- Fifty-seven secret letters written by Mary Queen of Scots were recently decoded after being mistakenly labelled as Italian in the French national library.
- Computer scientists George Lasry and Satoshi Tomokiyo, along with German music professor Norbert Biermann, solved the cipher system used by Mary during her imprisonment.
- The letters, dating from 1578 to 1584, reveal Mary's cunning political schemes, including attempts to manipulate Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster, Francis Walsingham.
- Addressed mostly to the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissiere, the correspondence shows Mary providing direct instructions about feeding information about her.
- Historians involved in the project describe Mary as a "clever" and "adept player" who strategically used her limited position to orchestrate plans, with the full content to be published in 2027.
IN FULL
Mary Queen of Scots’ political scheming revealed in decoded missing letters
