Before Henry's reign the only letters of which any record exists, letters to or from the Court and on affairs of State, were sent by couriers employed for the particular occasion. These couriers, styled "Nuncii" and "Cursores," appear to have answered to the Queen's messengers of our own time, and, as is evident from records still extant and dating back to the reign of Henry the Third, must have formed an important branch of the royal establishment.
To establish posts and to control them when established was not all or nearly all that Brian Tuke had to do. He had also to see, even where no posts existed, that the royal couriers were not kept waiting for horses; and this probably was his original function. The horses were provided by the townships, and the townships were kept up to their duty by the Master of the Posts. In some cases, indeed, special provision appears to have been made. At Leicester,[1] for instance, the members of the Corporation bound themselves under penalty to keep four post-horses in constant readiness for their Sovereign's use; but this can hardly have been a common practice. Where horses were not provided voluntarily, the magistrates and constables had orders to seize them wherever they could be found.
The close connection between the posts and the Sovereign continued long after the reign of Henry the Eighth. In 1572 Thomas Randolph, Master of the posts to Queen Elizabeth, rendered an account of the charges to which he had been put in the execution of his trust during the preceding five years; and in this account, which is given in considerable detail, not a single post is mentioned without some qualification identifying it with the person of the Sovereign—a post daily serving Her Majesty, a post for Her Majesty's service and affairs, a post during the time of Her Majesty's progress, a post for the conveyance of Her Majesty's letters and those of her Council. As late as 1621 all the posts of the kingdom, which even then were only four in number, started from the Court. I. "The Courte to Barwicke," i.e. the post to Scotland. II. "The Courte to Beaumoris," i.e. the post to Ireland. III. "The Courte to Dover," i.e. the post to the Continent. IV. "The Courte to Plymouth," i.e. the post to the Royal Dockyard.
The setting up of a post for a particular purpose and letting it drop as soon as the purpose had been answered was another peculiarity of these early times. The post to Plymouth, ordained in 1621 to be one of the standing posts of the kingdom, had been dropped since 1611, having then been declared to be unnecessary except in time of war. Even the post to Ireland had at one time been dropped and was not revived until 1598. In the same year a second post to Ireland, Irish affairs being then considered to require "oftner dispatches and more expedition," was set up by way of Bristol, and this in its turn disappeared. Indeed, it would probably not be too much to say that at the beginning of the seventeenth century no post set up in England during a war had lasted longer than the war itself. This practice of dropping a post as soon as it had served its purpose, a practice which must almost necessarily have existed from the earliest times, would seem to explain Brian Tuke's meaning when, after stating that in 1533 except those he mentioned "the Kinges Grace hathe no moo ordinary postes," he adds, "ne of many days hathe had."
For the regulation of the posts the earliest instructions of which we have any record were issued by Queen Elizabeth. Every "post" was to keep and have constantly ready two horses at least, with suitable "furniture." He was to have at least two bags of leather well lined with baize or cotton, and a horn to blow "as oft as he meets company" or four times in every mile. He was, after receiving a packet, to start within fifteen minutes, and to run in summer at the rate of seven miles an hour and in winter at the rate of five. The address of the packet and the day and the hour at which he received it were to be carefully entered in a book to be kept for the purpose. But the packets which were thus to be treated were only such as should be on the Queen's affairs or the affairs of State. "All others" are dismissed in a word. These, the instructions state, are "to passe as by-letters." To pass as by-letters probably means that the letters were to go when and as best they might, but that the post was not to go for the purpose of taking them. This view is confirmed by an order of the subsequent reign, that "no pacquets or letters," except such as were on the King's affairs, should "binde any poste to ride therewith in post." But be the meaning what it may, the expression seems to shew that even in the reign of Elizabeth letters other than State letters had begun to be sent to the post-houses, and that such letters, if barely recognised, were yet not excluded.
But the conveyance of the Sovereign's letters was not the only purpose which the posts as originally established were designed to serve. Another and hardly less important purpose was that there should be stationed and in constant readiness, at given distances along the chief roads of the kingdom, a relay of horses by which persons travelling on their Sovereign's concerns, even though not the bearers of letters, might pass between one part of the country and another. Of this second purpose a few words implanted in the English language, such as post-horse, post-boy, and travelling-post, are all that we have now left to remind us. But long after the public had been admitted to the free use of the post, the two objects of providing for letters and providing for travellers continued to be treated as inseparable. Hence the history of the posts during the seventeenth century and far into the eighteenth becomes complicated with the history of travelling.[2]
Indeed, there can be little doubt that it was as a means of travelling and not as a means of correspondence that the post first came to be used by others than those employed on affairs of State. Writing, during the sixteenth century, was an accomplishment possessed by comparatively few, whereas any one might have occasion to travel; and the resources of travelling, so far as these partook of an organised system, were in the hands of the Sovereign. Wherever there were posts, it was at the Sovereign's charge and for the Sovereign's use that horses were maintained; and where there were no posts, it was only for the use of the Sovereign that the townships were under obligation to supply horses. The natural consequence followed. People pretended to be travelling on their Sovereign's affairs who were really travelling on affairs of their own, and so procured the use of horses which would otherwise have been denied them. The horses, moreover, were overridden and overloaded, and the persons by whom they were hired not rarely forgot to pay for them.[3]
No sooner had James the First come to the throne than he issued a proclamation having for its object to check these abuses. Only those were to be deemed to be travelling on public affairs who held a special commission signed by one or more of the principal officers of State. No horse was to be ridden, in summer, above seven miles an hour, and in winter above six; nor yet, without the knowledge and consent of the owner, beyond the next stage. The load, besides the rider, was not to exceed thirty pounds in weight. Persons riding with special commission were to pay for each horse 2–½d. a mile, besides the guide's groats, and "others riding poste with horse and guide about their private businesses" were to make their own terms. In all cases payment was to be made in advance. The proclamation contained another and most important provision, the effects of which were felt far into the next century. This was that, wherever posts existed, those who had the horsing of the posts were also to have the exclusive letting of horses to travellers. If the post-houses could not supply horses enough, the local constables with the assistance of the magistrates were to make good the deficiency.
The proclamation of 1603 was soon followed by another, prohibiting all persons not being duly authorised by the Master of the Posts from being concerned in the collecting, carrying, or delivering of letters. The effect, therefore, of the two proclamations together was that, except by private hand, no letter and, except along the bye-roads where posts did not exist, no traveller could pass between one part of the kingdom and another without coming under the observation of the Government. It has been suggested that the State monopoly of letters had its origin in a desire on the part of the Sovereign to reserve to himself the revenue which the letters brought; but in 1609, when the monopoly was created, the posts were maintained at a clear loss to the crown of £3400 a year,