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Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
10
The
earliest
date
in
modern
history
at
which
any
postal
service
is
mentioned,
is
the
year
807,
when
an
organization
was
planned
by
the
Emperor
Charlemagne.
The
service,
however,
did
not
survive
him.
The
first
regular
European
letter-post
was
established
in
the
Hanse
Towns
in
the
early
part
of
the
thirteenth
century.
This
federation
of
republics
required
constant
communication
with
each
other;
for,
being
largely
engaged
in
similar
commercial
pursuits,
it
became
indispensable
to
their
existence
that
some
system
of
letter-conveyance
should
be
originated.
The
next
establishment
was
a
line
of
letter-posts
connecting
Austria
with
Lombardy,
in
the
reign
of
the
Emperor
Maximilian,
said
to
have
been
organized
by
the
princes
of
the
house
of
Thurn
and
Taxis.
The
representatives
of
the
same
house
established
another
line
of
posts
from
Vienna
to
Brussels,
thus
further
connecting
the
most
distant
parts
of
the
vast
dominions
of
the
Spanish
Emperor,
Charles
V.
It
may
be
mentioned
here,
that
the
Counts
of
Thurn
and
Taxis
have,
in
virtue
of
their
original
establishment,
which
they
controlled
from
the
first,
always
held
peculiar
rights
and
privileges
in
relation
to
the
postal
systems
of
Germany;
and
up
to
this
day
the
posts
of
the
house
of
Thurn
and
Taxis
are
entirely
distinct
from
the
existing
Crown
establishments,
and,
in
fact,
are
maintained
in
rivalry
to
those
of
some
of
the
German
states.
In
France,
in
the
fifteenth
century,
Louis
XI.
revived
the
system
of
Charlemagne,
organizing
a
body
of
230
couriers
for
purposes
of
state.
We
may
gather
from
the
existing
materials,
scanty
though
they
be,
something
like
a
continuous
account
of
the
early
history
of
the
English
post-office,
tracing,
very
clearly,
its
progress
from
the
fifteenth
century
to
its
present
position.
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