For years, researchers who visited the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) passed over a collection of encoded letters. Someone had misdated the letters as originating from the 1520s and mistakenly cataloged the content as pertaining to Italy.
The letters, however, were encrypted in a complex code. No one actually knew what was in the letters and who wrote or received them.
Then, an interdisciplinary research team studying Mary, Queen of Scots, suspected the queen wrote the letters during her years of imprisonment. After cracking the code, they translated 50,000 words written by the confined queen. The team published their research in a February 2023 special edition of Cryptologia. Their insight shines new light into the Queen of Scots' darkest days.
Mary, Queen of Scots, started her life as a queen and ended it as a prisoner. Born in 1544 to James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise, her father ...
