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The Independent
26-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Decoded letters expose Mary Queen of Scots' political plotting
Fifty-seven secret letters written by Mary Queen of Scots were recently decoded after being mistakenly labelled as Italian in the French national library. Computer scientists George Lasry and Satoshi Tomokiyo, along with German music professor Norbert Biermann, solved the cipher system used by Mary during her imprisonment. The letters, dating from 1578 to 1584, reveal Mary's cunning political schemes, including attempts to manipulate Queen Elizabeth I 's spymaster, Francis Walsingham. Addressed mostly to the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissiere, the correspondence shows Mary providing direct instructions about feeding information about her. Historians involved in the project describe Mary as a "clever" and "adept player" who strategically used her limited position to orchestrate plans, with the full content to be published in 2027.
The Independent
26-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Mary Queen of Scots' political scheming revealed in decoded missing letters
Historians have revealed the cunning schemes Mary Queen of Scots orchestrated while she was imprisoned in England by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I. In 2023, codebreakers decoded secret and previously feared lost letters written by the 16th century monarch. Hidden in the French national library, the 57 letters were mistakenly labelled as Italian - until computer scientist George Lasry, computer scientist, astrophysicist Satoshi Tomokiyo, and German music professor Norbert Biermann found them. The trio solved the cipher system used by Mary, Queen of Scots during her imprisonment to encrypt the messages. Since the discovery, historians Alex Courtney and Estelle Paranque joined the project, unveiling fascinating insights into the letters' content - which are due to be published in a book in 2027. They say the letters see Mary orchestrate a number of political schemes, including trying to manipulate Elizabeth I's spymaster, Francis Walsingham, according to The Times. Most of the letters are addressed to Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissiere, the French ambassador to England, who was a supporter of Catholic Mary. She asks him to feed information about her, including direct instructions on what to say. 'Honestly, if you read the letters that are not ciphered, I thought she was a moron,' Ms Paranque said at the Chalke history festival in Wiltshire, The Times reported. 'But our ciphers — if you really try to put yourself back in 1581, as if you don't know who is going to win … I was reading them and thinking, she's going to win. They're that clever.' She also mentions her son, the future King James I of England, repeatedly, calling him 'my poor infant' at one point. 'She's very good at turning on the waterworks when, rhetorically, it might be the best strategy,' Mr Courtney said. 'She is a particularly adept player of the very weak hand that she has.' The letters date from 1578 to 1584, a few years before Mary's beheading 436 years ago today – February 8th 1587. Mary Queen of Scots was the cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. She was imprisoned for 19 years in various castles in England. While in captivity, Mary communicated with her associates and allies, making extensive efforts to recruit messengers and to maintain secrecy. After being found to be plotting against Elizabeth, letters in code written by Mary were found and she was deemed guilty of treason and executed in 1587. Speaking at the time of the letters' discovery, Mr Lasry said: 'Upon deciphering the letters, I was very, very puzzled and it kind of felt surreal. '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. 'This is a truly exciting discovery.'
Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Mary Queen of Scots' scheming revealed in decoded letters
Mary Queen of Scots was a cunning politician who ran Machiavellian-like schemes from behind bars, historians have said, after newly decoded letters shone light on her plots. The letters, written in a cipher made up of symbols rather than alphabetic characters, were hidden in the French national library, mistakenly labelled as Italian and with no link identified to Mary or Elizabethan England. They were found and decoded by a team including George Lasry, an Israeli computer scientist, Satoshi Tomokiyo, a Japanese astrophysicist, and Norbert Biermann, a German music professor. They routinely go through archives and decode ancient ciphers purely for fun. The letters reveal the lengths Mary went to in order to secretly influence the Elizabethan court during her captivity, which ended with her execution in 1587. Speaking at the Chalke history festival in Wiltshire, Alex Courtney, a historian and teacher, said the letters showed that Mary was more than just 'a villain or a victim' and that they could revolutionise our understanding of the jailed queen. The team used a combination of computer algorithms, linguistic analysis and manual codebreaking techniques to unlock the secrets within the 57 letters. They initially started looking for an 'Italian' solution to the code, which failed. However, when they began looking into whether they might be in French, using a 'hill-climbing' technique of gradually-improving ciphers, they were able to fully decode them in 2023. Since then, they have all been translated into English and examined by Courtney and Estelle Paranque, a fellow historian, and are due to be published in a book in 2027. One clue as to who the author was came from the repeated use of the phrases 'my son' and 'my freedom', leading them to conclude that they were written by an imprisoned mother. • Historic Scottish manuscripts up for sale The final puzzle piece came from some of the names, including references to Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's spymaster. 'Walsingham was the smoking gun,' Lasry said. 'We were quite astonished that we were the ones lucky enough to find those letters … We have cracked hundreds of historical ciphers, many of them very interesting. But none of them were like this. What made this so special was we had 50 letters, all unknown to historians and considered lost.' In the letters, which are mostly written to Michel de Castelnau, a French soldier who was ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary sets out various political ploys, even trying to manipulate the notoriously wily Walsingham. She instructs Castelnau to reveal certain pieces of information about her, giving him directions on how much he can and cannot say, sometimes dictating word for word. Courtney and Paranque joined the project after Lasry and his colleagues called for historians to help. After they were inundated with applications, Lasry set them a challenge, handing Paranque one letter to translate from medieval French into English. • Mary, Queen of Scots review — doing Thea Musgrave's epic opera proud Paranque said the letters had wholly changed her opinion of Mary. 'Honestly, if you read the letters that are not ciphered, I thought she was a moron,' she said. 'But our ciphers — if you really try to put yourself back in 1581, as if you don't know who is going to win … I was reading them and thinking, she's going to win. They're that clever.' At one point Mary refers to her son, the future King James I of England, as 'my poor infant'. Courtney, a historian of the period, said: 'She's very good at turning on the waterworks when, rhetorically, it might be the best strategy.' He added: 'She is a particularly adept player of the very weak hand that she has.'
