01 The documents
Maltravers (1608–1652), heir of the Earl of Arundel, sat in the Irish Parliament of 1634 and was a friend and correspondent of the young Earl of Ormonde. His letters from England report court news; the sensitive parts (the quarrel between the Earl of Kildare and the Lord Deputy, Wentworth, and what was being written about Ormonde himself) are in figures. The originals are in the Ormonde papers (now National Library of Ireland); the only witness online is the HMC calendar, whose figures were checked against the page scans.
13 Sept 1634: ...he came over because he was 65, 35, 21, 26, 59, 98, 113, 186, 108, 143, refused to see him
because he brought no 28, 69, 49, 50, 70, 44, 89, from 186, 99.
22 Jan 1634/5: You desire to know what 93, 185, 95, hath written unto 99, 149, concerning 98, 10, 44, 79, 47, 8, 59,
for whom 270 thus hereafter ... 95, 186, 98 hath written unto 98, 218, 97 much in praise of 100, 174,
103 in general, and particularly for his good carriage in 111, 95, 221, and upon his motion 93, 31,
174 99 is to be 64, 99, 11, 79, 85, 35, 12, 69, 28, 29, 79, 44, in which courses 174 shall do well
to continue.
02 Structure
- Nulls, 91–111. Nine values (93 95 97 98 99 100 103 108 111); seventeen of their eighteen occurrences stand at the edge of a
cipher run or beside a code number —
93 185 95,99 149,95 186 98,98 218 97,100 174 103,111 95 221. Tomokiyo's guess is confirmed: they pad the names. - Nomenclator, 112 and above. 113 143 149 174 185 186 218 221 270, each standing alone; 270 is a code being assigned ("for whom 270 thus hereafter").
- Letters, below 91. The spelled runs contain
49 50,69 70,28 29,11 12— doubled letters written with adjacent figures. Each letter therefore owns a block of consecutive figures, the commonest design of the period (Tomokiyo's survey of Wentworth-circle ciphers notes the same "three or six figures to each letter in regular arrangement").
03 The key
Three cribs fix the grid. "brought no 28 69 49 50 70 44 89" must be letters; "is to be 64 [null] 11 79 85 35 12 69 28 29 79 44"
gives a councellor; "concerning 10 44 79 47 8 59, for whom 270 thus hereafter", the man whose fortunes were about to "go worser" in
January 1635, is Crosby (Sir Piers Crosby, purged from the Irish Council by Wentworth that winter). All three fit one arrangement, and an
exhaustive scan of 42 regular grids (start 1–11, block size 2–4, vowel blocks 2–6) ranks it first by English quadgram score:
| b | c | d | f | g | h | k | l | m | n | p | q | r | s | t | w | x | y | z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7–9 | 10–12 | 13–15 | 16–18 | 19–21 | 22–24 | 25–27 | 28–30 | 31–33 | 34–36 | 37–39 | 40–42 | 43–45 | 46–48 | 49–51 | 52–54 | 55–57 | 58–60 | 61–63 |
| a | e | i | o | u | nulls | codes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 64–… | …69, 70… | … | 79–… | 85–… | 91–111 | 112 + (names, words) |
Consonants: the nineteen of the 24-letter alphabet (i = j, u = v). Attested figures: b 8 · c 10 11 12 · g 21 · l 28 29 · m 31 · n 35 · r 44 · s 47 · t 49 50 · y 59 · a 64 65 · e 69 70 · o 79 · u 85. The vowel block sizes (five each from 64, or a = 3 and the rest 6) cannot be fixed from this text; 1–6 are unattested.
04 Decipherment
Red = spelled in cipher · blue = nomenclator code, value from the documents in §05 · nulls dropped
13 September 1634. My lord of Kildare is long ago in England though I have not seen him; it is said he came over because he was angry [113 = with] [186 = the Lord Deputy]; [143 = the King] refused to see him because he brought no letters from [186 = the Lord Deputy].
22 January 1634/5. You desire to know what [185] hath written unto [149] concerning Crosby, for whom 270 thus hereafter; of which I can give you no account at all, only by what I hear it is like to go worser with him rather than better. [186 = the Lord Deputy] hath written unto [218 = Secretary Coke] much in praise of [174 = Ormonde] in general, and particularly for his good carriage in [221 = Parliament], and upon his motion [174 = Ormonde] is to be a councellor, in which courses [174 = Ormonde] shall do well to continue.
The history agrees with the decipherment. George FitzGerald, 16th Earl of Kildare, fell out with Wentworth over the Kildare estates during the 1634 Parliament and crossed to England that summer; Sir Piers Crosby, having opposed the Lord Deputy in the same Parliament, was removed from the Irish Council early in 1635; and Ormonde, who had backed Wentworth in the Commons debates, was sworn of the Irish Privy Council in January 1635, the month of the second letter. 186 as the Lord Deputy is used three times consistently; 174 as Ormonde ("your lordship") three times; 221 as Parliament follows "his good carriage in". The next section fixes 143, 218 and 113 from Wentworth’s own letters; 185 and 149 remain open.
05 The check against Knowler
Wentworth’s dispatches were printed in 1739 by William Knowler as The Earl of Strafforde’s Letters and Dispatches. Volume I covers 1634–35, and the events behind both cipher passages are in it, in Wentworth’s own words, with Secretary Coke’s answers in the margin.
Wentworth to Coke, October 1634 (i. 309). “The Earl of Kildare went away from hence without the privity of this State, and in seeming displeasure against me … within an hour after, he put to sea for England. Indeed I should not have mentioned thus much, but that I hear his Majesty refuseth to admit him to kiss his hand, which I acknowledge as a respect to me.” Margin: “The Earl of Kildare shall be sent back as is advised.”
That is Maltravers’s sentence of 13 September: Kildare angry [113] the Lord Deputy; the King refused to see him because he brought no letters from the Lord Deputy. So 143 = the King, and 113 is the connective between “angry” and the Lord Deputy (“with”; Wentworth’s word is “against”).
Wentworth to Coke, Dublin 22 December 1634 (i. 352–3). “In the Higher House, there is my Lord of Ormond, that hath as much advantage of the rest in judgment and parts, as he hath in estate and blood; and one, who upon my observation since I came hither, expresseth very good affections to the Crown and Government; so as I hold him a person of consequence, and fit to receive some mark of his Majesty’s favour, and humbly offer it to his Majesty’s wisdom, whether it were not seasonable to make him a Counsellor … so as I should think we had got much the better by the exchange of the Earl of Ormond for Sir Piers Crosby.” Margin: “for the Earl of Ormond, your Lordship shall receive herewith his Majesty’s warrant to swear him Counsellor, according to your advice.”
Maltravers, a month later: the Lord Deputy hath written unto [218] much in praise of [Ormonde] in general, and particularly for his good carriage in [Parliament], and upon his motion [Ormonde] is to be a councellor. The match is clause for clause: 186 = the Lord Deputy, 174 = Ormonde, 221 = Parliament (Wentworth’s “Higher House”), and 218 = Mr Secretary Coke, the addressee of the dispatch. The dispatch was for the King and Coke’s marginalia are the King’s answers, so “the King” is the alternative for 218, but the King already has 143. 270 is the code Maltravers assigns to Crosby after spelling the name once. James Howell, writing to Wentworth from Westminster on 1 January 1635, has Crosby in England and “in a bravery resolved never to see Ireland while your Lordship governs”: the court gossip behind “like to go worser with him”.
| code | value | evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 186 | the Lord Deputy (Wentworth) | three consistent uses; Knowler i. 309, 352–3 |
| 174 | the Earl of Ormonde | three uses; Knowler i. 352–3 and Coke’s marginal |
| 221 | the Parliament | “good carriage in” ↔ “in the Higher House” |
| 143 | the King | “refused to see him” ↔ “his Majesty refuseth to admit him to kiss his hand” |
| 218 | Mr Secretary Coke (or the King, through Coke) | addressee of the 22 December dispatch |
| 270 | Sir Piers Crosby | assigned in the text |
| 113 | with / against | connective between “angry” and the Lord Deputy |
| 185 | unidentified party | “what 185 hath written unto 149 concerning Crosby”; not the Lord Deputy |
| 149 | unidentified party | same clause; not the King or the Lord Deputy |
06 What remains uncertain
- 185 and 149. Ormonde had asked what one party had written to another about Crosby, and Maltravers “can give you no account at all”. Since the Lord Deputy and the King have their own codes in the same letters, these are other parties unless the key carried homophones: the adjacent numbering of 185 and 186 suggests a grouped list of officers (Lord Treasurer beside Lord Deputy), and 149 beside 143 the royal or Council group. Only the key sheet, or Ormonde’s letter asking the question, would settle it.
- The fourth figure of angry is printed
26, which the grid makes k; r is 43–45. The scan confirms the print, so either Maltravers slipped or the 1895 transcriber misread 44/45. "Angry" is the only word that fitsa n g ? y. 89at the end of letter is either u (a slip for s, if the vowel blocks are six wide) or a null/plural sign (if they are five wide).31(= m) before 174 in "upon his motion 31 174 is to be" is unexplained; perhaps "m[y lord]" begun and abandoned.- A key sheet, if one survives, would be among the Ormonde papers (NLI) or the Arundel papers; neither is online. The Bodleian’s online Carte Calendar begins at 1660, so the 1630s Carte letters to Ormonde cannot be checked for more of this cipher from here.
07 Method
- OCR of the HMC volume from the Internet Archive; both letters extracted and every figure checked against the page images.
- Regex scan of the whole volume (and the New Series volumes) for other figure runs: the only other ciphers (1644, 1650s) use different keys; no key or decipherment is printed.
- Positional test of 91–111 (edge-of-run statistic) → nulls. Consecutive-figure doublets → block alphabet.
- Cribs from the cleartext and the events of 1634–35; exhaustive scan of regular grids scored by English quadgrams; the crib-derived grid wins.
- For comparison, a simulated-annealing homophonic solver on the 28 letter-figures alone returns text with good quadgram scores and no sense. At this length the solution comes from the structure of the key; the statistics are too weak.
- Second session: the OCR of Knowler’s Strafforde’s Letters vol. I searched for Kildare, Crosby, Ormond, Maltravers and Arundel; each hit placed by letter heading, closing date and running head. The excerpts are in the repository.
08 Try the key
Figures separated by spaces or commas. Letters decode from the grid; nulls are shown as ·; codes as [n] with the value where there is one.
09 Sources
- HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, K.P., preserved at Kilkenny Castle, [old series] vol. i (London, 1895), pp. 28–29; Internet Archive.
- S. Tomokiyo, "Unsolved Historical Ciphers" (cryptiana), and "Ciphers in Early Stuart England before the Civil War" (strafford.htm) for the Wentworth-circle ciphers of the same design.
- W. Knowler (ed.), The Earl of Strafforde’s Letters and Dispatches, vol. i (London, 1739), pp. 309, 352–3 and the Howell letter of 1 January 1635;
Internet Archive (OCR searched; excerpts in
targets/ormonde/knowler_excerpts.txt). - C. V. Wedgwood, Thomas Wentworth, First Earl of Strafford (London, 1961), p. 159 (Ormonde sworn of the Council, January 1635); Hugh Kearney, Strafford in Ireland (1959) on Kildare and Crosby.
Analysis scripts and the full ciphertext are in the repository (targets/ormonde/).