Discoveries

February 22, 2023

Hidden in Plain Sight

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Cryptographers discovered the long-lost secret letters of 16th-century monarch Mary, Queen of Scots, a find that reveals new details about her final years, CBS News reported.

The international codebreaking team found more than 50 letters containing about 50,000 never-before-seen words after digging through the digital archives of France’s national library.

Long rumored to exist, the documents were overlooked in the past because they were mislabeled as being from Italy, they wrote in their study.

The coded letters were written from 1578 to 1584 when Mary Stuart, a Catholic, was imprisoned in England because of the perceived threat she posed to her Protestant cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

The codebreakers explained that the deciphering process “was like peeling an onion” and took around two months. Initially, it was hard to determine who had written the letters but they found hints of an imprisoned woman and her son, as well as the name “Walsingham.”

Walsingham refers to Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, a figure historians believe “entrapped” Mary in 1586 into supporting the foiled Babington Plot to assassinate the queen.

Mary was beheaded in 1587 after being found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I.

Mary had directed the letters to her supporter, Michel de Castelnau Mauvissiere, who was also France’s ambassador to England.

While she made no mention of a plot, she lamented her treatment in jail and expressed concern when her son, King James VI of Scotland, was abducted.

Historians praised the findings as “a literary and historical sensation,” adding they will likely alter the existing biographies of the executed monarch.

This story originally appeared in the February 22, 2023 newsletter, A People, Betrayed.