At a glanceNot a cipher
- The letter
- Burghley to Walsingham, Westminster, 24 January 1572 (1573 in modern reckoning), copied in a fair-copy letter-book. He regrets he cannot yet settle Walsingham’s recall from France.
- Where
- British Library, Harley MS 260 f. 395r; DECODE R8362 lists it as a ciphered letter of “W. Baurleighs?” dated 27 January 1572. The day is 24, and the recipient is Walsingham.
- The cipher
- There is none to solve. The page holds no letter cipher or code numbers, only two boxed 9s after “Lyons” and “Roome”, which in this volume mark cover-names.
- What it says
- Printed by Digges (1655). The cover-names concern a ship that waited “the space of 23 daies”; the whole letter is cleartext.
- Still open
- Who “Lyons” and “Roome” stand for is not stated in the letter-book, Digges or the Calendars. Whether the boxed 9 carries a value is not established.
01 What the record is
The page carries the running head “Januarie 1572”. The letter is copied in the same hand as the rest of the register, so this is the letter-book copy, not the letter as sent. DECODE made two misreadings. It read the day as 27 when the page has “24th”, and it left the recipient unknown although the register belongs to Walsingham. The address at the foot of the page, “To my verie …”, is cut off at the page end.
02 The letter
Burghley writes that he is “sorie and ashamed” that he cannot yet send anything that settles Walsingham’s own case, his recall from France. He promises to keep working for it. He leaves news of Lord Worcester’s journey to the Secretary. Then he comes to the business of the cover-names:
Glascoe Davison longeth to heare from Lyons [9] for that by your last tickett, I understand that Steward tould you that one should come from Roome [9], the shipp abode in the place appointed the space of 23 daies. And soe I end, trusting to see you here amongst your frinds within this sixe weekes at the leaste to bee revoked by that tyme. From Westm the 24th of Januarie 1572. Your assured frind William Baurleighe.
“Tickett” is the separate slip on which Walsingham sent his secret news. The same plot about a ship runs through the letters of November 1572 and January 1573 in this volume (R8361, R8364). Added 1 October 2026: the ship that stayed “the space of 23 daies” is the one sent for the Duke of Alençon; a Folger chronology says it waited in vain off the French coast for 23 days. “Davison” is his agent Maisonfleur (see R8364).
03 Why the boxed 9s are not cipher
In the Harley 260 letters that Digges printed, boxed digits appear directly after a place name: Florence [9], Rome [9], Glasgow [7], and in February 1573 both “Glasco [9]” and “Glasco [g]”. The same cover-word takes different digits, so the digit does not encode a value. The box flags the word before it as a cover-name for a person. In R8362 both boxes follow place names, Lyons and Roome, and the sentence makes sense without them. That accounts for both marks; the page has no others. Caution, 1 October 2026: in R8364 the boxed 9 reads as the Duke of Alençon in context, so it may carry a value. That the box means nothing is not established.
04 What remains
- Who is meant by “Lyons” and “Roome”. “Glascoe” is a cover-name for the Duke of Alençon, not the Archbishop of Glasgow as first thought (see R8364). The other two cover-names are never glossed. This is a question of historical identification, not of cipher.
05 Sources
- British Library, Harley MS 260 f. 395r, via DECODE R8362 (image, login).
- Dudley Digges, The Compleat Ambassador (London 1655), the letter headed “To the Right Honourable Francis Walsingham Esq; Ambassador Resident for her Majestie in France”.
- Sibling records in the same volume: R8361 (November 1572) and R8364 (February 1573).
Notes, transcription and profile: targets/r8362/.