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The Hon. Elizabeth St. Leger was the
female ever initiated into the ancient mystery of Freemasonry.
How she obtained this honour we shall lay before our
readers.
Lord Doneraile, Miss St. Leger's father'
a very zealous mason held a warrant, and occasionally
opened Lodge art Doneralie House, his sons and some
intimate friends assisting, and it is said that never
were the Masonic duties more rigidly performed by them.
Previous to the initiation of a gentleman
to the first step of masonry, Miss.St.Leger who was
a young girl happened to be in an.tflcpartment adjoining
the room generally used as a lodge-room. This room at
thelihle was undergoing some alteration; amongst other
things, the wall was; considerably reduced in one part.
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,irom
public view, she had thec courage to pick a brick from
the wall with her scissors, and witnessed the ceremony
through the two first steps.
Curiosity satisfied, fear at once tool
possession of her mind. There was no mode of exit through
the very room where the concluding part of the second
step was still being solemnized 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 gentlyl opening
it, before her stood to her dismay a grim and surly
tyler with his long sword un sheathed.
II A shriek that pierced through the
apartment alarmed 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, her death was resolved on. But from the
moving supplication of the younger brother her life
was saved, on condition of her going through the whole
of the solemn ceremony she had unlawfully witnessed.
This she consented to, and they conducted the beautiful
and terrified young lady through those trials which
are sometime more than enough for masculine resolution
little thinking they were taking into the bosom of their
craft a member that would afterwards reflect a luster
on the annals of masonry.
Whenever a benefit was given at the
theatres in Dublin or Cork for the Masonic Female Orphan
Asylum, she walked at the head of freemasons with her
apron and other insignia of freemasonry, and sat in
front row of the stage box. The house was always crowded
on those occasions. Her portrait is in the Lodge-room
at almost every Lodge in Ireland.
Miss. 81. Leger was born in 1695 and
died in 1775 - she was initiated around 1725. Her photo
is displayed in the Grand Lodge Library, Wellington.
Information thereon broadly confirms this story.
- From the New Zealand Freemason
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