Charles Wesley's secret code diary cracked

A priest / academic has unlocked the 270-year-old secrets of Charles Wesley's coded diary, throwing light on the turbulent relationship that he had with his brother John in the early years of the Methodist movement they founded. The cipher for Wesley's journals, partly written in a personal shorthand (when he wrote about sensitive subjects, such as his disputes with John Wesley over the future direction of Methodism), were cracked by the Rev Professor Kenneth Newport. Newport, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Liverpool Hope University, spent nine years transcribing the thousand page hand-written manuscript held in Manchester.