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 Richelieu and 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. He was also one of the founders of modern Freemasonry in Great Britain. Early life and education Moray was the elder of two sons of a Perthshire laird, Sir Mungo Moray of Craigie. His grandfather was Robert Moray of Abercairny (near Crieff), and his mother was a daughter of George Halket of Pitfirran, Dunfermline. An uncle, David Moray, had been a personal servant of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. 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 "rub up your St Andrews language", and "one may give you your hands full that was scarcely ever farrer East then Cowper" (Cupar lies several miles to the west of St Andrews). Moray's name does not appear in the matriculation records of the university. In 1633, he joined the Garde Écossaise, a regiment which fought under Colonel John Hepburn in the army of King Louis XIII of France. Moray became a favourite of Cardinal Richelieu, who used him as a spy. Richelieu promoted Moray to Lieutenant Colonel and in 1638 sent him to join the Covenanter army in Edinburgh. Experienced in military engineering, he was appointed quartermaster-general in the Scottish Army that invaded England in 1640 in the Second Bishops' War and took Newcastle upon Tyne. Several Freemasons who were members of the Lodge of Edinburgh initiated him into Freemasonry there on 20 May 1641. Although he was 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. Thereafter, he regularly used the five pointed star, his masonic mark, on his correspondence. Political career Robert Moray returned to France by