THE ROYAL BLACK INSTITUTION
By Sir Knight Rev. John Brown, M.A., I.D.G.C., C.G.C. (Antrim).
According to the best evidence the Royal Black Institution was formed in Ireland on the 16th September 1797. It grew out of Orangeism, and to this day demands that its members shall be Orangemen and Royal Arch Purplemen in good standing. With the Orange Order, it stands for the maintaining of the Protestant religion, for freedom of conscience, and for loyalty to constitutional authority.
In the early days of the Orange Society, it was felt that extra means of recognition amongst its members were necessary in those troubled times, when it was hard to know friend from foe. It seems that the introduction of the Black Order in 1797 was a further, though unofficial, addition to the original Orange system. As well as the Black Degree, other Orders or Degrees were later added in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Masonic models were always present in the minds of the who organised societies in those early days, and the same principle seems to have been accepted in Orange Lodges as in Masonic Lodges: that is, that any man who had received the degree of an Orange Marksman, a Royal Arch Purpleman, a Purple Marksman, a Black Knight, or any of the later degrees, could confer it in his own lodge.
But the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland knew nothing officially of these "higher orders," and indeed officially disowned them after a long and often bitter controversy. From 1811 certain Armagh brethren, notably Thomas Seaver, County Grand Secretary of Armagh, and Henry Sling, Deputy District Master of the "City of Armagh," were concerned in an attempt to have the "new orders" (as they were called at the time) recognised by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland as part of the Orange system. The Grand Lodge declared that it recognised only the degrees of Orange and Purple, and threatened Orangemen who presumed" to meet in any such Black or other similar Lodges" with expulsion. The Grand Lodge of England concurred.
But the adherents of the "new orders" regarded their degrees as precious possessions, and continued to confer them, though probably in no very uniform manner and by no means in all or nearly all the orange Lodges. In 1817 the Grand Lodge of Ireland again took notice of them, and condemned the "ceremonies observed at initiation into the Black, Red and perhaps Green Orders."
From about this time it would seem that those who wished to preserve these orders associated themselves more closely together. It was probably customary for men who had no one who was able or willing to confer the Black and kindred degrees upon them in there own Orange Lodges to go to another centre for this purpose. When in 1820 the new Rules and Regulations of the Orange Society made it officially impossible for any but the orange and the Purple degrees to be conferred in an Orange Lodge, the way was prepared for the Black Lodges which soon appeared as such, separate from the Orange Society but required Orange qualifications for admission.
For some time these Black Lodges would seem to have been few. We have little information about their exact constitution and manner of working. They seemingly adopted a considerable number of varying, though very similar, rites and ceremonies and made them into a relatively uniform system not so very different in essence from that which survives to day in the modern Royal Black Institution. They surrounded themselves with a good deal of secrecy, which is sufficiently accounted for by the attitude of the heads of the Orange Society and by the political circumstances of the time. When the Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland was suppressed in 1825, the Black Lodges helped, along with other organisations, to preserve Orangeism in Ireland.
But when a Parliamentary Committee in 1835, which was investigating the renewed Orange Society, examined Lieutenant Colonel Verner, a prominent Orangeman, he knew nothing of Black Lodges. The Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan knew of one, and of an attempt "with much mystery thrown around it" to establish another in the Parish of Killyman in County Tyrone. Stewart Blacker had heard of a Black Lodge in Dublin and of one or two in the North, about the Tyrone and Armagh border. He had been present when the Grand Orange Lodge, in 1834, disavowed all connection with them, but otherwise knew little about them. He thought that the Black Lodges originated, perhaps, from a "mixture of freemasonry with that of the Orange system."
From 1836 till 1845 officially Orangeism was again in abeyance. It seems to have been during this period that the Black System really began to become widespread. It became organised under a Grand Black Lodge, with a Grand Master and other Grand Officers. The revival of Orangeism in 1845 would appear to have stimulated the Black Institution as well, for in 1847 appeared "Rules and Regulations to be observed at all Lodges and Preceptories in union with the Grand Black Lodge of Ireland, compiled by E. Rogers." This was printed in Armagh, the main centre of Black Knights at the time, and is invaluable as an authority for the organisation of the Order in its earlier time. The Grand Master was the Grand Registrar. From certain evidence, the Institution was still in some difficulties.
Gradually it spread. Preceptories began to be found in most of the strong centres of Orangeism, though one single Preceptory was generally sufficient for a wide area. For instance, from a slightly earlier day we have a picture in Government correspondence of a party of 20 or 25 Tyrone men marching through Maghery, with drums and fifes, to the house of one Richard Wilson at the Bannfoot, where they were joined by many others and held a "black sitting." (On the next day as they returned through Maghery they were attacked on refusing to play "Patrick's Day" and striking up "The Prussian Drum" instead. They got a beating, lost hats and drums, but came back with reinforcements and gave rather better than they got!)
Not all Black meetings were so exciting, but the assembling of a Black Lodge or Preceptory, as they came to be called, became quite an occasion in the country side, to be properly prepared for, and with enough provision laid in to last for a day or so. It took that time to confer the elaborate degrees and to transact the business. Travel was much less easy and meeting were made worthwhile for men to come from a distance. No doubt in these days such meeting had their abuses too.
In the years following 1847, the Royal Black Institution grew steadily. It was organised under the Grand Black Orange Lodge of Ireland, which was reconstituted under the noted William Johnston of Ballykilbeg in the eighteen sixties as the Grand Black Chapter of Ireland, and as the Imperial Grand Black Chapter of the British Commonwealth some fifty years ago. Johnston's reorganisation was particularly important. It resulted in the sequence of the degrees becoming pretty much as we know it today. Since that time the main points we note in the development of our Order are the increasingly close co-operation with the Orange Institution, the spread of the Royal Black system throughout our world, and the increasing uniformity of practice. Today the Order is stronger and better than ever.
As for the degrees themselves, this is not the place to say much of them. "The things of the temple must be learned in the temple." Who shall say from what far and strange sources they have come? It may be that they have both been improved and have suffered by various revisions. But they still hark back to the chivalry of the Middle Ages, through whatever strange removes, and they still point us to the way of life and to the Cross of Calvary. More and more is the religious side of our Order appreciated and understood. More and more do the true Black Knights of the Camp of Israel realise that they have a mission and a responsibility to this generation. Old ways and practices change but the "illustrious and magnanimous Order" still endures and, we pray God, will endure.
"Then hail the bright and solemn rite
Of our mysterious seven,
And hail the Knight who saw the light
Of mystical eleven"
Let us grip fast the light.