The qualification for membership of the Order is that of being a subscribing Prince in the Order of the Secret Monitor. The current Ancient and Masonic Order of the Scarlet Cord is a descendant of the Royal Order of Knights of the Scarlet Cord, which was developed in the British Isles in 1889. 

The rituals and ceremonies of this earlier Order were derived from eighteenth century documents in the Amsterdam Masonic archives They were rewritten and enriched by His Honour Judge Fredrick Adolphus Philbrick, KC, and worked as appendant grades to the Order of the Secret Monitor.

The rituals of the six grades of the Order were taken from Old Testament times, commencing at the period of Joshua, the fall of Jericho and the story of Rahab. The main purpose of the original Order, which ceased working in 1929, was to raise considerable sums of money for the Order of the Secret Monitor Benevolent Fund, which still plays a significant role in Masonic welfare provision. 

A paper on the original Order written and delivered in 2001 by Peter Glyn Williams, then Grand Supreme Ruler of the Secret Monitor, stimulated interest in the long-forgotten rituals. In 2006, a Secret Monitor Conclave was Consecrated with the sole purpose of reviving the old Order and conferring updated versions of the original six grades, some of which only remained in fragmented form. 

A huge appetite for the grades (Ostiarius, Lector, Fellow, Councillor, Keeper of the Hidden Secret and Prince of Jerusalem) among Secret Monitors led to the Order being inaugurated as a separate Sovereign body in a magnificent ceremony in the Grand Temple at Freemasons’ Hall on 21 July 2010.