did the royal arch originate as part of the third degree or was it created as a separate degree

William James Hughan argued that the Royal Arch originated as an amplification of a later portion of the Third Degree, emerging roughly two decades after the Craft revival of 1717 2. Hughan favored the theory that the central word placed within the Royal Arch had originally been given during the sections of the Master Mason degree, so that what was once lost and found in the Third Degree was subsequently transferred to the Royal Arch under more exalted surroundings 1. W. J. Chetwode Crawley similarly viewed it not as an independent entity in origin, but as the completing part of a single Masonic legend present before it developed into a standalone degree 1.

At the Union of 1813, the declaration that pure Antient Masonry consists of three degrees including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch lent weight to the view that it was historically bound up with the Third Degree, though precisely when, how, or by whom it was separated remains unknown 1. The status of the degree was a principal cause of the eighteenth-century schism, during which the Antients maintained it was an integral part of the Third Degree while the Moderns treated it as a separate degree entirely, as an article on the United Grand Lodge of England's website notes.

Historical records indicate that the Royal Arch had nevertheless developed into a distinct degree in both London and York prior to 1744, as a paper read before Quatuor Coronati Lodge observes. Though formerly worked within Craft lodges and long treated following the 1813 Union as the completion of the Third Degree, it is now described as the completion of Craft Masonry, as the Grand Lodge of India notes.

George Oliver held that the distinction between the ancient and modern systems lay in the mutilation of the Third Degree 2. He argued that the seceding brethren transferred the true word to the Royal Arch during the schism around 1740, asserting that the word was never actually lost 2. In his view, the Royal Arch was concocted by the Ancients specifically to widen the breach with the regular Grand Lodge and render the division between them permanent 2.

Oliver also posited that the Chevalier Ramsay was likely involved in fabricating the English Royal Arch degree 2. He suggested that Ramsay attempted to introduce his new degrees to the Constitutional Grand Lodge, and upon being rejected, turned to the schismatic Masons 2. Furthermore, Oliver maintained that the degree originated as a domestic fabrication within England—properly denominated the English Royal Arch—and was subsequently transmitted to every part of the world 2.

According to Oliver, the legend of the degree expanded over the course of the eighteenth century, gradually altering in detail and increasing in scope 2. He held that it eventually required elements drawn from the Ineffable degrees to render its narrative compelling, though he considered the fable even then to be far from complete 2.

Refuting the assertion that the Royal Arch was concocted during a schism around 1740, historical evidence indicates that the degree predated that year 2. The hypothesis of foreign fabrication also collapses under chronological examination: Chevalier Ramsay died roughly three years before Laurence Dermott was exalted into the Royal Arch, and the seceding Atholl Grand Lodge was not formed until at least seven years after Ramsay had already passed away 2. There is no documented record showing that Ramsay's degree innovations were ever entertained or rejected by English Masonic bodies, rendering his alleged role in fabricating the degree to widen an English schism unsustained by facts 2.

Rather than viewing the system as the result of a mutilated Third Degree, the Royal Arch was maintained to be an additional or extra degree, as an article on the Phoenixmasonry website notes.

Masonic scholars generally view the Royal Arch not as an independent invention, but as the historical expansion and completion of the Third Degree 421.

The early Craft ritual terminating in the Master Mason degree left its symbolic cycle incomplete, setting out the loss of a Master's Word without detailing its recovery 3. During the 1730s, brethren began expanding the Third Degree by attaching the legend of the Word's restoration 3. This concluding portion was subsequently detached into a distinct ceremony 42. Walter Leslie Wilmshurst takes this separation to have been driven by practical considerations, noting that combining both parts made an inconveniently long rite and required different symbolic appointments and officers, even though the Royal Arch remains the natural fulfillment of the Third Degree 4. W. J. Chetwode Crawley similarly held that the Royal Arch was never a separate entity in origin, but a constituent part of a single legend serving as the cope-stone of the Masonic system 1.

The status of the Royal Arch formed a central point of contention during the 18th-century schism between the Antients and Moderns Grand Lodges in England, as an article on the United Grand Lodge of England's website notes, with the Antients maintaining that it was integral to the Third Degree while the Moderns treated it as a separate degree. The 1813 Act of Union resolved this by defining the Royal Arch as the final stage of "Pure Antient Masonry," in which candidates follow the clues set out in the Third Degree to complete their journey, as the United Grand Lodge of England states. The Grand Lodge of India likewise records that the Royal Arch was historically worked inside the Craft Lodge and was long defined as the completion of the Third Degree, though it is now formally described as the completion of Craft Masonry.