a connection with none other than the great Charlemagne!  Such an illustrious ancestry guaranteed the Prince a rightful presence at the Court of the King of Naples with whom he had become a close friend in youth.

At the age of ten Raimondo had been sent to Rome by his father to study mathematics, pyrotechnic, hydrostatics, philosophy, canon and civil laws, at the Jesuit convent “Clementino”. It was in that city that with the official consent of Pope Benedict XIV, Raimondo dedicated his time to the reading of the “forbidden books” kept in the Vatican vaults whence he derived that knowledge that he later applied in his secret experiments.

In 1730 the Prince returned to Naples and made that city his permanent home.

In 1734 Charles Bourbon,  Duke of Parma[5] , took Naples and the following year at the age of 18 was crowned its King as  Charles VII.   His installation on the throne marked the beginning of a long period of revival for the capital of southern Italy and flagged the start of the Prince of San Severo’s scientific activity to which the King was personally interested and had approved of.  It is said that Raimondo had gifted Charles with another of his inventions: a rainproof hat.

As the Colonel of his Regiment “Capitanata”, Raimondo di Sangro fought valiantly in 1744 at the battle of Velletri and with the defeat inflicted on the Habsburgs troops he played a big part in saving the Kingdom for Charles VII and the Bourbons.   It was during that time of war that Raimondo had written the essay that brought him the recognition from Frederick of Prussia.

The Prince was a modest man who had no vices, did not like excesses and was also of a liberal mind. An affable person, he was nonetheless at times unable to keep his impulsive temperament under control. He spoke several languages, including Arabic and Hebrew and printed books from the basement of his Palace in Naples which he had equipped with his own presses. Amongst those publications was “The Travel of Cyrus” by the famous Freemason Michael Ranmsay [6] which the Prince had translated into Italian. After the war against the Austrians, Raimondo returned to spend his days in his secret laboratory that he kept in the vaults of the Chapel, where he made discoveries which could have made him one of the most famous scientists of his time.

In the crypt of the Sansevero Chapel in Naples are kept the bodies of a man and a woman which the Prince called “anatomical machines”. They are actually skeletons wrapped by the ensemble of veins that are present in a human body.  Chronicles report that the person, who injected the mysterious substance which forever preserved the vascular system of those corpses in a metallic-like state, might have been the anatomist Giuseppe Salerno from Palermo. But according to legend it was the Prince himself who experimented on his servants whilst they were still alive; hence the appellation of “sorcerer Prince” and “Devil’s apprentice” that stuck on him.

Although the Prince’s interests were mainly of a scientific and esoteric nature, he  also had a good sense of humour and did not shy away from playing a few pranks , one of which is the following.  The “Naples Gazette” dated 24 July 1770, reported that Raimondo di Sangro had built a splendid “Carrozza Marittima”, an amphibious carriage pulled by horses and capable of carrying up to twelve people and that such a marvel was seen defying the sea waves in Capo di Posillipo one sunny morning in July 1750.  In truth, as the Prince revealed, that splendid machine was nothing more than a raft on which had been attached a painted wooden façade cut out in the shape of a carriage. The horses that appeared to be pulling the carriage were made of cork and the wheels were spun by men hidden behind the disguise. It was a practical joke that not everyone accepted in the right spirit.   A year later, dueto  the prolonged and regular contact with the intoxicating chemicals that he used in his experiments, the Prince passed away.  This  practical joke of  the amphibious carriage might have been his amusing way of saying adieu to the world and to the people of Naples.

Chronicles report that amongst the many skills that Raimondo possessed, was also the ability of healing the sick with the use of remedies of his own preparation.  He successfully applied that dexterity on Luigi Sanseverino, Prince of Bisignano, by saving him from near death after the most talented doctors of Naples had given up any hope. Even Tanucci, the Chief Minister at the Court of Charles VII, notwithstanding his dislike for Raimondo – mostly for being a freemason and therefore an enlightened mind – summoned him when he fell ill.

Twenty or so years later, that famous celebrated charlatan, swindler and Freemason who called himself Count Cagliostro – aka Giuseppe Balsamo from Palermo, Sicily – would have become famous all over Europe for doing exactly as the Prince of San Severo: cure the sick with his own secret magic potions.  Except that  Cagliostro committed the error of applying his prowess of traumaturgo on the rich as well as the poor people, thus attracting on himself the scorn of the aristocracy who later embroiled him in various plots, the most famous of all being the affair of the missing necklace at the Court of King Louis XVI of France in 1781.

When the Prince became the Grand Master of the Order of the Freemasons for the Kingdom of Naples in 1750 he risked being excommunicated by Pope Benedict XIV.   In his defence he asserted that he had only gone into Freemasonry for he believed he was joining an operative order dedicated to the research and practice of Alchemy which was a subject that greatly interested him.  The reality was of course quite different because many Masonic lodges of the time also included in their list of members, some progressive, enlightened and revolutionary minds[7].  Instead of making a full mea culpa, Raimondo even dared reprehend the Church in a letter by accusing it of approving  idolatry – that pagan tradition of image worshipping – amongst the underprivileged population of the Kingdom and most particularly of the people of Naples.

Perhaps the legacy and influence of the di Sangros inside the Vatican and their noble lineage were stronger than one imagined for on that occasion the Prince, notwithstanding his blunders, was spared imprisonment and damnation.

Nonetheless,  accusations of witchcraft and black magic continued to press against him  ; the more so after he had claimed to have discovered a flame that could remain alive for an extensive period of  time, even months,  ”with the minimal lessening of the substance that fed it”.

The Prince wrote to the Florentine scientist Giovanni Giraldi that  he had made the discovery by chance during one of his experiments , when  a certain substance  extracted from  “…  the bone of the most noble creature on earth; the best one being that from the head…”  had caught fire.  As the noblest creature on earth was interpreted to be man, we realise why there was never any truce in the war that his enemies engaged again the Prince!  The only records that the Prince left us of that imperishable light are some sketches preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale. The issue has left perplexed scholars in every age .

The Prince’s laboratory was locked up just before  his death and never re-open  ;  the Chapel and his Palace  have since  remained in the hands of the Sansevero family which has never allowed for any  investigations to take place there.  According to another legend, when the Raimondo di Sangro felt that his days were coming to an end he gave instructions that after death his body should be cut in seven pieces by his servant and laid into a coffin whence he would resurrect nine months later. However  his family , either fearful that the exercise could have come good and thereafter labelled all the Sanseveros as followers of the Devil or simply anxious to check on the progress of things , put an early end to the experiment by opening the tomb before time.

The Prince’s death has remained very much a mystery even to these days. His mortal remains and his actual place of rest – other than the official tomb seen in the Chapel – have not yet been discovered.

 The author forbids any reproduction or publication of this article, in full or in part, without his explicit authorisation.

[1] Legler, Rolf (1990). Der Golf von Neapel (in German). Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag. p. 135

[2] Italian word for  the predecessor of the musket though it was easier and lighter than that to carry

[3]  He was an Italian sculptor born in Genoa in 1704. He was  active in Rome  and  Naples

[4] Born in Anagni in 1235 and died in  Rome in 1303

[5] He was the fifth son of  Philip V King of Spain but eldest by his second wife Elisabetta Farnese

[6] G.D. Henderson: “Chevalier Ramsay” Thomas Nelson and Sons London, 1952.  Michael Ramsay

(9 July 1686 – 6 May 1743) was born in Scotland but spent most of his life in France

[7] To read more about Freemasonry in the Kingdom of Naples in the XVIII century, read my paper entitled “Freemasonry under the shadow of the Vesuvius” of future release.