Sir Robert Moray FRS was a Scottish soldier, statesman, diplomat, judge, spy, and natural philosopher.
19 Facts About Robert Moray
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Robert Moray was well known to Charles I and Charles II, and to the French cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin.
3.
Robert Moray was one of the founders of modern Freemasonry in Great Britain.
4.
Robert Moray's grandfather was Robert Moray of Abercairny, and his mother was a daughter of George Halket of Pitfirran, Dunfermline.
5.
An uncle, David Robert Moray, had been a personal servant of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales.
6.
Some biographers have claimed that Robert Moray attended the University of St Andrews and continued his university education in France.
7.
Robert Moray became a favourite of Cardinal Richelieu, who used him as a spy.
8.
In Scotland, Robert Moray became Lord Justice Clerk, a Privy Councillor, and a Lord of Session in 1651.
9.
Robert Moray joined a Scottish uprising in 1653 which was suppressed by Cromwell, and Robert Moray returned to the continent in 1654.
10.
Robert Moray spent time in Bruges in 1656, then in Maastricht until 1659, when he joined Charles in Paris.
11.
Robert Moray was influential in gaining the new society its Royal Charter and formulating its statutes and regulations.
12.
Robert Moray was the first President of the society which holds its Annual General Meeting on Saint Andrew's Day the Patron Saint of Scotland in apparent acknowledgement of Robert Moray's importance in the formation of the society.
13.
Robert Moray made significant contributions to the observation of tidal phenomena.
14.
Robert Moray reported these "extraordinary tydes" to the Royal Society in 1665, which published them in the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions.
15.
Robert Moray became a recluse in later life, and, by the time of his death, he was virtually a pauper.
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Robert Moray was buried in Westminster Abbey at the order of the King.
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Robert Moray's grave is unmarked, but his name appears on the stone of Abraham Cowley, near the ashes of Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser, in Poets' Corner.
18.
Robert Moray had a range of notable friends: James Gregory, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Evelyn and Gilbert Burnet.
19.
Robert Moray's legacy is just beginning to be appreciated in the country of his birth.