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| More than 50 letters written by Mary, Queen of Scots have been discovered. |
The long-rumoured missing letters — which were found incorrectly labelled in the digital archive of a French library — have been hailed by historians as the most significant discovery about the Scottish queen in a century.
Mary Stuart, a Catholic, wrote the coded letters from 1578 to 1584 while she was imprisoned in England due to the perceived threat she posed to her Protestant cousin Queen Elizabeth I.
Mary was beheaded in 1587 after being found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I, marking the end of a dramatic life since portrayed in numerous movies and books.
The three code-breakers are members of the DECRYPT project, which is an international, cross-disciplinary team scouring the world's archives to find coded historical documents to decipher.
They discovered more than 50 of her letters containing around 50,000 never-before-seen words.
The trio were trawling through the digitised archive of France's national library when they found enciphered documents labelled as being from Italy in the first half of the 16th century.
"If someone wanted to look for Mary Stuart material … that's the last place they would go," George Lasry, who is the lead author of a new study in the journal Cryptologia, said.
Dr Lasry said deciphering the code "was like peeling an onion," for the trio, which also includes German music professor Norbert Biermann and Japanese physicist Satoshi Tomokiyo.
"We have broken secret codes from kings and queens previously, and they’re very interesting but with Mary Queen of Scots it was remarkable as we had so many unpublished letters deciphered and because she is so famous," he said.
"This is a truly exciting discovery."
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| Words in a message decoded using a cipher used by Mary, Queen of Scots. (AFP: Supplied) |
The telltale 'spymaster'
First, the code-breakers realised the text was not in Italian, but French.
Phrases like "my liberty" and "my son" suggested it was an imprisoned mother.
Then came the breakthrough word: "Walsingham."
Francis Walsingham was Elizabeth I's principal secretary and "spymaster".
Most of Mary's letters are addressed to Michel de Castelnau Mauvissiere, the French ambassador to England and a supporter of Mary.
Dr Lasry said Mary was "too smart" to mention any assassination plot in the newly unearthed letters.
Instead, the letters show her diplomatically pleading her case, gossiping, complaining of illnesses and perceived antagonists, and expressing distress when her son, King James VI of Scotland, was abducted.
Mr Lasry said he could not help but feel empathy for the queen "because it's a tragedy — you know she's going to be executed".
Historians have praised the code-breaking and historical research that went into uncovering the letters.
"This discovery is a literary and historical sensation," said British historian and biographer John Guy said.
"This is the most important new find on Mary,
Queen of Scots for 100 years."
Some of Mary's letters are still believed to be missing, with the researchers saying a physical inspection of the library's original documents could be next.
AFP
First published at ABC News website, February 9, 2023
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