More than fifty letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, preserved in the French national library were found and deciphered by an international team of three cryptographers including me (George Lasry, Norbert Biermann, Satoshi Tomokiyo). The tragic life of Mary is well-known -- after three mariages, she fled to England, where she was held prisoner, and after years of captivity, she was executed on evidence of a deciphered letter for plotting against Queen Elizabeth. The letters discovered are entirely in cipher, with nothing to indicate who wrote them to whom and when. Codebreaking revealed that most (54) of the letters are letters written during 1578-1584 from Mary to Castelnau de La Mauvissière, French ambassador in England. Among them, more than 40 up to the middle of 1583 are hitherto unknown letters and are expected to provide new insights about Mary during her captivity in England.
The results were published in George Lasry, Norbert Biermann, Satoshi Tomokiyo (2023), "Deciphering Mary Stuart's Lost Letters from 1578-1584" in Cryptologia (Open Access) today, that is, 8 February, the anniversary of Mary's death.
I wrote an article in Japanese and a brief introduction in English. George talks on the discovery in a video.
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