A Cipher Used by Mary of Austria (1546)

I mentioned ciphers used by Mary of Austria, Governor of the Netherlands and sister of Emperor Charles V, in "Ciphers during the Reign of Emperor Charles V" but have not seen an actual specimen. A cipher used in two letters from her to [Nicolas Perrenot de] Granvelle in 1546 is reconstructed in Francisco Javier Reales Pérez (2025), "Déchiffrer l'histoire : présentation et description d'un chiffre employé par Marie de Hongrie dans sa correspondance en langue française", Estudios Románicos, vol. 34, pp.159-177 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.6018/ER.614131 ).

The cipher has a homophonic substitution alphabet, symbols for double letters, nulls, syllables, and words. Syllables such as ba, be, bi, bo, bu are generally represented by some base symbol plus an indicator to distinguish the vowels. However, unlike the regular vowel indicators in Spanish ciphers under Philip II, the indicators are not regular. This is a characteristic (better than in the next reign!) also seen in other Spanish ciphers during the reign of Charles V (see my article quoted above).