Misplaced? English Cipher Letter in French Archives

The cipher of a wholly enciphered letter in BnF fr.2988, f.1, was broken by Torbjörn Andersson in 2017. Unexpectedly, the plaintext turned out to be English. The recipient is called "your ...", and an obvious candidate is "your Majesty" (Henry VIII). Such an identification is supported by references to "your realm" in the text. But the text also refers to "your son". Although Henry VIII famously lacked a son until 1537, I noticed that he had a bastard son known as Henry FitzRoy.
I posted my decipherment in a new article "Misplaced? English Cipher Letter in French Archives" to help historians to identify the nature of this letter.

Another reason of this post is its possible relation to another undeciphered ciphertext signed Hieronimo Ranzo on the following folio (see "Venetian Ciphers with Superscripts"). Since f.1 and f.2 are treated as one item in catalog information, I wondered whether one is an enclosure of the other. But at least the decipherment of f.1 does not appear to refer to an enclosure.

A Cipher Delivered to Charles I by Mazarin's Ambassador

When Charles I of England was under close watch of the parliamentarians in Holdemby in 1647, some communication with the outside was conducted clandestinely. When searching for Cardinal Mazarin's cipher, I came to know that Mazarin bade Bellievre to obtain a peace between the King and the parliament, and the latter even managed to deliver a cipher to the King.
I added this episode to "King Charles I's Ciphers".

More Undeciphered Texts (Italian, Spanish) in BnF

I recently added more undeciphered materials in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers".
Many letters (Italian?) in BnF fr.2988, f.21 ff., seem to be written in the same cipher, probably simple homophonic substitution.
More specimens of the Venetian? cipher with superscript are found in BnF fr.2988, fr.3019, fr.3022.
Undeciphered letters to Emperor Charles V are found in BnF fr.3022.

Cardinal Mazarin and Ciphers

I uploaded a new article, "Cardinal Mazarin and Ciphers", which I wrote in January. Though I planned to expand it a bit more, I may not have time for it for some time, so I decided to post it as it is.
Since many of Mazarin's papers in the Archives des Affaires étrangères are not found online, this article consists of references to ciphers in Mazarin's correspondence. They may be nothing new, but, as with the case in Catherine de Medici, they may allow a glimpse of practice in use of ciphers.

An Early French Cipher (Gramont) Solved from Other Materials

I mentioned three unsolved cipher letters of Gabriel de Gramont (1529 from BnF Clair.330, 1530 from BnF fr.2980) in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Francis I". Now, I found another specimen with interlined decipherment in BnF fr.3019, and the reconstruced cipher can solve the letters in BnF fr.2980. The cipher used in BnF Clair.330 seems different.
It often happens that an unidentified cipher used in one volume can be reconstructed from deciphered materials found in other volumes. Some such examples, found through systematic search of BnF Clair.312-452, are already mentioned in my article. I'm now doing a systematic search for another part of the BnF collection. Maybe I should do the same for volumes around BnF fr.2900-3020.

Secret Letters Left Unbroken by John Wallis Solved After 400 Years

In 2020, letters in cipher from Louvois, Louis XIV's Secretary of War, to Count Lauzun (1690) were deciphered by Norbert Biermann by finding the key in the archives.
It is one thing to decipher a ciphertext, but it is quite another to understand what is written. Norbert provides a background account at Cipherbrain (in German). Since the letters relate to one of my favourite historical characters, William III (the Prince of Orange), I wrote my own version of background article: "Secret Letters Left Unbroken by John Wallis Solved After 400 Years"

A New Book on Shorthand, Ciphers, and Universal Language by D.P.J.A. Scheers

I got a pdf version of a new book Zealous with Language and Ciphers: Shorthand, ciphers and universal language around the 17th century (independently published on 9 March 2021; 261 pp.) by D.P.J.A. Scheers (Google).

When studying ciphers, one often encounters references to universal language or shorthand.
I once mentioned Athanasius Kircher's Polygraphia nova (1663). This work is more about universal language ("lingua universalis") than cryptography, and was to allow people to exchange letters without speaking each other's language (Wikipedia). John Wilkins, the author of Mercury, the first book in English about cryptography, also proposed a universal language in a 1668 work (Wikipedia). Leibniz, who corresponded with John Wallis, also had an interest in universal language. Similarity between code and universal language can be seen in, e.g., a dictionary for Kircher's universal language shown below.

Regarding shorthand, it is well-known that Samuel Pepys' diary is written in shorthand, which looks like a cipher and is sometimes called as such.

Text in shorthand looks like a ciphertext to untrained eyes (examples may be found in Cipherbrain), and may be used to conceal the content.

Zealous with Language and Ciphers has chapters I - Abbreviations and Numerals, II - Shorthand, III - The Development of Universal Language, IV - Universal languages, V - Characteristics and decipherments, VI - Other Language Developments, plus many appendices.
 

I have to say I know little of shorthand and universal language. So, of these topics, I can only say that the chapters include many names (including all I mentioned above and more) and many illustrations. The short Chapter VI deals with sign language and international maritime flag signals. The latter is, of course, related to code. I'm interested in whether "universal language" is possible with sign language.
 

Some of the appendices are directed to ciphers:
Pages 194-220 deal with "Urquhart's ciphers" presented in Cipherbrain.
Pages 220-227 deal with ciphers described by Porta.
Pages 228-231 deal with "Lodwick's "The Lords Prayer"".
Pages 232-234 deal with "Jane Seager's text from The Divine Prophecies of the Ten Sibills."
Pages 242-244 deal with "the secret numbers of Thoth".
Page 245 deals with "Unsolved cipher 1681 Dr. Wallis". Actually, this was (re-)solved by Malcolm V. Hay (1934) (see my article).
Etc.
 

What interested me is the author's map of the route of development of Italian ciphers (Mantua, Modena, Florence, Siena, Genoa) created from Aloys Meister's book by examining "the dating of the published letters, the 'cipher intelligence', the type of symbols, properties, length, usage of nulls and other relevant aspects." I wish there were more discussions to support his map. I look forward to "a future publication" the author seems to plan (p.41, n.89).

Four Hundred Years of Habsburg Cryptography

I added a section "Four Hundred Years of Habsburg Cryptography" in "Habsburg Codes and Ciphers". It is based on Benedek Láng (2020), "Was it a Sudden Shift in Professionalization? Austrian Cryptology and a Description of the Staatskanzlei Key Collection in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv of Vienna", which outlines a collection of nearly 500 manuscript ciphers preserved in the Austrian archives.
I learned of this paper in Nils Kopal & Michelle Waldispühl (2021), "Deciphering three diplomatic letters sent by Maximillian II in 1575". These authors succeeded in cryptanalysis of three letters of Maximilian II (and thereafter found that the key is among the above collection). I also added this cipher in the above article.

One of the Oldest French Ciphers Solved (1525/1526?)

The oldest French ciphertexts known date from 1525 or 1526, some of which still remain unsolved.
One of them is now solved by Norbert Biermann. It is written in the margin at the bottom of a letter dated 25 September [1525 or 1526?] from Jean de Calvimont to Antoine Duprat. See "French Ciphers during the Reign of Francis I".
Norbert solved Louvois-Lauzun Code (the one that the famous codebreaker John Wallis could not solve) last year by finding the key in the archives (see "French Ciphers during the Reign of Louis XIV" (5)). I hope he will solve more unsolved ciphers in my list.