Inscription a ‘secret message from sect’

A MYSTERIOUS inscription on a British stately home monument is likely to be a secret message from an 18th century Christian sect, Second World War code-breakers said yesterday after spending months attempting to decipher it.

The significance of the sequence of letters on the Shepherd’s Monument at the Shugborough Estate in Staffordshire has baffled visitors for years. The marble tablet, commissioned in 1748, features a carving of a Nicolas Poussin painting with the letters D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. underneath.

Now veteran code-breakers from Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, say the code is likely to stand for ‘Jesus (As Deity) Defy’, a message from a sect called the Priory of Sion.

The order had to keep its views secret because the Church of England, which viewed Jesus as an earthly prophet, thought they were heretical. It had been rumoured the riddle would reveal the location of the Holy Grail.

The theory has been put forward by an anonymous US researcher. Initially, he came up with the message “Jesus H Defy” but says the H stands for Christ, hence the translation into “as deity”.

This gives the message a strong meaning of defiance against prevailing Christian norms. The Priory of Sion held similar beliefs to the Knights Templar, to which it was the spiritual successor - that Jesus was an earthly king, not a heavenly one.

This theory is given weight by the common belief that Poussin was a Grand Master of the Knights Templar.

The painting from which the carving is drawn, Les Bergers d’Arcadie, is housed in the Louvre in Paris and has been subject to speculation over its possible Masonic symbolism.

It provided some of the inspiration for Dan Brown’s recent bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code.

Richard Kemp, general manager of Shugborough, said the theory provided another link between the monument and the Holy Grail.

He said that the previous connection was through the Poussin painting that he said showed the family were interested in the Holy Grail by virtue of the painter’s apparent affiliation with the Knights Templar. The order was known as the keepers of the Holy Grail.

“This monument is the second piece of evidence that there is a connection,” he said.