Chapter IV

WHAT THE 287 SEAL EEPRESENTS
We propose to give the solution of this mystery which the weight of cumula- tive evidence seems to force upon us.
In the Age of Shakespeare the English alphabet consisted of twenty-four letters.
Each letter had of course a positional number thus :
ABCDEFGHIKLMNO PQE STUWXYZ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
There were no separate characters for J and V.
The total value of the letters in the name " Shakespeare," for instance, as expressed in figures would be :
S, 18; H, 8; A, 1; K, 10; E, 5; S, 18; P, 15; E, 5; A, 1; E, 17; E, 5. Total, 103.
Another method, but a secret one, of giving a different positional value to the letters in the Elizabethan alphabet was the Kaye method, or Kaye cipher, mentioned but not described in the De Augmentis, 1623. As many have a tendency to take umbrage at the mention of cipher, we will endeavour to refer to it only as the Kaye method. It takes its name from the fact that in the alphabet of that period the letter K was the tenth letter and accordingly the first letter, which was by its position represented by two figures (10). We now set down the alphabet beginning with K. It will be noticed that the letter A ought correctly to have been number 25 and B 26. But as this method was a secret one, early discovery was avoided by slipping two numbers and giving A the figure value of 27.
KLMNOPQE STUWXYZABCDEFGHI 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 •
27
28 SECEET SHAKESPEAREAN SEALS
The enumeration adopted in The Repertoire of Records, 1631 (see here- after), formed the most valuable clue to the discovery of the Kaye method.
In the 1670-71 edition of the Resuscitatio, a further clue was obtained. A few words upon one of the early subject pages of the Resuscitatio were found to have been carefully covered over with a strip of paper. Held to the light, it disclosed an apparently innocent message about a Dr. A. and a section 27.
Experiment with a number of prominent names of the period convinced he group of us who took part in it that we had arrived at a correct solution. Pondering over the Red Cross Knight of the Faerie Queene and the references to the secret Fraternity of the Rosy Cross in the Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, and in Ben Jonson's Masques oiThe Fortunate Isles and News from the New World, we concluded that the 287 Seal placed in position of prominence by so many important writers of books probably referred to membership of that secret society.
We found that counting by the Kaye method the words " Era Rosicrosse " or " Era Rosiecross," totalled 287.
FraRosicrosse 32 17 27 17 14 18 35 29 17 14 18 18 31 = 287