(Vol. iv., p. 234.)
There is an inquiry in Vol. iv., p. 234., as to whether there is any truth
in the story, that the Honourable Miss E. St. Leger was made a freemason;
and as no account of the circumstances has yet appeared in your pages, I
send you the following statement, which has been extracted from _The
Patrician_. Apart from its value as a record of this singular fact, it
contains other particulars which you may deem worthy of preservation in "N.
& Q."
"The Hon. Elizabeth St. Leger as the only female who was ever initiated
into the ancient and honourable mystery of Freemasonry. How she
obtained this honour we shall lay before our readers, having obtained
the only genuine information from the best sources.
"Lord Doneraile, Miss St. Leger's father, a very zealous mason, held a
warrant, and occasionally opened Lodge at Doneraile House, his sons and
some intimate friends assisting; and it is said that never were the
masonic duties more rigidly performed than by the brethren of No. 150,
the number of their warrant.
"It appears that previous to the initiation of a gentleman to the first
steps of masonry, Miss St Leger, {599} who was a young girl, happened
to be in an apartment adjoining the room generally used as a
lodge-room; but whether the young lady was there by design or accident,
we cannot confidently state. This room at the time was undergoing some
alteration: amongst other things, the wall was considerably reduced in
one part, for the purpose of making a saloon.
"The young lady having heard the voices of the Freemasons, and prompted
by the curiosity natural to all, to see this mystery so long and so
secretly locked up from public view, she had the courage to pick a
brick from the wall with her scissors, and witnessed the ceremony
through the first two steps. Curiosity gratified, fear at once took
possession of her mind; and those who understand this passage, well
know what the feelings of any person must be who could unlawfully
behold that ceremony. Let them then judge what were the feelings of a
young girl, under such extraordinary circumstances.
"Here was no mode of escape except through the very room where the
concluding part of the second step was still being solemnised; and that
being at the far end, and the room a very large one, she had resolution
sufficient to attempt her escape that way, and with light but trembling
step glided along unobserved, laid her hand on the handle of the door,
and gently opening it, before her stood, to her dismay, a grim and
surly _tiler_, with his long sword unsheathed. A shriek that pierced
through the apartment alarmed the members of the lodge, who all rushing
to the door, and finding that Miss St. Leger had been in the room
during the ceremony, in the first paroxysm of their rage, it is said,
her death was resolved upon; but from the moving and earnest
supplication of her younger brother, her life was spared, on condition
of her going through the two steps of the solemn ceremony she had
unlawfully witnessed. This she consented to do, and they conducted the
beautiful and terrified young lady through those trials which are
sometimes more than enough for masculine resolution, little thinking
they were taking into the bosom of their craft a member that would
afterwards reflect a lustre on the annals of Masonry.
"Miss St. Leger was directly descended from Sir Robert De St. Leger,
who accompanied William the Conqueror to England, and was of that high
repute that he, with his own hand, supported that prince when he first
went out of his ship to land in Sussex.
"Miss St. Leger was cousin to General Anthony St. Leger, Governor of
St. Lucia, who instituted the interesting race and the celebrated
Doncaster St. Leger stakes.
"Miss St. Leger married Richard Aldworth, Esq., of Newmarket, a member
of a highly honourable and ancient family, long celebrated for their
hospitality and other virtues. Whenever a benefit was given at the
theatres in Dublin or Cork for the Masonic Orphan Asylum, she walked at
the head of the Freemasons, with her apron and other insignia of
Freemasonry, and sat in the front row of the stage box. The house was
always crowded on those occasions.
"The portrait of this estimable woman is in the lodge room of almost
every lodge in Ireland."