This origin of the craft is credited by many of the best authorities on the subject. They found their opinion on the fact that many of the ceremonies practiced by the _Architects_ are still observed among the Masons; and that the Grand Lodge preserved, with the spirit of the ancient brotherhood, its fundamental laws. There are others, however, who likewise claim to be well informed, that pretend it did not originate in any order of chivalry, but in the building fraternities of the Middle Ages. Be the origin what it may, the fact is that after the establishment of the Grand Lodge at "Apple Tree Tavern," Masonry spread over Europe at a rapid rate, notwithstanding the bitter opposition of the Church of Rome that fulminated against it its most terrible anathemas as early as 1738 at the instigation of the Inquisition. Pope Clement XII., on the 28th of April of that year, caused a prohibitory bull to be issued against Free Masonry, entitled _In Eminenti_, in which he excommunicated all Masons; and the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, by edict in the name of the High Priest of the God of Peace and Mercy, decreed the penalty of death against them in 1739; and on May 18, 1751, Pope Benoit XIV. renewed the bull of Clement XII. by another beginning with these words: _Providas Romanorum Pontificum_. The Order was introduced in France in 1725, and on the 14th of September, 1732, all Masonic Associations were prohibited by a decree of the Chamber of Police of the Chatelet of Paris. In 1727, Lord Coleraine founded a lodge in Gibraltar, and in the succeeding year in Madrid, the capital of Spain, the strong-hold of the Inquisition. But in 1740, in consequence of the bull of Clement XII., King Philip V., of Spain, promulgated an ordinance against the Masons in his kingdom, many of whom were arrested and sent to the galleys. The Inquisitors took advantage of the opportunity to persecute the members of a lodge they discovered in Madrid. They caused them to be loaded with chains, to be obliged to row in the galleys without other retribution than scanty rations of victuals of the poorest quality, but an abundant supply of bastinade. Fernando VI. renewed the ordinance on July 2, 1751, making Masonry high treason. The brotherhood made its appearance in Ireland in 1730. It is not positively known if it existed in the country before that time. In 1732 it crossed the Atlantic and was imported in America. In that year a lodge was held in "Tun tavern" in Philadelphia, the B⸫ having previously met in Boston, which may be regarded as the birthplace of American Free Masonry. Henry Price was the first provincial Grand Master appointed by the Grand Lodge of England on April 30th, 1733.