"Code" in a Junior High School Entrance Exam

 I noticed a word "code" in a math problem of an entrance examination of Kaisei, a prestigious private junior high school in Tokyo. (I appeared in an ad of a prep school on a newspaper on 6 February 2022.) The following outlines the problem. It is merely about combinations rather than cryptography, as expected.

A code is represented by a 2-by-7 matrix. A filled square cannot be adjacent to another filled square horizontally or vertically. The orientation of the matrix is fixed.

(1) How many squares can be filled at maximum? How many codes can be made with such maximum filling?

(2) Consider the case in which five squares out of the fourteen are filled.
(A) Draw all the codes that can be made without filling the squares in the first and third columns from the left.
(B) How many codes can be made without filling the squares in the third and fifth columns from the left?
(C) When five squares out of the fourteen are filled, how many codes can be made?

(3) Let us consider how many codes can be made as the number of columns used is increased (e.g., only the leftmost column, only the two leftmost columns, ...). The case of no filling is counted as one. For example, the number of patterns to fill the leftmost column is three (as shown in Fig. 2).
(A) When only the two leftmost columns are used, draw all the patterns other than the one with no filled square.
(B) Consider only the three leftmost columns. How many codes can be made?
(C) Consider all the seven columns. How many codes can be made?

KEY: (1) 7; 2; (2)(B) 8; 102; (3)(B) 17; 577

How George Lasry Solves Ciphers in an Instant

George Lasry, a computer scientist and an expert in cryptanalysis, provided me with his "interim results" for an unsolved ciphertext found in BnF fr.4715, f.85. He has solved many historical ciphers (see "Unsolved Historical Ciphers") besides many other achievements outside my scope (Google Scholar). His "interim results" this time are interesting for me in that he calls it a "machine reconstruction."
He developed many related tools for cryptanalysis of historical ciphers, as well as language models based on historical text for algorithms to work effectively (e.g., his paper on papal ciphers: Lasry et al. (2021)). In addition to these, transcription of the ciphertext is the indispensable first step of any computer processing. He developed a manual tool to mark and classify graphic symbols, of which a glimpse can be made in the provisional decipherment below. (Text data is here.)

  In this case, Arabic figures 01-57 are assigned to symbols more or less in the order of frequency. Symbols 100-122 are ones occurring only once. His algorithm works for homophonic substitution of single letters, so he excluded 100-122 from cryptanalysis because they may not correspond to single letters, but prepositions, suffices, or even names. Of course, some of 01-57 may be syllables rather than letters, but as long as a sufficiently large proportion of these symbols represent letters, his algorithm may give meaningful fracments of words here and there.
In the above decipherment, there seem to be fragments of some Italian words: "scriver", "parlando", "contra", "francese", "signor", "..nditione", "ma consient...." There must be many errors in this "machine reconstruction", but hopefully someone versed in Italian may correct the assignment starting from these correspondence.

Enciphered Passage about Princess Henriette's Words to 2nd Earl of Chesterfield (1659)

An enciphered passage in the memoirs of Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield (Wikipedia), was kindly brought to my attention by Richard Merriman (image).
The memoirs, titled "some short notes for my remembrance of things and actidents, as they yearly happened to mee", is preserved in Add MS 19253 in the British Library (catalog, another catalog) and its main parts are printed in Letters of Philip, Second Earl of Chesterfield (1829) (Google).
The enciphered passage belongs to the year 1659. According to Letters (p.20, 105-106) (different from the narrative in Wikipedia), he killed a certain Wollies in a duel in January 1659 and fled to the Continent. In February, he wrote to Charles II in Brussels to obtain a royal pardon. For some time during this travel, he stayed in Paris, where he waited on Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Henriette, Charles II's youngest sister (who was to wed the Duke of Orleans in 1661). In 1659, Lord Chesterfield was 25, and Henriette was 15. The short ciphertext is something the latter did or said when he took leave. The following is my provisional transcription:
AYE25YALY9v4v5H21Y3Y545YAvLE&2TA2E85Y928T5.
16vTEvL+cc+8S1+2T9++8Y&93t9gFv1cATv93+EY93Y&Fv5Ev62T2vT.
Even before I completed the transcription, the cipher was solved by George Lasry. By filling a few blanks left by him, the paragraph can now be read (the deciphered text is in italics):

... but missing mee I went in to France and from thence in to Holland and waited on the King at Breda where I had his Majesties pardon, from thence, I went back againe through Flanders in to France where I stayd some time at Paris and waited on Queen Mother and her Daughter the Dutches of Orleans who when I took my leave desired me to forgive her fredoms & indiscretion upon so small acquaintance & that [I] would not have the wors[e] opinion[.] from Paris I went to Bourbon and after the having taken the waters there, I went to Callis and meeting the King as hee was comming from Holland on the sea I went in to his Majesties ship and waited on him in to England.


(March 2024) There was another correspondent with whom Henriette used a cipher. A letter of Henriette to Lord Fitzharding (in French), dated 19 December 1664, asks if he understands the cypher which she sent. (Google), p.279

Rebus Employed to Spread Initial Situation of COVIC-19 in Wuhan Hospital (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic began in Wuhan, China, two years ago. When an early warning of mysterious pneumonia cases shared by doctor Li Wenliang (李文亮) (Wikipedia) with his mates was spread publicly, he was censured by the police. (He soon died of the disease in February 2020.) Ai Fen (艾芬), Li's source (ibid.) working at the same hospital, disclosed the situation in the hospital to a monthly periodical People (人物). The interview article published online on 10 March 2020 was deleted in a few hours, but people spread it in more than twenty variations to avoid the detection by the authorities. They used cryptic character sets, foreign languages, Morse code, bar code, etc. (The Asahi Shimbun, 13 March 2020; more images at asahi.com).
One of them employed emoji to hide characters here and there. Images may be found by googling with "火星字" (Martian script), which refers to writing text by replacing characters with similar sounding symbols etc. ("+U" for "加油" is an example taken from People's China: the character "加" means "add" and "油" sounds similar to "U." The scheme is similar to what was known as "hakspek" in English: "c u 2day" for "See you today", an example taken from Oxford Reference.) The cryptic look is sometimes called "emoji cipher", but may more appropriately be called a "rebus".
The example below seems to be from the interview article. I interleaved the rebus with the original text (in unsimplified Chinese characters), which shows how Chinese characters are replaced with emoji for a similar sounding word. For example, the name "艾" (ai) is replaced by the heart symbol, meaning "love" or 愛 (ai) in Chinese (and Japanese). The character "的" (of) is replaced by a symbol of drops (represented by a similar sounding character "滴" in Chinese). Characters "人" (person) and "毒" (poison) are replaced by ideographs. People versed in Chinese will find out more.

Links:
【發哨子的人】武漢醫師受訪，全網花式接力，胡錫進：要為不滿情緒留出必要出口
中國網民怒用「火星文」揭疫情真相 王丹：看了頭暈但內心鼓舞

Musical Ciphers in Japanese Literature

Ciphers with musical notes make an interesting genre in cryptography. An overview at Cipherbrain is something I wanted to write myself. After providing some additional sources in a comment there, I remembered my old writing. The following are two additional specimens from Japanese literature.

Jun'ichiro Tanizaki (谷崎潤一郎) (Wikipedia), Momoku Monogatari (盲目物語) (1931) (text)
This is a story of Oichi (Wikipedia), a sister of warlord Oda Nobunaga (Wikipedia) as told by Yaichi, a (probably fictional) blind shamisen player. When Oichi's husband's castle is doomed under siege in 1583, the last banquet is held. Yaichi notices the shamisen tune played by a monk includes repeated unnatural interludes, which convey a secret message for rescue.
It makes use of traditional musical notation for shamisen, whereby tsubo (Wikipedia) (places to be held on the neck of the instrument) are represented by kana syllabary.

Hisashi Inoue (井上ひさし) (Wikipedia), Nise Genshijin (偽原始人) (1976)
This is a story of three kids in the fifth grade. They communicate with interesting ciphers. One of them employs musical notes. A sheet music has two parts, one for consonants and the other for vowels. (Most Japanese syllables consists of one consonant and one vowel.) I think I have an image in some of the boxes stacked in my study, but I cannot locate it now.

Dating an English Cipher ca. 1700

I corrected my observations about dating of an English cipher ca. 1700 in "Diplomatic Codes after the Glorious Revolution".
The cipher is dated "1701 July" in the catalog record of the archives, but it appeared to be merely derived from the fact that the cipher is preserved with letters from this month. So, I tried to date the cipher by examining the names included in the nomenclature entries. The entries "late King" and "late Queen" seemed to refer to King William (who died in March 1702) and Queen Mary (who died in 1694). However, there were other entries that suggest it was from the 1690s.
Now, I found the cipher was used in letters of Robert Yard, James Vernon, and the Earl of Jersey in 1699-1700. Probably, the entries "late King" and "late Queen" refer to King James deposed in the Glorious Revolution and his Queen.
Several undeciphered letters can be read by this cipher, but one (Stepney to Manchester) is in a different cipher. I included it in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers."

Acrostics in TV Program Guide on Japanese Newspapers

Acrostics embedded in TV program guides on newspapers have occasionally been making a buzz in Japan. Typically, the embedded text is a message about supporting a local baseball team, some social issue, or just an advertisement of a program. Two examples are:

 

The program guide reads horizontally, but the first characters of each line spell out a meaningful phrase.
According to JapanKnowledge (24 September 2014), the first such instance is said to have been the one for a baseball game of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters aired by Hokkaido Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (HBC) in 2010.
(By the way, these acrostics are produced by broadcasting stations, not newspaper staff (buzzfeed, 2016/4/20).)

There are even double acrostics, in which messages are embedded in two vertical lines.

 
Googling with "ラテ欄の縦読み" (vertical reading of radio/television guide) returns many examples including:
(HBC, 2013/6/12)
(CBC, 2013/9/19)
(CBC, 2013/9/20)
(NHK, 2018/3/11)
(RCC, 2016/8/6)

The following are examples of double acrostics.
(HBC, 2016/10/13)
(RCC/HBC, 2016/10/23)
(HBC, 2017/9/20)

(NB. Some of the dates quoted in the above may be the date of the tweet or the article rather than the date of the program.)

Ciphers in Cardinal Wolsey's Copybook

Back in 2012, I presented a cipher used by Cardinal Wolsey in "Cardinal Wolsey's Cipher (1524)". It was taken from a fragment printed in a nineteeth-century encyclopedia. Now I found another letter in Harley MS 6345 in which the same cipher is used. Actually, the fragment seems to belong to the same letter in Harley MS 6345, but the corresponding ciphertext is not in Harley MS 6345. So, there must be some other source of the cipher fragment.
I also added two other ciphers from Harley MS 6345. 

 

Cryptic Books That Snatched 136 Million Yen from National Diet Library of Japan

When I wrote about cryptic stone monuments the other day, I remembered a series of cryptic books titled Asho (亞書, "Meta-book") by "Alexander Myaskovsky" (アレクサンドル・ミャスコフスキー) that snatched 136 million yen from the National Diet Library of Japan. No less than 78 hardbound volumes, each priced 60000 yen (before consumption tax of 8%), are full of cryptic text consisting of Greek letters and other symbols.
Starting from March 2015, copies were deposited in the National Diet Library, and about 136 million yen for 42 volumes was paid to the publisher (Risuno Shobo, りすの書房) as a compensation (Wikipedia) prescribed in the law. In October, the books were talked about on the web. The cryptic text might be some ciphertext, but it was pointed out that there were too few repetitions. Some suspected all was a fraud to extort compensation. Right after this, the publisher closed its website on 26 October, and the books were deleted in Amazon.
The manager of the publisher said to The Asahi Shimbun "I typed Greek letters on my PC off hand without any meaning. The volumes themselves are works of art or craftwork." So, it was not a ciphertext after all.
The National Diet Library also contacted the publisher. Finding that few copies were actually sold, they decided to return the books and request a refund.

国立国会図書館収集書誌部「2016年2月2日 『亞書』の返却及び代償金返金請求について」（NDL）
Saki Mizoroki「国会図書館が136万円払った「亞書」騒動を振り返る」（BuzzFeedNews） 6 February 2016
安藤健二「『亞書』解読不能な本を国会図書館が返却、136万円の返金請求へ」（The Huffington Post）
「亞書の謎１１　原点に還る」, 30 October 2015
中澤星児「謎の書物「亞書」を追っていたらとんでもない結末になったでござる / このまま都市伝説化しそうなレベル」, 26 October 2015
「「亞書」制作者がコメントを発表　国立国会図書館の対応に不満」

 

 

Any Material about Codebreaking of Philibert de Babou de la Bourdaisiere?

Philibert de Babou de la Bourdaisiere reportedly was a codebreaker for King Francis I. But the only primary source seems to be a brief reference in Vigenere, Traite des chiffres (1586). My search did not find anything about his codebreaking, but found a ciphertext in a letter to him from his son. Although the letter is accompanied with plaintext, I have not been successful in reconstructing the cipher. (The plaintext seems too long for the length of the ciphertext.) I mentioned this in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Henry II of France".
I also added other ciphers therein as well as in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Francis I" reconstructed from the same source (BnF Dupuy 44). 

 

Enciphered Proclamation Attributed to Napoleon in Elba

When I searched for use of the term "système à double clef" in studying popularization of the Vigenere cipher (see here), I came across a description (Auguste Héraud) that the double-key cipher like Vigenere was used by Napoleon when he returned from the island of Elba. Googling readily found publications containing the actual ciphertext, which showed Héraud's description is inaccurate.
I uploaded a new article "Enciphered Proclamation to the Army Attributed to Napoleon in Elba", which presents the cipher and some background information. Help of historians and cryptographers is desired to assess its authenticity.
I also added a reference to this in "Great Ciphers of Napoleon's Grande Armée"

Extensive Syllable Representation with Symbols in a French Cipher (ca. 1601-1607?)

It often happens the original key of a cipher I reconstructed from deciphered letters is found in some other place in the archives. For example, after reconstructing a cipher from BnF fr.15578 for my article "French Ciphers during the Reign of Henry IV of France", I found the original key in BnF fr.7131.
Now, I found the original keys for "Savary de Breves' Cipher (1602-1603)" and "Beaumont-Fresne Cipher" reconstructed therein in BnF fr.3462.

By the way, the Beaumont-Fresne Cipher is interesting (albeit inconvenient for use) in having an extensive syllable representation by arbitrary symbols rather than Arabic figures.

Patents (1928) for Japanese Cipher Machine -- Prototype of RED (or ORANGE)

Prototypes of the Japanese cipher machine, dubbed RED by US codebreakers, were used during the London Naval Conference in 1930. They were based on secret patents no. 79061 and no. 79062, as described in "Development of the First Japanese Cipher Machine: RED". The 79062 patent works electromagnetically, while the 79061 works mechanically. When I wrote the article, they seemed quite different. But now I've come to think they share the same cryptologic principle, which I now described in a new section "Additional Remarks (18 December 2021)". (I should have noticed it from the first, but the description of 79061 is very cursory, and I still cannot figure out its drawings.)

By the way, the label on the apparatus in the photo below reads "91-Shiki Injiki" [Type 91 Printing Machine], which is ORANGE, rather than "91-Shiki Obun Injiki" [Type 91 Alphabetical Printing Machine], which is RED. This is the reason I labelled the photo as "Variant of RED Cipher Machine." From what I read, I understand the main difference between RED and ORANGE is whether to encipher alphabetical letters or Japanese kana characters, but I have to say I do not know them very well, still less their difference from the prototype used in the London Conference or the mechanism described in the patents. 

Sun Yat-sen's Coded Telegram (1916)

Sun Yat-sen's undecoded telegram (1916) is presented in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers". The basic principle is probably as follows: the Chinese characters in the plaintext are translated into four-digit codes according to a standard codebook; some manipulation may be applied to the figures (in some known examples, 111 was added); every pair of digits is converted to a consonant-vowel pair with a code condenser table; and the resulting sequence of figures are regrouped into ten-letter groups.
I presented two known code condensers at "Chinese Cryptography: 1871-1945". Although they belonged to Yamada Junzaburo, who supported Sun Yat-sen, I now found that an explanatory note, preserved in the Aichi University Archives, of encoding for correspondence between Yamada and Sun Yat-sen employed one of these (the one preserved in Guoshiguan).
When I applied it, the following character codes were revealed, but they do not decode well with the standard codebook.
2001 0174 5078 2348 7093 1963 4088 7850 5418 7709 5132 4463 ....
Subtraction of 111 yields:
1890 0063 4967 2237 6982 1852 3977 7739 5307 7598 5021 4352 ....
Again these result in a garble when decoded with the standard codebook.

Just in case, I tried the other of Yamada's known code condensers (the one preserved in the Michigan University).
Simple application leads to:
4037 3771 4692 8186 5095 6089 4494 9246 6780 1278....
Subtraction of 111 yields:
3926 3660 4581 8075 4984 5978 4383 9135 6669 1167....
Neither decodes to a meaningful plaintext.

I report these unsuccessful results as a starting point for further study.

Chinese Coded Telegram (1916) from Huang Xing

I presented a coded telegram (1916) from Huang Xing to Lin Hu and Li Genyuan in "Chinese Cryptography: 1871-1945" and also included in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers". The other day, I found my memo that the reading is filed after the telegram. (The telegram is followed by the decoded text and an annotated text to read it in Japanese word order (Wikipedia).) After all, this is not "unsolved", but the specific encryption scheme (e.g., the specific code condenser used) is yet to be identified.

For what it's worth, the following is my preliminary analysis made some years ago. But I cannot get further at least because I have some difficulty in the handwritten Chinese characters.

The decoded text has 2+12+11+12+11=68 characters.

KUTA may be 電 (7193).
While 電 should occur three times, the only quadgram occurring three times is KINI, which does not seem right.

KISU at the end may be 径 (1777).
NIRA, the second last, may be 興 (5281).
OSO, the fourth from the last, may be 電 (7193)?

Transcription in kana:
れくたた　うほやかて　せかなおく　さけきにせ　おすかくち　れうほにうす　まかすさく　ふれおひへ
YEにきYEひ　たかすれう　さしきへ　わおにああほ　さYEひて　うひなくた　ねあてむYE　すへうはか
YEそみかぬ　てあすうく　すはこせ　けきになき　てあけたし　こぬおひけ　ひみかの　しくさへ
うはたかさ　けきにか　あたれうさす　おそゆあにら　きす
(May be YE is え.)

There are 139 syllables:
RE KU TA TA
U HO YA KA TE
SE KA NA O KU
SA KE KI NI SE
O SU KA KU CHI
RE U HO NI U SU
MA KA SU SA KU
FU RE O HI HE
YE NI KI YE HI
TA KA SU RE U
SA SHI KI HE
WA O NI A A HO
SA YE HI TE
U HI NA KU TA
NE A TE MU YE
SU HE U HA KA
YE SO MI KA NU
TE A SU U KU
TSU HA KO SE
KE KI NI NA KI
TE A KE TA SHI
KO NU O HI KE
HI MI KA NO
SHI KU SA HE
U HA TA KA SA
KE KI NI KA
A TA RE U SA SU
O SO YU A NI RA
KI SU

Frequency:
A 7
CHI 1
FU 1
HA 3
HE 4
HI 6
HO 3
KA 10
KE 5
KI 7
KO 2
KU 7
MA 1
MI 2
MU 1
NA 3
NE 1
NI 7
NO 1
NU 2
O 6
RA 1
RE 5
SA 7
SE 3
SHI 3
SO 2
SU 8
TA 7
TE 5
TSU 1
U 9
WA 1
YA 1
YE 5
YU 1

Frequency in descending order:
KA 10
U 9
SU 8
A 7
KI 7
KU 7
NI 7
SA 7
TA 7
HI 6
O 6
KE 5
RE 5
TE 5
YE 5

Cryptic Stone Monuments Inscribed with Kanji Numerals near a Mountain Pass in Japan

There are three stone monuments near the Usui Pass between Nagano and Gunma Prefecture in Japan. They are inscribed with succession of kanji numerals. I was intrigued by their cryptic look when I first read about them in newspaper (photos with captions) in 2019.

One of them reads:
八万三千八　三六九三三四七　一八二　四五十三二四六　百四億四六
("8 ten-thousand 3 thousand 8 3 6 9 3 3 4 7 1 8 2 4 5 ten 3 2 4 6 hundred 4 hundred-million 4 6")
The "8" at the beginning reads "ya", the following "ten-thousand" reads "ma", the following "3" reads "mi", the second instance of "3" reads "sa", etc. The numeral "3" may read "mi" or "sa" from the two forms of the Japanese numeral three: "mittsu" and "san."
In Japanese, such assignment of syllables to numerals is commonly used as a mnemonic to memorize a number. It works by converting a series of digits to some meaningful phrase, which is facilitated by multiple possible readings of each digit. (It's a bit like a polyphonic cipher.) I mentioned "codebooks" on the basis of such a scheme the other day.
In all, the inscription reads as a tanka poem:
山道は　寒く寂しな　一つ家に　夜ごと身にしむ　百（もも）夜置く霜
Ya-ma-mi-chi-wa sa-mu-ku sa-mi-shi-na hitotsu-ya-ni yo-go-to mi-ni-shi-mu momo-yo oku-shi-mo
(Roughly translated as "The mountain path is cold and lonely. In one house, it is penetrating to the body every night. For a hundred nights, frost falls.")
From a passage in this poem, this is called "hitotsu-ya no hi" (一つ家の碑). Photos are also found at Google Map (the text of the guide plate shown in a photo here is slightly different from the actual inscription), a page of the Karuizawa village.

Another is called "mi-ku-ni-fu-mi no hi" (みくにふみの碑). See also the Karuizawa village, Virtual Nakasendo.
四四八四四　七二八億十百　三九二二三　四九十四万万四　二三四万六一十
(4 4 8 4 4 7 2 8 hundred-million ten hundred 3 9 2 2 3 4 9 ten 4 ten-thousand ten-thousand 4 2 3 4 ten-thousand 6 1 ten)
よしやよし　何は置くとも　み国書(ふみ)　よくぞ読ままし　書(ふみ)読まむ人
(yo-shi-ya-yo-shi na-ni-wa o-ku-to-mo mi-ku-ni-fu-mi yo-ku-zo yo-ma-ma-shi fu-mi-yo-ma-mu hi-to)
(Roughly translated as "So be it. There is nothing like a precious national letter. It would have been good to read for people who are willing to read letters.")

The third is called a numeral poem of Watanabe Ikarimaro (1837-1915) (Wikipedia) (渡辺重石丸の数字の歌). See also a Usui Pass website.
四八八三十　一十八五二十百　万三三千二　五十四六一十八　三千百万四八四
4 8 8 3 ten 1 ten 8 5 2 ten hundred ten-thousand 3 3 thousand 2 5 ten 4 6 1 ten 8 3 thousand hundred ten-thousand 4 8 4
世は闇と　人は言ふとも　正道(まさみち)に　勤しむ人は　道も迷はじ
(yo-wa ya-mi-to hito-wa i-u-to-mo ma-sa-mi-chi-ni i-so-shi-mu hi-to-wa mi-chi-mo ma-yo-wa-ji)
(Roughly translated as "Although people say the world is a darkness, one striving for righteousness will not lose the way.")

Historic Site in Japan That Relayed Coded Message Signalling the Pearl Harbor Attack

Today is the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941 (in Japan time). I learned in newspaper that there remains a radio transmission station that is said to have relayed the famous coded message "Niitakayama nobore 1208", signalling the date of attack (Wikipedia (in Japanese)). It is the Hario Transmission Station (former Sasebo Radio Transmission Station) in Sasebo, Japan. Today, it is a designated important cultural property and is a sightseeing spot (Wikipedia; official site (in Japanese), with QR codes for downloading an app for multilingual explanation (which I have not tried); Wikipedia (in Japanese)).
The photo, created by Lettuce in the Lattice (Wikipedia Commons), is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

After posting the above, I remembered of the Funabashi Radio Transmission Station (Wikipedia (in Japanese)) in Gyoda in Chiba Prefecture, of which I learned from Kazuhiko Yoshida some years ago. It was the station that transmitted the coded message "Niitakayama Nobore 1208" to the Japanese task force in the Pacific heading for Hawaii. Seen from the above, a circular road characteristic of this kind of transmission station is still visible. (In the photo below, the railroad on the left is the Musashino Line.) Although there are no longer transmission towers, the site is designated as a Heritage of Industrial Modernization. 

Additional Remark:
The Hario Station is also introduced in newspaper in July 2025 (asahi.com)

Papal Ciphers from the 16th to the 18th Century

Vatican ciphers are difficult to solve even with computer algorithms that can solve homophonic ciphers in an instant. This is because they used variable-length symbols written continusouly without a break, as I reported in "Variable-Length Symbols in Italian Numerical Ciphers" in 2017. I succeeded in solving three such ciphertexts found in the French archives, as I reported in "Identifying Italian ciphers from continuous-figure ciphertexts (1593)" (Cryptologia).
"Deciphering papal ciphers from the 16th to the 18th Century" by George Lasry, Beáta Megyesi, & Nils Kopal, now included in Volume 45 of Cryptologia, studied many ciphertexts in the Vatican archives systematically and identified no less than 16 keys. I should have mentioned this when the paper was published online in June 2020. Until now, I mentioned it in "Unsolved Historical Ciphers" only as a footnote to "New Vatican Challenges." Now, I mentioned it in a separate entry "Papal Ciphers from the 16th to the 18th Century."

A Reconstruction of the First Cipher between Charles I and Henrietta-Maria

Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta-Maria used several ciphers between them, as described in "King Charles I's Ciphers". Of these, I have not seen an actual specimen of the first cipher used by them. Now, I reconstructed it from two pages of manuscript copy. (One may further supplement it by inspecting more pages.)
While it was described as "The alphabet is expressed by figures or symbols, small words by a combination of figures and letters, and proper names by pseudonyms ..." by Green, I found that letter pairs are also used in the substitution alphabet. (The two pages I referred to did not contain code for small words or pseudonyms.)

I also found an additional example of what I call the Second Cipher between Charles I and Henrietta-Maria (Aug. 1642-Jul.1643) in Harley MS 7379, f.86. The letter is dated 9/19 January, but the year is not given. I think it is 1643. This is partly because of use of this very cipher and partly because the letter begins by acknowledging receipt of the King's letters of 22, 25, and 28 December. Considering that the Queen was still in England in December 1641, the dating of this letter at January 1642 seems unlikely.
I post the following provisional (not very accurate) transcription in the hope that someone may help establish the date of this letter.

Harley MS 7379 f.86
Henrietta-Maria to Charles I, 9/19 January

Mon cher coeur jay receu trois de vos lettres
en mesme jour une datee du 22 decembre lautre
du 25 et 28 dans lune desquelles vous me mandes
laisidant* qui est arive a ma lettre qui e s
t o i t d a n s l a c a n e
jan suis bien fachee car il y avoit beaucoup
de choses de dant elle estoit je ne me puis plus
souvenir de ce que estoit jay fait tout les
diligances que tous ques desiree e n [p48] et
jatans w:m: t o u t l e s
i o u r s mais il d o n n e fort
p e u d e s p e r a n c e d e
F: je vous avois desja escrit par lordinaire
de devant le dernier comme javois selon vos
ordres e n u o y e en F: pour
d e s a r m e s comme [189] avoit
comande a [260] sest pour quoy il fault que vous
ayes soing de envoyer l a r e n
a f o s t e r et lordre ou il l e
s f e r a t r a n s p o r
t e r car sest luy qui en prand le
soing pour mon voyage vous naves que
faire de man courager car je suis ases
mepariance de partir i l n i a
que l e u e n t qui e n p
e s c h e d e p a r t i r
jespere que s e r a s i
t o s n8[with] 189 que 260 remeteray a
respondre auec lettres de p a r b o
t c h e seulement je vous prie de
dire a 189 que tout se quil ordonne sera
fait touchant l e P: Tre: je serois bien
ayse de savoir les particuliarites sest pour
(verso)
quoy je vous prie de me les envoyer a
226[Ven:] car il est necessaire que je le
sache pour votre service je nay plus
rien a dire et espere que s e s t e
l e t r e sera l a d e r
n i e r e que o r a d
e m o y de Holl: a dieu mon cher
cocur sy sette lettre est prie il gora
a desifre ce 19/9 janvier

lette a 113 que je ne luy escris
point mais quil asure
et a 82 aussy.