Page 51 - Essex Mason (Issue 92)

BROTHERS IN ARMS

uring the English Civil War, Royalist Generals Sir Charles Lucas and Sir
George Lisle fought bravely whilst enduring hardship and famine in the
Dthree-month siege of Colchester. Following surrender to the Roundheads
they were executed in 1648 by a firing squad at Colchester Castle and laid to rest
in St Giles Church which is now Colchester’s Masonic Centre where Lucas and
Lisle Lodge No. 8456 meets.
The Essex Freemasons were approached with a special request from The
Queensman Lodge No. 2694, which meets at Freemason’s Hall in Great Queen
Street, the London Headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England. Based
on the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment which includes the former Queen’s and
Hampshire’s Regiments, in 2018 over 1,000 watched Johnson Beharry VC and
Daniel Keighran VC undergo their joint Initiation into Freemasonry.

With a waiting list of new members to Initiate, the
Queensman Lodge asked Lucas and Lyle Lodge if they
could perform the Third Degree, also known as the
Ceremony of Raising, for Reece Snowball to be made a
Master Mason in this historical building where the two
Royalist generals lay buried in the vault.
At the regular meeting of the Lucas and Lisle Lodge
the Worshipful Master, Michael Lappage, invited the
current Master of Queensman Lodge, James Burgoyne
to perform the Ceremony with the help of Queensman
members Paul Dove, Ian “Chelsea” Hall and Nick Savin
together with Dave Barrett and Eric Sigsworth, who are
also members of Claudius Lodge No. 8700 which also
meets at St Giles, as is James Burgoyne.
The Ceremony held on Friday 12th November 2021 was described by one visitor as “a ‘Festival of Freemasonry’ with an
outstanding performance by the Queensman Lodge members and complemented with the equally word-perfect and
sincerely delivered 'Traditional History' by Tony Flint, the Secretary of Lucas and Lisle Lodge."
Tony Flint said “Reece Snowball was overwhelmed with happiness on the day and that ‘candidate-experience’ is one of
the reasons why we work so hard. It was one of those fantastic evenings that do not come along often enough.”
The Lucas and Lisle members also voted to donate £2,500 from their Lodge Relief Chest to the Essex Freemasons 2022
Festival to achieve Patron status. The Festival has already raised over £4.5 million for the Masonic Charitable Foundation
(MCF) with six months still to go. The MCF is the Freemasons’ Charity which gave over £51 million to other Charities and
good causes in the Community in 2020 alone.
Having a good time with a focus on charity together with its other core values of integrity and respect is what Freemasonry
is all about. As the photograph shows, after having taken his Third Degree in Freemasonry at the resting place of the
two famous Royalist soldiers, Reece Snowball, the new Master Mason of Queensman Lodge No. 2694, joined his fellow
Freemasons as 'Brothers-in-Arms'.

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