Her Majesty's Mails

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.