ELS DECRYPTION

Encoding secrets using Equidistant Letter Sequencing has a long history. It was famously studied by Sir Isaac Newton, and appears to have been invented many centuries earlier by the Cabbalists. Its purpose was to safeguard secrets. The method employed makes use of a seemingly innocuous text, but by composing the wording in a specific way, it is possible to embody at equal intervals letters that when put together reveal a hidden message.

Gerolamo Cardano (1501-76) "was the most outstanding mathematician of his time. In 1539 he published two books on arithmetic embodying his popular lectures, the more important being Practica arithmetica et mensurandi singularis ('Practice of Mathematics and Individual Measurements"'. His Ars magna (1545) contained the solution of the cubic equation, for which he was indebted to the Venetian mathematician Niccolò Tartaglia, and also the solution of the quartic equation found by Cardano's former servant, Lodovico Ferrari. His Liber de ludo aleae ('Book on Games of Chance') presents the first systematic computations of probabilities, a century before Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat." (Encylopædia Britannica 2001). His own personal achievement, however, was to invent a system of steganography that still bears his name—"The Cardano Grille". It was first published in 1550.

"The Cardano grille consists of a sheet of stiff material, such as cardboard, parchment, or metal, into which rectangular holes, the height of the line of writing and of varying lengths, are cut at regular intervals." (The Codebreakers, David Kahn: Scribner, 1996 p.144). "The encoder writes his intended message in the openings, removes the grille, and fills in the remaining space with blind text (nulls), preferably meaningful-seeming. . . . An equidistant letter cipher . . . is the equivalent of a 'simple' Cardano Grille." (The Truth Behind The Bible Code, Dr Jeffrey Satinover: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1997 pp. 96-7).

The inscription inset below, and which concerns six lines of English verse appears beneath the bust of William Shakespeare. The monument itself has been set in place on the wall of the chancel in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Stratford-upon-Avon, and was erected in, or perhaps a little before the year 1623. The opening lines also bear a striking resemblance to those appearing on another epitaph composed by Ben Jonson in memory of Henry West, 13th Lord La-Ware (1603–28). The verse begins: "If Passenger, thou canst but reade: / Stay, drop a tear for him that's dead ... " Jonson's hand would seem to have been responsible for both epitaphs, as may be judged below.

Decryption, using Equidistant Letter Sequencing can be approached by numbering the letters in the text to be investigated. Thereafter, a search for Arithmetical Progressions whose representative letters also form words, phrases or sentences in grammatical form can be undertaken. Alternatively, a search can be made for "what is regarded today as the second major form of cryptanalytical technique—the probable word ... " (Kahn, p.140 supra)].

Rigorous conditions govern any sentence or phrase found by these methods, and these are required to conform to the special criteria laid down by William F. Friedman and his wife Elizebeth before being accepted. William Friedman was considered to be a world authority on cryptography during the first half of the last century, and his reputation endures into the present day.

His first requirement was that "the plain-text solution—[i.e., the secret message]—must make sense, in whatever language it is supposed to have been written; it must be grammatical ('Hearts green slow mud' would not do) and it must mean something ('Pain is a brown Sunday' would not do either)." (The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined, William F. and Elizebeth S. Friedman: Cambridge U.P. 1957 p.20).

Secondly, he stated: "that for a solution to be valid it must be possible to show that it is the only solution." (Friedman, supra p.24).

Within the space of less than four hours, using just pen and paper—no calculating device, but employing a mathematical technique especially devised to decrypt transposition ciphers, the inscription made to commemorate Shakespeare revealed a secret: a Cardano Grille with a quite sensational message that declared Shakespeare was really Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. It is therefore particularly noteworthy that the letter sequence of 34 is twice 17, the number of Oxford’s earldom. It is also the ‘key’ to deciphering the inscription; viz: “To decipher a message [of this type], the recipient must either have a grille identical to the sender’s, or must know the spacing rule that created it, if it conforms to a rule. An equidistant letter cipher, . . . is the equivalent of a 'simple' Cardano Grille.” (Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, The Truth Behind the Bible Code, p.97; (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1997).

The following grid of thirty-four columns reveals the steganogram—i.e., the “Cardano Grille”—and its embedded statement. Since the words appear vertically, the grille should follow suit, and be read from top to bottom in line order; that is, commencing with Row 1 then Row 2 etc. And since the statement appears in clusters, these should be read one cluster at a time, for this would have been the encoder's method for completing the encryption.

The inversion of E Vere De, to read E De Vere is acceptable according to the guidelines laid down by the Friedmans: "exceptions are made to the rules, and these permit the 'right' kind of messages to be extracted. This tactic is acceptable to the professional cryptologist only if the exceptions do not exceed a certain maximum." One exception is the least of all maxima, and therefore perfectly acceptable.

The Cardano Grille's "chief defect, of course, is that awkwardness in phrasing may betray the very secret that that phrasing should guard: the existence of a hidden message." (Kahn, supra pp.144-45). The task Jonson set himself was therefore a difficult one, and to accomplish it he was forced to make certain alterations with the spelling of words; sometimes, also abbreviating them, and on one occasion even reversing the word order, and on another he was forced to introduce a foreign word. The following is a list of the anomalies that occur in the cipher text, each of which is essential to complete the message.

In the absence of any one of these anomalies, there would be no hidden message, or one so full of exceptions as to be doubted.

It should also be noted that Cardano Grilles were used by the diplomatic services in 16th and 17th century Europe. Their function was to convey secret or sensitive information which had one meaning. They were not exercises in grammar. Consequently, anyone reading the above Grille from left to right instead of from top to bottom, in row order, would read 'Him So Test, He I Vow Is E Vere De As He Shakspeare; I.B. Me.' Appaling though the English is, one can still understand what is being said. And, as long as one also understands that they have a Cardano Grille in front of them, the essential fact that is being conveyed, to wit, that De Vere Was Shakespeare, can be understood and appreciated.

Why is this a proof that William Shakespeare was the pseudonym of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford?

Firstly, it satisfies the necessary and sufficient conditions required of a genuine proof

In the present case, it is necessary that:— [1] the Cardano Grille conforms to a strict equidistant-letter sequencing formation; [2] the derived sentence is grammatical; [3] the message makes sense; [4] the derived sentence is unique, in that no other meaning is possible; [5] the words in the message appear in clusters, thus pointing to an intelligent hand and mind as the cause.
These are the necessary conditions for establishing proof,and they have been fully met.

It is now required to show that these conditions are also sufficient? Can alternative grilles of different sizes be constructed from the letters available on the monument's inscription, and which also carry equally pertinent statements? This possibility has been disproved by the construction and inspection of alternative grilles. All show a scattering of disjointed words. See

Only the 34 column grille contains words that are in grammatical order and relate to the authorship question.

Conclusion: The necessary conditions are sufficient, therefore a proof has been established.

The numbers, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 can be placed in more that 87 billion different ways (14! = 87,178,291,200).

For every number, 1 to 14, substitute a word or initial(s) that appear vertically in Jonson's avowal: SO TEST HIM, I VOW HE IS E VERE DE AS HE, ME I.B.

Consequently there must be more than 87 billion different way in which these same words could have fallen into place: the majority of which, would have resulted in meaningless sentences.

Suppose, now, that the actual letters forming these words had all appeared by chance. What is the probability that this can occur?

A probability model based upon the frequency with which letters occur by chance within a piece of written English can be constructed from the letter frequency table published by Beker and Piper (Refer: Simon Singh, The Code Book The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, p.19: London: Fourth Estate, 1999). Based upon these two authors' research, a computer that has been programmed to choose random letters with the same frequencies, would require in excess of 842 trillion-trillion-trillion attempts to obtain the same letters—in any order—appearing vertically in Jonson's avowal (8.423 X 10³⁸). The fact that the computer would have 218 attempts at success (there are 220 possible grilles ranging from 1X220 to 220X1, of which both these grilles can be dismissed, because they simply repeat what the inscription says) is irrelevant against such astronomical odds.

To obtain some idea of what these figures mean, A suitably illustrative example occurs in The Code Book, The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography (Simon Singh, London, 1999, p.7).

For example consider this short sentence. It contains just 35 letters, and yet there are more than 50, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 distinct arrangements of them. If one person could check one arrangement per second, and if all the people in the world worked night and day, it would still take more than a thousand times the lifetime of the universe to check all the arrangements.

The example given by Singh concerns a number that is in excess of 5 X 10 ³¹. This falls a long way short of 8.423 X 10³⁸ the number required to examine all the possible arrangements that arise from the letters in Jonson’s avowal. Consequently, for the population of the world to encompass all the possible letter arrangements of Jonson’s vow at the rate of one every second, twenty-four hours a day: the time span suggested by Singh would have to be extended to more than a million times longer than the known duration of the universe, and still with its entire population working non-stop. Consequently, proof of Shakespeare's identity as Edward de Vere is scientifically ascertained. It is now for the doyens of English literature to catch-up with the progress of science.

Long before the calculation of probabilities had attained its present level of development, the avoidance of coincidence in a decrypted message was accomplished by repeating its central message, but in a different format. Hence, the curious, if not clumsy term, ‘Quick Nature’, which forms a bridge uniting Edward de Vere’s name with Jonson’s avowal serves the purpose of adding still further to the information imparted by the Cardano Grille.

A syllabic code operates similar to equidistant-letter-sequencing, but instead of taking the first letter of specific words, it is the leading syllables that are chosen. When these are joined together in a chain, they spell out a secret message. Jonson has employed this strategy, but concealed his intention under the cover of Latin: a language he was particularly fond of using. To understand this subtlety, one must refer to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, a book describing the working of Nature according to the ideas of Epicurus. Before the advent of modern science, the learned world could only look to the work of the ancients; De Rerum Natura was at one time the leading book on Nature, and consequently well-known to Jonson.

After applying the Latin for 'quick' to Lucretius' titled work, and qualifying this addition with the Latin word 'Summa' (meaning the sum or whole amount). 'Quick Nature' becomes Summa De Velocium Rerum Natura. Then, by allowing the end syllables to fade away; i.e., ‘die’, — indeed, the inscription has confirmed ‘qvick natvre dide’ — the statement in Latin emerges as: sum de ve re natu; in English: I Am de Vere by birth. By repeating de Vere’s name at this critical point on the grid, it usefully forms a bridge between two clusters on the grille. But, equally importantly, it has identified Shakespeare with the declaration: 'I am de Vere by birth', and this then becomes predicated with the rejoinder: ' SO TEST HIM , I VOW HE IS E. DE VERE AS HE SHAKSPEARE'. Then, to obviate any doubt as to the provenance of this avowal, the author has appended his initials, B. I., immediately adjacent to the identifying pronoun 'ME'. The initials I. B. should be at once familiar to everyone, from the late Elizabethan period up to the present age, as belonging to the poet, dramatist and close associate of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson: a man who clearly knew the real identity of William Shakespeare, and whose moral integrity (for above all he wished to be identified as honest) caused within him a burning passion to convey this truth to what he already knew would be a sceptical posterity.

iudicio pylium genio socratem, arte maronem terra tegit, popvlvs maeret, olympvs habet.

[The judgement of Nestor, the genius of Socrates. the art of Virgil: the earth encloses, the people sorrow, Olympus possesses.]

At first glance, likening these three figures from antiquity to the man whose bust graces the Stratford monument appears to be a considerable tribute. The traditionalist likes to think so. In fact. It is quite the opposite. Jonson was a known and recognized master of ambiguity. This is very much so in the present case. Nestor was a mythical figure about whom Shakespeare, himself, wrote in Troilus and Cressida: “old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes,” [act 2 sc. i, 106-7]. And again: “that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese Nestor… is not proved worth a blackberry” [act 5 sc. iv, 10-12].

Socrates, on the other hand, did live, but he wrote absolutely nothing. His fame only came later when others, notably Plato, wrote about him after his death.

Virgil also lived, but his poetry is not the example that Shakespeare followed. His mentor was Ovid. What is interesting about Virgil is that in his biography published in 1552, he was said to have obtained his gift for poetry from another 'spirit' whose identity he thereafter kept secret.

Taken together, we can see how Jonson's ambiguity has worked, so as to support his declaration that Edward de Vere was Shakespeare.

For they inform the alert reader that Shakspere was a man of myth (Nestor); a person who wrote nothing himself, having acquired his reputation as a writer from the reports made by others (Socrates), while benefiting from a transfer of the poetic ability belonging to another, whose identity he kept secret (Virgil).

Jonson’s Latin distich, which presents these parallels was placed at the head of his three couplets, which form the cipher text for the concealed Cardano Grille declaring Edward de Vere to be William Shakespeare.

TWO MONUMENTS TO shakespeare ERECTED AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON c.1623 and c.1840

This original monument shows the figure as he would have been recognized by his family and neighbours; that is, as a successful businessman who traded in local farm produce. The obscure references in Latin to Pylos, Socrates and Maro would have been beyond the comprehension of his illiterate family. This statuary has long since crumbled to dust. In the 19th century, it was replaced by the more sturdy construction that is presently on display. This shows a figure with pen in hand and paper resting on a cushion.

Commencing at the top, and working downwards, it is an interesting exercise to count the number of alterations that have been made to the architecture of the present monument. Yet, many traditionalist believers, including those holding professorships, are committed to asserting that the present monument is the same one that was erected in 1623. It appears that intellectual blindness affects not only the brain but also the eyesight. It should therefore be understood that in the early 1800s, “The King subscribed £50, the Borough of Stratford the same. Many sent their subscriptions ‘only for the restoration and preservation of the Monument.’” The money subscribed (about £5000) was far more than needed for the monument and for renovating the chancel (about £1200). Are traditionalists suggesting the money was embezzled instead of being used for the purpose it was intended?

The Stratford monument is often quoted as a primary source of evidence for proving that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. But from top to bottom it asserts the very opposite. The original effigy is not that of a poet but a market trader. The Latin distich beneath the effigy was chosen because the three figures from antiquity have the right ambiguity to express the truth about this man. And the sexain below this, contains an encrypted Cardano Grille, which asserts categorically that Edward de Vere was William Shakespeare.

The professorship in English Literature departments has been gulled into accepting the simplistic version of the Stratford monument, and would lose face to admit it. In this respect, the words of Nobel Prize winner, Brian Josephson, are particularly apposite: "You have to look properly at the evidence typically blocked from publication by journals such as [ Shakespeare Quarterly ], and few people are willing to do that. . . . It's also hard to change how people think. People have vested interests, and their projects and reputations would be threatened if certain things were shown to be true."

And so, the imaginative speculations surrounding William Shakespeare, and given breath by those invincible to change, live on: continuing their promotion of folly, and converting as many as they can to error.

See Sceptics Corner where attempts have been made to disprove the Cardano Grille

Grateful acknowledgement is given to Professor A. W. Burgstahler and John Ruggero for their helpful advice in presenting the decrypted evidence on the Monument to greater effect.
N.B. "Summa rerum – the totality of created things, also the totality of atoms, the universe". (Oxford Latin Dictionary). Velox – quick, (i) rapid in action or operation; (ii) Of human beings, animals plants, inanimate things. E.g. quickly working (Horace: Epod. 17. 61) &c Cicero, Quintilian, Tacitus, Pliny.