The Three Castles: from the Medieval Kingdom of Aragon to Renaissance England?

Introduction to Don Juan Fernández de Heredia and the Three Castles

The Three Castles were part of the original coat of arms of Don Juan Fernández de Heredia, 1310-1396, Grand Master of the knights of Saint John of Jerusalem and Rhodes (later Malta), in the fourteenth century; as well as key adviser to several European medieval kings and Popes, both in Avignon (where he died) and in Rome.

The Castles of Villel, Alfambra, and Mora: A Legacy of Aragon

Probably they were a representation in the coat of arms “Fernandez de Heredia” of the three medieval castles of Villel, Alfambra and Mora. All in the ancient kingdom of Aragon and for many years at the frontier between the Christian Aragon and Islamic Valencia (XII-XIVth centuries). 

The three castles were part of the military defence lines around Teruel (Spain) up in the meseta and sierras some one thousand meters above sea level, and as such powerful fortifications to attack the eastern coast of northern Spain, from Valencia up to the Ebro river and Catalonia. 

The first two castles (Villel and Alfambra ) were Knight Templar castles (reconquered and probably rebuilt following Islamic domination). 

The third, Mora de Aragon, became after its Reconquista from the Moors a castle under close supervision or protection by the Aragonese royal family – first under King Alfonso II (himself son of a Knight Templar and Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV), and then under protection by his son Pere II – victorious against the Moors at the 1212 battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, but killed in battle in the Occitan village of Muret one year later, while defending his cousin Count of Toulouse, by Simon de Montfort (one of the long dynasty). 

Finally, this castle at Mora de Aragon (now called Mora de Rubielos) came under the protection of King Jaume I – who used it with his knight Templar and knights of St John when attacking the Islamic kingdoms of Valencia, and his illegitimate son Jaime de Jerica in the XIIIth century. 

The three castles (one century later) came under the protection and “property” of Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia (1310/1396) who rebuilt the Mora castle into a gothic Aragonese castle/palace for his descendants – even if as GM Hospitaller he was bowed to poverty, chastity and absolute obedience to the Pope and Catholic Church.

Symbolism of the Three Castles in Coat of Arms and Freemasonry

The Three Castles – Museum of the Monastery of Poblet

The three castles can be represented as three individual castle towers – see also the great similarities with the arms of the Moderns or the first 1717 Grand Lodge of London Freemasons; but also in several stone remnants and the fourteenth-century wooden painting of an old Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia (with his books on a desk), now displayed at the Museum of the Cistercian monastery of Poblet near Tarragona. 

The three castles could also be displayed as three castles with three towers each of them, as shown in a fourteenth-century coat of arms in the mausoleum of the granddaughter of Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia- in a beautiful gothic chapter house of San Salvador by the cloisters museum of the cathedral of Segorbe (between Mora de Rubielos and Sagunto). 

The same three castles with 3 towers each are visible in the original coat of arms of the Guild of Masons of London at the end of the fourteenth century and in the early fifteenth centuries (with the motto “God is our Guide”).

Detail of the fourteenth-century Coat of Arms of the fourteenth-century Grand Master of Saint John and decorations (1387c) at the mausoleum of the Valterras, with the three castles and a mysterious monk standing.

Museum of the cathedral of Segorbe

The mausoleum is related to the probable granddaughter of Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia – 1310-1396, Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John in the fourteenth century as well as a key adviser to several European medieval kings and Popes, both in Avignon (where he died) and in Rome. The beautiful mausoleum is still visible in the beautiful little side chapel of San Salvador, by the cloister of the cathedral of Segorbe, (between Valencia-Sagunto and Mora de Rubielos).

Bottom, three virtually identical castles about a century later (1472) at the London Company (or Guild) of Masons, and what it looks today on the site and web page of the Worshipful Company of Masons – one of the ancient Livery Companies of the City of London, number 30 in the order of precedence of the 111 companies. It was granted Arms in 1472, during the reign of King Edward IV; its motto is “God Is Our Guide” and currently limits its membership to 250 Liverymen and 50 Freemen. 

Coat of Arms of the Worshipful Company of Masons of the City of London in modern times (www.masonslivery.org)

Officially, the present Worshipful Company of Masons of the City of London denies any link with modern Freemasons or the UGLE, which was effectively established much later in 1717, or as United Grand Lodge of England in 1813; and the Company suggests on its website that the two institutions have always been different. This total separation is impossible to prove, as it is also not possible to verify the opposite. Nevertheless, it makes historical sense that the two are related: though Freemasons were mainly or entirely “operative” in those medieval days, they were nevertheless active and employed in the construction offices and stone cutting and building were essential.

Medieval Freemasonry and Renaissance

The XVth century and the sudden combination of unusual historical good luck in Spain (like the Reconquista and the “discovery of the New World”) brought Spain great geopolitical influence but also several great disasters.

Spain suddenly became the first modern superpower in modern history – with global influence, but had no real time to consolidate its confederation of different Christian kingdoms (Castile, Aragon, Navarra) and, as an independent state, the also Iberian kingdom of Portugal.

Spain under Isabel and Fernando (1492) expelled the Jews (half of our middle classes) and later the Moriscos – highly productive. Wrong decisions. Recent genetic evidence suggests that perhaps Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew himself and that this might be the reason why he was never very explicit about his origins.

The Catholic Kings (especially Isabel of Castile) gave total powers to the Holy Inquisition and the increasingly corrupt Catholic Church was in charge of education and “what is right or wrong”.

Spain became an Empire and at the same time that meant very limited freedom and perpetual wars. Many Freemasons – who were already in the Iberian Peninsula at least since medieval times – were probably, like Jews and Moors, forced into exile. Freemasons in England – even if cryptic and still disorganized – gradually gained power and influence, including under Elizabeth I at times of great religious conflict between Catholics and Anglicans/Protestants.

In his well-known paper “100 Years of Craft Ritual”, by Bro. Harry Carr, AQC 81, published in 1968 pp 153-279 in London, by Arts Quatuor Coronati (the premier research Lodge in the United Grand Lodge of England, the author explains that the year 1356 proved to have been a very important date for Freemasons. A great row had been in progress, following the Black Death plague that killed about one-third of the population in western Europe. A considerable conflict between the mason hewers and the layers and setters – the men who built the walls. The exact details of the quarrel are unknown but as a result of this row, twelve skilled master masons, some famous men among them, came before the mayor and aldermen at Guildhall in London, and, granted official permission, were able to draw up a simple code of trade regulations. The opening words of that surviving document say that the men had come together because their trade had never been regulated in such form as were other trades. Here, in this document, we have an official guarantee that this was the very first attempt to establish a trade organization for masons and its very first rule gives the reader a clue to the demarcation dispute. They ruled: ‘That every man of the trade may work at any work touching the trade if he is perfectly skilled and knowing in the same‘. How might that be likened unto the wisdom of Solomon? Were these first recorded regulations the base for the so-called “Regius Manuscript”? The timing is in agreement with most historical estimates.

Within twenty years, the organization that had thus been set up became the London Masons Company – the first trade guild of the masons and probably one of the direct ancestors of the Freemasonry (FM) of today.

Most biographers of Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia clearly state that the future Grand Master of the Hospitallers (often called the Knights of Saint John) was in London precisely in 1356.

Due to his great influence on other Freemasons (he directed the building or repair of several castles and city walls – from Alguer in Sardinia to Avignon or Rhodes, for example); and probably also on King Edward III, of England, it seems quite plausible that he was one of the “famous men” quoted in surviving records as being invited and involved in these negotiations in the City of London, with the likely approval of both Sheriff and Lord Mayor.

Like in many medieval events, what exactly happened can only be described and conjectured.

Philip II of Spain vs. Queen Elizabeth I: A Clash of Freedoms, Scientific Progress, and the Path to Enlightenment

It must have been a privilege of a few non-operative masons (and some operatives too involved in building churches or cathedrals or fortresses and castles), to use Freemasonry as a discreet way to access influential diplomatic positions – particularly in politics and state affairs – on behalf of some ancient Masonic principles (“brotherly love, mutual relief and truth” are the classic examples) and interacting with the Royals, the Clergy, nobility and military leaders.

One speculative example? Philip II of Spain versus Queen Elizabeth I. They were both in touch with likely crypto Masons but the former – under control and pressure by the Holy Inquisition – probably refused them and even marginalized Freemasonry in Spanish territories; whereas the latter (Queen Elizabeth I) – after some initial mistrust – was quite happy to surround herself and take advice from people, like her first Secretary of State William Cecil, who was probably under the influence of Masonic early circles or triangles (like, for example, the Acception at the city of London within the same “Company of London Masons”).

“Follow the Three Castles, but also the Tetramorphus”, and in some instances the Fleur de Lys? It might be my adventurous advice to medieval writers and historians. No one ever reliably filmed or recorded reliably and independently sensitive information or exchanges. Not easy of course. But what can one expect from an essentially secret society? At least in English and Scottish territories (later also in Ireland and of course North America) they were tolerated. In most other places they were persecuted and tortured or killed.

Portrait of Philip II of Spain by Sofonisba Anguissola (1565)

William Thomas Walsh (a 20th-century American historian with Catholic and at times a little xenophobic trait) curiously dares to penetrate, in his little-known book “Philip II” (1937), the most esoteric side of this most powerful sixteenth-century Spanish king who was the son of an emperor (Charles V), but failed to become an emperor himself, because he was not elected by potentates. Philip II was attracted by esoteric powers and even alchemy but (unlike English Queen Elizabeth I) – as one can deduce from the El Escorial palace near Madrid and its wonderful Library – did not get involved with Freemasonry – and was a staunch defender of the Catholic orthodoxy (and the Inquisition). He was the son of a Portuguese mother – which allowed him to be, for many years, the ruler of both the Spanish and the Portuguese empires, stretching from the Iberian peninsula to the Low Countries, great parts of Italy and Germany, to most of the Americas (north and south); and parts of the Portuguese African route eastward (up to India and China and Japanese land). Probably the first (or second) largest empire in History? “En mis tierras nunca se pone el sol” Philip II used to say. The Philippines, for example, are still named after him.

Besides, as the husband of Queen Mary Tudor (daughter of Katherine of Aragon & Henry VIII) Philip II of Spain was also (for some time) King Consort of England. The latter ended badly – first with the loss of Calais to the French (despite the great victory against the French at St Quentin), and later with Elizabeth I already Queen, due to the 1588 disaster of the Spanish Armada (1588) – defeated by the English fleet (and the storms), despite their previous enormous success at the naval battle of Lepanto (against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean Sea).

Philip II was in my mind a sad person and a pathetic man (in spite of his huge power); probably under the excessive influence of the Holy Inquisition and his confessors and advisors. His sad looks and gaze in most of his contemporary paintings and the same dark and cold outward and inward projection of his enormous stone palace at El Escorial, near Madrid, are suggestive of an unhappy and lonely man. And unlike Elizabeth I – who after a certain initial mistrust decided that English Freemasonry were good – Philip II instead despised them and preferred others. He had esoteric interests in alchemy and magic (you should visit with a good guide his incredible personal library of San Lorenzo (in the palace of El Escorial), but also conflicts between these speculative subjects and the reality of power and the Catholic church of his days.

For several reasons, I believe our “3 Castles secret man” (Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia) left the Worshipful Masons of the City of London, and what we now call “the Craft “, and probably some of its members, in positions of power and influence.

Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia (1310/1396) – who became a key adviser to several European kings and Grand Master of the powerful Hospitallers or Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta (it was Philip II who saved Christian Malta from the Ottoman Empire in 1565) – returns to Avignon with the Popes following his second trip to London in 1356, and the first written Regulation of Freemasons. He probably left “a school or followers “ in English lands; where he had good friends among the knight Hospitallers (Saint John), all over the country, and masons, like the English Des Fonoll (who brought Gothic flamboyant style to the kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia in 1335c).

In a strange chapter 16 of the book, on Philip II, which the North American Catholic historian (in his work 1937/1942) William Thomas Walsh first published during the Spanish Civil War, Walsh mentions the Three Castles officially appearing in the Masons Company of London in 1376 – without him knowing anything about my recently discovered history of the fourteenth century (1310-1396) Grand Master of the Hospitallers Don Juan Fernandez de Heredia (in London 1356).

And that this company of London Masons obtained a grant of arms, one of the first of its kind, in 1472 with “three Castelli” according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, by William J Hugham, Past S.G.D. Of the Grand Lodge of England, “The Origin of the English Rite of Freemasonry, XITh edition”. The Masons companies of several other English cities adopted the Three Castles (with some variations) – and the same was true for Masons of Scotland.

A few English Individuals some one or two centuries later (of prestigious backgrounds), also apparently made use of the three castles. For instance, the tomb of William Kerwin, buried in 1594 (both Philip II and Elizabeth I were still living) in St Helen Church, Bishopsgate where Sir Thomas Gresham is also buried. On the one side of the monument appears the arms of the Kerwin family; on the west side the arms of the Masons “as granted by William Hawkeslowe in the twelfth year of Edward IV (1472)”- on a chevron engrailed, between three square castles a pair of compasses extended- the crest a square castle with the motto “God is our guide”:

“Here lyeth the bodie of William Kerwin of this citie of London Free Mason who departed this Life the 26 daye of December ano 1594”….it still reads.

And probably the very same key advisor to the Queen, William Cecil.

William Cecil and the Three Castles

Portrait of William Cecil attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

One of Elizabeth I’s court favourites died on August 4th, 1598, aged 77. His name was William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, was Lord High Treasurer of England when he died, aged seventy-seven, in his London house in Covent Garden.

Queens’ Old Library holds books from the dispersed library of William Cecil Lord Burghley, chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I and Secretary of State. An annotation within one of these books, the” bindings of which are stamped with the Cecil family arms,…”

Cecil became a key advisor and crypto anti-Catholic activist supporting Queen Elizabeth I and Anglican or Protestant supporters. Cecil was a fine classical scholar at Cambridge.

According to David Loades, in his scholarly work “The Cecils” (Privilege and Power Behind the Throne, Bloomsbury Academic NY, 2007), William and his son Robert Cecil (of Welsh descent like the Tudors) were the most powerful statesmen of the Elizabethan age. As privy councillors and diplomats, patrons and spymasters they “shaped events at the heart of history, from the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the aftermath of the Spanish Armada (1588) to the unravelling of the Gunpowder Plot that threatened James I new regime “.

Coat of arms of William Cecil

For a while, William Cecil (who was also the uncle of Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, who can be considered as one of the early staunch defenders of the scientific methods) was in a minority as a Protestant then, as people of Scotland and northern England were almost all Catholics – the persecuted Catholics of the south had moved to the North. Elizabeth I must have had a secret understanding with William Cecil even before the death of Mary Tudor (not clear why she died). The Queen’s first official act was to appoint Cecil secretary of her Council. He was in fact with her at Hatfield the day after Mary died, if not before. He had his political program and memorandum starting with the immediate removal of Queen Mary’s two Catholic secretaries. All changes away from Catholic power in England were done slowly and as secretly as possible. Most farmers, and shepherds remained Catholic but artisans were divided and probably masons were getting closer to non-catholic sympathies. Spanish Jewish immigrants from Spain (following their unfair expulsion in 1492) were keen to join secret societies and were naturally anti-Catholic and pro-Elizabeth I.

The enigmatic three castles are visible top right in his arms, whereas the three Fleurs de Lys are centred down in the middle.