Sir Robert Moray, a Scotsman and a favourite at Whitehall, had quickly “brought in word from the Court” that the King approved of the aims of the Society. Moray, who had a laboratory of his own at Whitehall, acted for a time as interim-President, and was certainly the life and soul of the infant Society; and on May 3, 1661—not many days after his coronation, Charles II was shown, through his own great telescope, Saturn’s rings and Jupiter and his satellites. His Majesty became really interested, and began to discourse astronomy as he sat at supper in Whitehall.[268] And a few weeks later—Sir Robert Moray still acting as go-between—the King granted the Society’s petition for a Royal Charter, and was “pleased to offer himselfe to be entered one of the Society.” On July 15, 1662, the Charter of Incorporation passed what Evelyn calls the “Broade Seale.” Lord Brouncker was elected first President and Henry Oldenburg Secretary.[269] The King presented the Society with its mace,[270] on which were emblematically embossed the Crown and Royal Arms, the rose, harp, thistle, and fleur de lys. In April 1663, however, a second and improved Charter passed the Great Seal.[271] The King in this declared himself Founder and Patron; Arms were granted to the Society, and a motto from Horace was chosen—_Nullius in Verba_. And the Royal Society kept its first anniversary on November 30, 1663, St. Andrew’s Day having been selected partly as nearest to November 28, the day of its first meeting, but also in compliment, it is believed, to Sir Robert Moray, the popular Scotsman who from the very beginning had been one of its most energetic members. Strange times! It has been rightly said that the foundation of the Royal Society was one of the few creditable events of the Restoration. Exactly a month before the Charter of Incorporation passed the Great Seal, Sir Henry Vane had been beheaded on Tower Hill, “the trumpets brought under the scaffold that he might not be heard”; and little more than a month later came the dreaded St. Bartholomew’s Day, which turned nearly two thousand rectors and vicars—one-fifth of the English clergy—out of their parishes. The doings of “Our Society”, meantime, read like a little oasis in a desert of intolerance. The old Earl of Cork, who had sent his sons to fight the “rebelleows” Presbyterian Scots, and spent the last days of his own life in fighting the rebellious Irish Papists, would have rubbed his eyes if he could have seen his Robyn walking in procession, side by side with the Roman Catholic Sir Kenelm Digby, each wearing a St. Andrew’s Cross pinned into his hat! “It being St. Andrew’s Day, who was our patron,” says Evelyn complacently, “each fellow wore a St. Andrew’s Crosse of ribbon on the crowne of his hatt. After the election we din’d together, his Majesty sending us venison.”[272]