People associate the beginnings of Freemasonry with the formation of the Grand Lodge of England, 24 June 1717. A Mason can tell you that this merely marked the beginning of what is known as the Modern Era of Freemasonry, as we know Freemasonry is much older than that.
Mike, you are right, of course -- I was referring to the modern form of Freemasonry as that's what most people mean when they use that term. It's origins lie in the actual working masonic guilds and confraternities of Medieval Europe. (This is where all those cathedrals "built by masons" come from). Sometime after the Reformation the guilds began to accept membership by "honorary" masons -- i.e. people who were not actually stone masons. As time passed on, these honorary masons outnumbered actual working masons and thus you have the beginning of speculative masonry, which is were the modern form of Freemasonry gets its beginnings. The first such Grand Lodge, as you said, was in London in 1717.

But my main point was just to say that Freemasonry is not particularly Scottish -- in other words, it's not something that is unique to Scotland, or intrinsic to Scottish culture. Yes, Freemasonry exists in Scotland, there were some famous buildings in Scotland built by masons, and some famous Scottish people who were masons -- but even moreso in England and America. And you can say the same thing about France and Spain, and Italy, and Canada and on and on.....

Like I said in my first post, I meet people sometime (sometimes Masons but mostly non-Masons) who automatically associate Freemasonry with things Scottish as if the two necessarily go hand-in-hand. I simply wanted to dispell that.