Robert Burns – Freemason, Bard of Ayrshire & Ploughman Poet
Burns’s rise in popularity for his poems also contributed to his rise in Freemasonry. At a meeting of Lodge St. Andrew in Edinburgh in 1787, at which the Grand Master and Grand Lodge of Scotland was present, Burns was toasted by the Worshipful Grand Master, Most Worshipful Brother Francis Chateris, with the words “Caledonia and Caledonia’s bard, Bro. Robt. Burns”