AI model proposes solution to 370-year-old royal cipher
Vals AI says Claude Fable 5.1 decoded Sir Thomas Urquhart’s Cyphral Distich using the text’s 32 Proquiritations as its key, but the claim has not received independent scholarly verification.
Claude Fable 5.1 has reportedly produced a solution to Sir Thomas Urquhart’s Cyphral Distich, a 64-number cryptogram that has resisted attempted solutions since at least 1899.
According to Vals AI, the cipher appears in Urquhart’s Logopandecteision, published in 1653. The proposed method uses the book’s 32 Proquiritations as the key: each number identifies a word in the corresponding Proquiritation, with the first letter of that word extracted.
The resulting 64-letter message is presented as: “O GOD UPHOLD KING CHARLS THE SECOND AND MAKE HIM THE SUPREME RULER OF THIS LAND”. Its reference to Charles II is consistent with Urquhart’s position as a committed Royalist, Vals AI said.
The account argues that the cipher’s placement after the 32 Proquiritations, along with references to “wishes” in the surrounding text, provided clues to the method. It said the two lines each contain 32 letters and form a rhyming couplet.
Vals AI also reported a proposed decipherment of Urquhart’s larger Cyphral Octastich, a 285-number cryptogram in The Jewel. The supplied account does not provide the full decoding process or plaintext for that work.
The claims remain provisional. Vals AI’s account describes its own experiment, and independent scholarly verification has not been provided. One coordinate in the Distich may also shift depending on whether the Latin expression “hinc inde” is counted as a single unit.
