Existing comment:
John Clotworthy, ciscount Maserenne
Autograph letter to John Winthrop, Jr. with grille, 1634/35
This is a rare surviving example of a letter accompanied by the grille used to read its secret message. A note on the back of the letter told Winthrop to retrieve the "casement" from a goldsmith named Mr. Allen in Fleet Street: the four notches in its corners lined up with four dots on the letter itself, in the manner described by della Porta, and a note on the top of the grille told him which way was up. |