[1] The basic principles of the Grand Lodge of England were inspired by the ideal of tolerance and universal understanding of the Enlightenment and by the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century.

The Grand Lodge was founded shortly after George I, the first Hanoverian king of the Kingdom of Great Britain, ascended to the throne on 1 August 1714 and the end of the first Jacobite rising of 1715.

It was at that meeting in 1716 that they resolved to hold the Annual Assembly and Feast and then choose a Grand Master from among themselves, which they did the following year.

[3][4] Little is known of Anthony Sayer, the first Grand Master, but the next, George Payne, rose to a high position within the Commissioners of Taxes.

[1] George Payne took it upon himself to write the General Regulations of a Free Mason [sic],[5] which were recited at his second installation as Grand Master in 1720.

Dr. James Anderson was either commissioned or took it upon himself to write The Constitutions of the Free-Masons containing the History, Charges, Regulations, & of that most Ancient and Right Worshipful Fraternity: For use of the Lodges.

There followed a long "Historical" introduction, tracing Freemasonry back to biblical times, a set of six "Charges" (masonic obligations), an expanded version of Payne's Regulations, Grand Master Wharton's method of constituting a new lodge, and finally a section of songs.

This began to be replaced with tape and thin metal letters, hence an advertisement in a London newspaper in 1726 for a lecture on "Ante-Diluvian Masonry.

Showing what innovations have lately been introduced by the Doctor and some other of the Moderns, with their Tape, Jacks, and Movable Letters, Blazing Stars, etc., to the great indignity of the Mop and Pail.

The huge influx of new masons at Preston's Antiquity led to discontent among the longer serving lodge members, and he also managed to fall out with Grand Secretary Heseltine.

[14] Thomas Dunckerley, the Grand Superintendent of the new Grand Chapter, had considerable success in spreading Royal Arch, Mark, and Templar masonry in the Southern provinces of the Moderns, and assisted Heseltine and Preston in starting to move Freemasonry out of inns and into dedicated masonic buildings.

The official attitude towards the Royal Arch remained antagonistic, which proved difficult as the two Grand Lodges moved towards union in the next century.

It is hard not to correlate this with the death of Dermott in 1791, and the progressive editing out of his vitriol from Ahiman Rezon, but other factors contributed.

Neither of these noblemen was content to be a mere figurehead, and in 1799 they were forced to act together, in company with representatives of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, to keep Freemasonry from being outlawed.

[17] Progress towards union remained slow, until the Moderns formed the "Lodge of Promulgation" in 1809, for the purpose of reverting their ritual to a point where it was in step with the Ancients, the Scots and the Irish.

[19] That year, the Moderns formally told the Ancients that they had resolved to return to the older ritual, and the process of union began.