MASONIC BIOGRAPHIES FAMOUS FREEMASONS

Frederick the Great January 24, 1712 - August 17, 1786 King of Prussia from May 31, 1740, Frederick II abolished judicial torture, press censorship and religious descrimination. A promoter of science and the arts, he supported the Acadamy of Berlin, befriended Voltaire and published a treatise on enlightened principles entitled "Antimachiavel." He was Initiated on August 14, 1738 at Brunswick with the furniture and assistance of the Lodge at Hamburg. In 1739 he founded a lodge in Reinsberg, and in 1740 he sat as Master of a Lodge in Charlottenburg. On July 16, 1744 he granted his protection to the National Grand Lodge of Germany and on February 14, 1777 he wrote a letter of support to the Mother Lodge, Royal York of Friendship, at Berlin on the occasion of a masonic festival celebrating Frederick's birthday. He had little involvement in the Craft in his later years and there is no validity to some claims that he established the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of the Thirty-third Degree. Initiated : August 14, 1738 Lodge at Hamburg, Brunswick Source: Bielfeld Freundschaftliche Briefe, cited Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonrypp. 375-376 ; Mackey's Revised History of FReemasonry pp. 1828-1839. Portrait detail by Anton Graff, oil on canvas, (1781) 51 x 62 cm

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