In considering the early history of Freemasonry, from a purely matter-of-fact standpoint, it will be well to settle as a necessary preliminary what the term did and does now include or mean, and how far back the inquiry should be conducted, as well as on what lines. If the view of the subject herein taken be correct, it will be useless to load the investigation by devoting considerable space to a consideration of the laws and customs of still older societies which may have been utilized and imitated by the fraternity, but which in no sense can be accepted as the actual forbears of the present society of Free and Accepted Masons. They were predecessors, or possibly prototypes, but not near relatives or progenitors of the Freemasons.[2] The Mother Grand Lodge of the world is that of England, which was inaugurated in the metropolis on St John Baptist's day 1717 by four or more old lodges, three of which still flourish. There were other lodges also in London and the country at the time, but whether they were invited to the meeting is not now known. Probably not, as existing records of the period preserve a sphinx-like silence thereon. Likewise there were many scores of lodges at work in Scotland, and undoubtedly in Ireland the craft was widely patronized. Whatever the ceremonies may have been which were then known as Freemasonry in Great Britain and Ireland, they were practically alike, and the venerable _Old Charges_ or MS. constitutions, dating back several centuries, were rightly held by them as the title-deeds of their masonic inheritance. It was a bold thing to do, thus to start a governing body for the fraternity quite different in many respects to all preceding organizations, and to brand as irregular all lodges which declined to accept such authority; but the very originality and audacity of its promoters appears to have led to its success, and it was not long before most of the lodges of the pre-Grand-Lodge era joined and accepted "constitution" by warrant of the Grand Master. Not only so, but Ireland quickly followed the lead, so early as 1725 there being a Grand Lodge for that country which must have been formed even still earlier, and probably by lodges started before any were authorized in the English counties. In Scotland the change was not made until 1736, many lodges even then holding aloof from such an organization. Indeed, out of some hundred lodges known to have been active then, only thirty-three responded and agreed to fall into line, though several joined later; some, however, kept separate down to the end of the 19th century, while others never united. Many of these lodges have records of the 17th century though not then newly formed; one in particular, the oldest (the Lodge of Edinburgh, No. 1), possesses minutes so far back as the year 1599.