Francis Needham to Walsingham before Sluys, 28 July 1587

01 The letter

Harley MS 287 is a volume of Walsingham’s correspondence (the Cobham letters of 1588 on ff. 70–72 are deciphered in another write-up). Folios 39–40 are one letter: f. 39r opens “It may please your honour. The sudden departure of the bark … before Sluce, was the cause that I was forced to break off”, f. 39v continues, f. 40r ends it with the date 1587, and the address leaf f. 40v is endorsed “28 July 1587. From Needham”.

CSP Foreign vol. 21 pt 3 (1929) calendars Needham’s letter to Walsingham of the same day from Flushing (SP 84/16 f. 216): the council aboard Leicester’s ship before the haven of Sluys, the firework ship that could hardly be brought up to the bridge, the States’ captains who would not lend boats because “this commission must come from the States”, and the fall of the town. The Harley letter tells the same story in more words; the calendar does not list it. A note in the same volume (p. 237) says Needham wrote to Walsingham in the cipher of Thomas Wilkes, whose key is at the front of BL Add MS 5935 (p. 35 n. 4). That manuscript is not online and was not used here.

02 The cipher

Nine box shapes, each written plain, with a dot beneath, or with a dot inside its angle. Taken in order, the shapes carry the alphabet straight through three grids:

Words are divided and spelled as in the clear text (wyth, chaynes, bootes). No homophones, nulls or code names occur on f. 39v. The dots are the whole difficulty: a dot below sits under the lower left of its sign, the script slants to the right, and a dot inside ⌟ lies in its upper left, so the first transcription gave several t’s as k’s until the grid order showed the error.

03 The decipherment of f. 39v

Cipher in italics; clear words around it paraphrased where the clear text was not transcribed in full.

• “… we had want of intelligence these five days last past … [no] advise out of the enemyes campe nor the towne” (the last four words glossed at the time).
• “and we were so far from knowing what was meet to be done at that time [that] we knewe not whether there was any bridge or not, or whether there were any at the chanel.”
• “… being above 100 of their files into the town walls, and that the chanel was b[…]ed with hoyes and flyboates fastened wyth chaynes, strengthned behind wyth flatt bootes.”

This is the “bridge” of the calendared despatch: Parma had closed the haven of Sluys with a boom of boats chained together, and the English and Dutch could neither see it nor learn what it was. The rest of f. 39v, in clear, covers Sir Roger Williams’s sallies, the storm, the state of the town, Count Maurice, Colonel Morgan and Sir William Russell; the three words glossed near its foot (“Mr Burley”, “the Spaniard”, “were removed hence”) were deciphered at the time.

04 Method

The four images were fetched from DECODE. The glossed words gave letters by alignment: advise = ⌟ ⊏ ⊔: ⊐ ⊐̣ □, enemyes = □ ⊏̣ □ ⌞̣ □: □ ⊐̣, the towne = ⌟: ⌝ □ ⌟: □̣ ⌞: ⊏̣ □, and Burgrave on f. 40r began ⊔ ⊔̣ ⌝̣ ⊓. The first bare line then gave want of intelligence, and once a, b, c, d, e, h, i and k–s, t–z were in hand the order was plainly alphabetical, which fixed f, g, p and q and corrected the mistranscribed dots. A solver (simulated annealing on quadgram statistics) was prepared in case the key could not be completed, and was not needed. The transcription is in targets/needham1587/cipher.txt and the key in decode.py.

05 What remains uncertain

• Line G, the verb after “the chanel was”: ⊔ then four cramped signs (one blotted), then □ ⊏, so b ···· ed. Sense: closed or blocked. Grade M.
• All other cipher words: grade H (every sign decrypted with the key; they spell English in the letter’s own spelling).
• The key has not been checked against the Wilkes key in Add MS 5935.
• The clear text of ff. 39r–40r is summarised, not transcribed.

Full texts

The transcription and the decryption of every document on this page, so that the reading can be used and checked. Short files are shown here; all are in the repository.

Needham to Walsingham, 28 July 1587, f. 39v cipher runs

Francis Needham, Walsingham's servant with Leicester at the relief of Sluys, reports that they had no intelligence out of the enemy's camp or the town for five days, did not know whether there was any bridge or anything at the channel, and that the channel was closed with hoys and flyboats fastened with chains and strengthened behind with flat boats. The f. 39r and f. 40r cipher words were glossed at the time; the clear text of the letter is not transcribed here.

# Needham to Walsingham, 28 July 1587, BL Harley MS 287 f. 39v (DECODE R8479, image 4)
# Sign-level transcription. Shape = which sides of the box are drawn:
#   J = right+bottom (top-left cell), U = open top, L = left+bottom, C = open right, O = full box,
#   F = left+top, N = open bottom, 7 = top+right, D = open left.
# Mark: none = first grid (a-i), '.' dot below = second grid (k-s), ':' dot inside = third grid (t-z).
# '|' = visible word gap. Readings checked sign by sign on full-resolution crops.
A  L: J C. J: O O. F D C. J: O U. U. O N O C. L O
C  J. C. O L: O | C. O. J: | L: 7 O
D  J: 7 O 7. | J: 7 O 7. O | L: J D. | J C. O: | U 7. D C N O | O. 7. | C. O. J: | O. 7. | L: 7 O J: 7 O 7. | J: 7 O 7. O | L: O 7. O | J C. O: | J J: | J: 7 O | L 7 J C. O U.
G  L 7 J C. O U. | L: J D. | U ? ? ? ? O C | L: D J: 7 | 7 O. O: O D. | J C. C | F U. O: U O. J J: O D. | F J D. J: O C. O C | L: O: J: 7
H  L 7 J O: C. O D. | D. J: 7. O C. N J: 7 C. O C | U O 7 D C. C | L: O: J: 7 | F U. J J: J: | U O. O. J: O D.
F  J C. C | J: 7 J J: | J: 7 O
# Glossed at the time (interlinear), transcribed for the key:
advise   J C U: D D. O
enemyes  O C. O L. O: O D.
campe nor the towne   L J L. F. O | C. O. 7. | J: 7 O | J: O. L: C. O

# Output of decode.py on cipher.txt, run 22 Oct 2026 (three-grid pigpen key). One line per cipher run of f. 39v (lines A-H) plus the three glossed words; ? = sign without a value (line G, word 3, open). Verbatim script output.
A          wanteofintellegence
C          knewe not whe
D          ther there was any bridge or not or whether there were any at the chanel
G          chanel was b????ed with hoyes and flyboates fastened wyth
H          chaynes strengthned behind wyth flatt bootes
F          and that the
advise     aduise
enemyes    enemyes
campe nor the towne campe nor the towne

# Copied verbatim from NOTES.md, section 'Reading of f. 39v' (22 Oct 2026): the cipher runs in their clear context.
## Reading of f. 39v (cipher in italics; clear text paraphrased where not transcribed)

- **A**: "... we had *want of intelligence* these five days last past ..." — the gloss "advise" above the next
  cipher word: "we could have no *advise* out of the *enemyes campe nor the towne*".
- **C–D**: "and we were so far from knowing what was meet to be done at that time [that] we *knewe not whether
  there was any bridge or not, or whether there were any at the chanel*".
- **F–G–H**: "... *and that the chanel was b[…]ed with hoyes and flyboates fastened wyth chaynes, strengthned
  behind wyth flatt bootes*."

The rest of f. 39v is clear: Sir Roger Williams' sally, the storm, the enemy's hundred files at the walls, the
state of the town, Count Maurice, Colonel Morgan and Russell; the lower glosses ("Mr Burley", "the Spaniard",
"were removed hence") were read at the time.

The reading agrees with the calendared despatch of the same day, which says the fireship could hardly be brought
up to "the bridge" across the haven: Parma had closed the channel with a boom of boats.

Key: key.md

06 Sources

• British Library, Harley MS 287 ff. 39–40: DECODE R8479, images 1–4 (4 = f. 39v).
• Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, vol. 21 pt 3, April–December 1587, ed. S. C. Lomas and A. B. Hinds (1929): Needham to Walsingham, 28 July 1587, pp. 206–8; the Wilkes cipher, p. 35 n. 4 and p. 237 n.; British History Online.

Transcription, key and notes: targets/needham1587/ in the repository.