believe that it ever took place, we shall presume that M. de Marchot may have been deceived.[47] From the era of the Reformation, the combined Order appears in Scotland only as a Masonic body; but there are some records to indicate that, so early as 1590, a few of the brethren had become mingled with the Architectural Fraternities, and that a Lodge at Stirling, patronised by King James, had a Chapter of Templars attached to it, who were termed cross-legged Masons; and whose initiatory ceremonies were performed not in a room, but in the Old Abbey, the ruins of which are still to be seen in the neighbourhood. The next authentic notice we can find on this subject, is in M. Thory's excellent Chronology of Masonry, wherein it is recorded, that about 1728, Sir John Mitchell Ramsay, the well-known author of Cyrus, appeared in London, with a system of Scottish Masonry, up to that date, perfectly unknown in the metropolis, tracing its origin from the Crusades, and consisting of three degrees, the _Ecossais_, the _Novice_, and the _Knight Templar_. The English Grand Lodge rejected the system of Ramsay, who, as is well known, along with the other adherents of the Stuart Family, transferred it to the Continent, where it became the corner-stone of the _hauts grades_, and the foundation of those innumerable ramifications into which an excellent and naturally simple institution has been very uselessly extended in France, Germany, and other countries abroad.[48] In pursuing the very curious subject of the _hauts grades_, we may observe, however, that they never obtained much consideration during the lifetime of Ramsay, although they are invariably traced to him and to Scotland, the fairy land of Foreign Masonry,[49] but gathered their chief impulse from the disgraceful dissentions in the Masonic Lodges at Paris, about the middle of last century, which induced the Chevalier de Bonneville, and other distinguished persons at the Court of France, to form themselves into a separate institution, named the Chapitre de Clermont, in honour of one of the Princes of the Blood, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Clermont, then presiding over the Masonic Fraternities. In this Chapter they established, amongst other degrees, Ramsay's system of the Masonic Templars, which, along with other high grades, was soon conveyed into the Northern Kingdoms of Europe, by the Officers of the French Army, but especially, by the Marquis de Bernez, and the Baron de Hund, the latter of whom made it the ground-work of his Templar _Regime de la Stricte Observance_, which occupied, for several years, so prominent a place in the Secret Societies of Germany. This adventurer appeared in that country with a patent, under the sign-manual of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, appointing him Grand Master of the seventh province; but although he had invented a plausible tale in support of his title and authority,--both of which he affirmed had been made over to him by the Earl Marischal on his