At a glanceExisting decipherment · complete
- The letter
- Sir Edward Stafford to Sir Francis Walsingham, Paris, 19 September 1586: a holograph despatch in clear English. DECODE catalogued it as a two-page cipher letter to an unknown recipient, dated London.
- Where
- British Library, Harley MS 1582 ff. 74–75; DECODE R8503, four images.
- The cipher
- Only four short runs on f. 74v (28 signs in all) are in cipher: letter signs with homophones, a null
6, and two-digit name codes. - How it was read
- A contemporary hand wrote the decipherment above each run: “villequier”, “K. Navar”, “Kyll him and ye P. of Condé”, “D. Guise”. The glosses were checked sign by sign; run 1 spells villequier once the null is dropped.
- What it says
- Men of the Duke of Guise’s guard had sworn to kill the King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé. 47, 59 and 74 are name codes.
- Still open
- Nothing in the cipher. The letter is not in the Calendar of State Papers, Foreign.
01 The record
DECODE R8503 has four images: f. 74r, f. 74v, f. 75r (blank) and f. 75v (address leaf). The address, written upside down, reads “To the right honorable Sir Francis Walsingham knight, her Majesty’s principal secretary”, and the endorsement reads “19 Sept. 1586. From Sr Edw: Stafford”. So DECODE’s “unknown recipient” is Walsingham. Its “London” is where the manuscript is kept: the letter was written in Paris, where Stafford was ambassador.
The despatch is Stafford’s news of the court, a month after the Babington plot was uncovered. F. 74r covers the stir in England over a false report, the King of France and the Queen of Scots, Mendoza, and “that vile traitor Charles Paget”, who went to the Capuchins to speak with the King. F. 74v covers the copy of a letter about Épernon, a plot against Navarre, and the Queen Mother’s new powers to treat with the King of Navarre on the point of religion.
02 The four cipher runs
| Run | Ciphertext | Gloss above it | In the sentence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (ll. 2–3) | D x ◇ 6 ◇ 6 | Δ Ɗ X 6 · ⊕ 6 ꟷ ʃ ⊗ | villequier | “with assurance that it is a letter of Villequier’s to come about Espernon” |
| 2 (l. 11) | 47 | K. Navar | “I have made the King of Navarre be advertised of it” |
| 3 (l. 12) | M x ◇ h 6 47 ω ʒ ϖ 59 | Kyll him and ye P. of Condé | “dispatched to kill him and the Prince of Condé” |
| 4 (l. 13) | 74 | D. Guise | “some of them of the guard of the Duke of Guise, who assure themselves to bring it to pass” |
The glosses are in a darker ink than the letter and are written in a different hand, which suggests Walsingham’s secretariat. The words between the runs are Stafford’s clear text as it reads on the page. They are quoted to show the sense and not transcribed letter for letter.
03 The cipher
Stafford mixed an alphabet of letter forms and graphic signs with two-digit codes for persons. The glosses give these values:
- Letters, with homophones: v = D; i/y = x, ⊕; l = ◇, h; e = Δ, ꟷ; q = Ɗ; u = X; r = ʃ; k = M.
- Null:
6. Dropping its four occurrences from run 1 leaves exactly v-i-l-l-e-q-u-i-e-r, with the line break after the second ◇. It then follows kyll in run 3, where it also stands for nothing. - ⊗ closes run 1, as a final s (“Villequier’s”) or a stop.
·is a separator. - ω ʒ ϖ = “and”. It could be three letters or one word sign; we did not split it.
- Codes: 47 = the King of Navarre, 59 = the Prince of Condé, 74 = the Duke of Guise.
Run 3 confirms the values from run 1 independently: the same x and ◇ stand for the y and l of kyll, and 47 recurs there as “him”, meaning Navarre. No key sheet for Stafford’s cipher with Walsingham has been found. S. Tomokiyo’s survey of Elizabethan ciphers (Cryptiana) notes only that Stafford used different ciphers with Walsingham and with Burghley, and that he sent Walsingham names to add to his.
04 What remains open
Nothing in the cipher. All 28 signs are accounted for. The only value taken from the gloss without a check at letter level is ω ʒ ϖ = “and” (grade C: it fits the sense and the gloss, but no other occurrence confirms it). The clear text of the despatch was consulted for context but not transcribed in full.
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.
R8503, Paris, 19 Sept 1586: the four cipher runs
Sir Edward Stafford at Paris to Walsingham, 19 September 1586, a clear despatch on Mary Queen of Scots, Mendoza and Charles Paget; the four cipher runs name Villequier, the King of Navarre, the plan to kill him and the Prince of Condé, and the Duke of Guise's guard.
Transcription
# Stafford to Walsingham, Paris 19 Sept 1586, BL Harley MS 1582 f. 74v (DECODE R8503 image 3). Signs separated by spaces. # run 1 (ll. 2-3): gloss "villequier" D x ◇ 6 ◇ 6 Δ Ɗ X 6 · ⊕ 6 ꟻ ʃ ⊗ # run 2 (l. 11): gloss "K. Navar" 47 # run 3 (l. 12): gloss "Kyll him and ye P. of Conde" M x ◇ h 6 47 ω ʒ ϖ 59 # run 4 (l. 13): gloss "D. Guise" 74
05 Sources
- British Library, Harley MS 1582 ff. 74–75; images on DECODE, record R8503 (login required; the Library’s images are not in the public domain).
- Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth, vol. 21 part 1 (1586–1588), September 1586, 16–30, pp. 89–104 (British History Online). It calendars Stafford’s State Papers letters of that month, but not this one.
- S. Tomokiyo, Cryptiana, “Elizabethan ciphers”: the section on Sir Edward Stafford.
Notes, the transcription of the runs and the profile are in targets/stafford1586/.