Mary Stuart 1542 - 1587

Mary Queen of Scots, and sometime Queen of France, spent almost 20 years in prison. She had plenty of time to plot and write cipher letters. More of her letters, found in the French National Library, have been deciphered in 2023.

SanPaper Blog followers may notice a connection with the post on Charles V. Yes, posh people in the 16th century favoured the NOMENCLATOR form of substitution cipher. For a detailed description, readers with the time and interest may care to look at this article:

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/10/1155701113/mary-queen-of-scots-ciphers-prison-letters

Mary was a pawn in power politics. The original BREXIT of 1534 turned England into a Protestant country. Then, His Most Catholic Majesty Philip II of Spain vowed that England would be returned to the True Catholic Faith. He had the men, the money, and the ships, to invade England and put Mary on the throne in place of Elizabeth. However, The Enterprise of England took time to prepare. Spymaster Walsingham kept informed of developments from 1586. A primary objective of La Grande y Felicísima Armada was to put Mary Stuart on the throne; so Walsingham’s solution to that one was simple: Mary must die. He and his intelligencers counter-plotted Mary and her conspirators, proving that they intended to kill the queen. Mary was executed on 8 February 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle, in Northamptonshire. The Spanish Armada sailed on 31 July 1588. It was dashed and defeated by bad weather and Anglo-Dutch naval gunnery.