Sir Robert Moray (alternative spellings: Murrey, Murray) FRS (1608 or 1609 – 4 July 1673) was a Scottish soldier, statesman, diplomat, judge, spy, and natural philosopher. He was well known to Charles I and Charles II, and to the French cardinals Armand Richelieu and Jules Mazarin.
Born~Died Mar 10, 1609 ~ Jul 4, 1673Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 5:35 PM
Sir Robert Moray (alternative spellings: Murrey, Murray) FRS (1608 or 1609 – 4 July 1673) was a Scottish soldier, statesman, diplomat, judge, spy, and natural philosopher. He was well known to Charles I and Charles II, and to the French cardinals Armand Richelieu and Jules Mazarin. He attended the meeting of the 1660 committee of 12 on 28 November 1660 that led to the formation of the Royal Society, and was influential in gaining its Royal Charter and formulating its statutes and regulations.1 He was also one of the founders of modern Freemasonry in Great Britain.
Some biographers have claimed that Moray attended the University of St Andrews and continued his university education in France. However, Moray himself wrote to his friend Alexander Bruce (who probably had attended St Andrews), jocularly proposing a debate between the two men, in which Moray said he would force Bruce to , and ( lies several miles to the west of ). Moray's name does not appear in the matriculation records of the university.
This page is based on “Robert Moray” from English Wikipedia, (r1375845038) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
Freemasons who were part of the Scottish army and were also members of The Lodge of Edinburgh (now The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel), No.1) initiated him into Freemasonry there on 20 May 1641. Although initiated into a Scottish lodge, the event took place south of the border: this is earliest extant record of a man being initiated into speculative Freemasonry on English soil.4 Thereafter, he regularly used a five pointed star, his masonic mark, on his correspondence.
Political career
Robert Moray returned to France by 1643 and was captured at Tuttlingen in November of that year. Upon his release, and upon the death of James Campbell, 1st Earl of Irvine, Moray took over command of the Garde Écossaise.5
Moray helped to persuade the Prince of Wales, the future Charles II, to visit Scotland for his coronation as King of Scots at Scone on 1 January 1651. Charles then invaded England from Scotland, but was defeated at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, and forced to escape to France.
In Scotland, Moray became Lord Justice Clerk, a Privy Councillor, and a Lord of Session in 1651. He married Sophia Lindsay, daughter of David Lindsay, 1st Lord Balcarres, but she died in childbirth on 2 January 1653 and the child was stillborn. Moray joined a Scottish uprising in 1653 which was suppressed by Cromwell, and Moray returned to the continent in 1654. Moray spent time in Bruges in 1656, then in Maastricht until 1659, when he joined Charles in Paris.
Moray made significant contributions to the observation of tidal phenomena. Shortly before the restoration of Charles II, he stayed for several weeks in the remote island of Great Bernera, in the Outer Hebrides, and observed that the normal semidiurnal tide was there combined with tidal streams between the nearby islands that exhibited a strong diurnal motion. Moray reported these "extraordinary tydes" to the Royal Society in 1665, which published them in the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions.6 Nearly 200 years passed before Moray's description was confirmed by hydrographic measurements in the Sound of Harris. It was only in 1968 that the phenomenon was satisfactorily explained in terms of the theory of "continental shelf waves".7
In 1666, Moray published Considerations and Enquiries concerning Tides.8 There he advocated careful quantitative observation of tidal phenomena and proposed, for the first time in the scientific literature, the use of stilling-wells as tide gauges.9
Moray's legacy is just beginning to be appreciated in the country of his birth. In 1969 a masonic lodge of research, Lodge Sir Robert Moray, No.1641, (Edinburgh, Scotland) was established in his honour.12
Notes
Footnotes
The most complete work on this man remains A. Robertson, The Life of Sir Robert Moray (London: Longman, 1922) ↩
Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), p. 108 ↩
Cooper, Robert L D, (2006) Cracking the Freemasons Code, pp 120-21 ↩
Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), p. 161. ↩
Moray, Robert (1665). "A relation of some extraordinary tydes in the West-Isles of Scotland, as it was communicated by Sr. Robert Moray". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 1 (4): 53–55. Bibcode:1665RSPT....1...53M. doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0026. S2CID186213188. ↩
Cartwright, David Edgar (1999). Tides: A Scientific History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 220–1. ISBN978-0-521-62145-8. ↩
Sir Robert Moray (alternative spellings: Murrey, Murray) FRS (1608 or 1609 – 4 July 1673) was a Scottish soldier, statesman, diplomat, judge, spy, and natural philosopher. He was well known to Charles I and Charles II, and to the French cardinals Armand Richelieu and Jules Mazarin. He attended the meeting of the 1660 committee of 12 on 28 November 1660 that led to the formation of the Royal Society, and was influential in gaining its Royal Charter and formulating its statutes and regulations.1 He was also one of the founders of modern Freemasonry in Great Britain.
Some biographers have claimed that Moray attended the University of St Andrews and continued his university education in France. However, Moray himself wrote to his friend (who probably had attended St Andrews), jocularly proposing a debate between the two men, in which Moray said he would force Bruce to , and ( lies several miles to the west of ). Moray's name does not appear in the matriculation records of the university.
Freemasons who were part of the Scottish army and were also members of The Lodge of Edinburgh (now The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel), No.1) initiated him into Freemasonry there on 20 May 1641. Although initiated into a Scottish lodge, the event took place south of the border: this is earliest extant record of a man being initiated into speculative Freemasonry on English soil.4 Thereafter, he regularly used a five pointed star, his masonic mark, on his correspondence.
Political career
Robert Moray returned to France by 1643 and was captured at Tuttlingen in November of that year. Upon his release, and upon the death of James Campbell, 1st Earl of Irvine, Moray took over command of the Garde Écossaise.5
Moray helped to persuade the Prince of Wales, the future Charles II, to visit Scotland for his coronation as King of Scots at Scone on 1 January 1651. Charles then invaded England from Scotland, but was defeated at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, and forced to escape to France.
In Scotland, Moray became Lord Justice Clerk, a Privy Councillor, and a Lord of Session in 1651. He married Sophia Lindsay, daughter of David Lindsay, 1st Lord Balcarres, but she died in childbirth on 2 January 1653 and the child was stillborn. Moray joined a Scottish uprising in 1653 which was suppressed by Cromwell, and Moray returned to the continent in 1654. Moray spent time in Bruges in 1656, then in Maastricht until 1659, when he joined Charles in Paris.
Moray made significant contributions to the observation of tidal phenomena. Shortly before the restoration of Charles II, he stayed for several weeks in the remote island of Great Bernera, in the Outer Hebrides, and observed that the normal semidiurnal tide was there combined with tidal streams between the nearby islands that exhibited a strong diurnal motion. Moray reported these "extraordinary tydes" to the Royal Society in 1665, which published them in the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions.6 Nearly 200 years passed before Moray's description was confirmed by hydrographic measurements in the Sound of Harris. It was only in 1968 that the phenomenon was satisfactorily explained in terms of the theory of "continental shelf waves".7
In 1666, Moray published Considerations and Enquiries concerning Tides.8 There he advocated careful quantitative observation of tidal phenomena and proposed, for the first time in the scientific literature, the use of stilling-wells as tide gauges.9
Moray's legacy is just beginning to be appreciated in the country of his birth. In 1969 a masonic lodge of research, Lodge Sir Robert Moray, No.1641, (Edinburgh, Scotland) was established in his honour.12
Notes
Footnotes
The most complete work on this man remains A. Robertson, The Life of Sir Robert Moray (London: Longman, 1922) ↩
Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), p. 108 ↩
Cooper, Robert L D, (2006) Cracking the Freemasons Code, pp 120-21 ↩
Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 (London, 2014), p. 161. ↩
Moray, Robert (1665). "A relation of some extraordinary tydes in the West-Isles of Scotland, as it was communicated by Sr. Robert Moray". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 1 (4): 53–55. Bibcode:1665RSPT....1...53M. doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0026. S2CID186213188. ↩
Cartwright, David Edgar (1999). Tides: A Scientific History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 220–1. ISBN978-0-521-62145-8. ↩