Epistolary Espionage: The secret office and its functions were so well-concealed that no-one else in
Epistolary Espionage: The secret office and its functions were so well-concealed that no-one else in the GPO knew of its existence.Instigated by Cromwell, the office was located in Posthouse Yard near Threadneedle Street and was destroyed in The Great Fire of London in 1666. The Postmaster, James Hickes, tried, but failed, to save from the flames the ‘Secret apparatus for tampering with, copying & forging letters in the interests of the State’. King Charles himself viewed the process late one night in 1664,observing “the opening… [of] all manner of seals, as well in wafer as in wax, and then closing and sealing them up again, so as never to be discovered by the most curious eye”.Who knows how many letters were examined over the centuries. Opening mail required a Warrant requesting that items of correspondence be sent to the Secret Office, but there was no official practice for recording the warrants: in fact most warrants were burned after being received by the postmaster general.In 1758, Dr Florence Hensey was convicted of high treason and sentenced to death, based on ‘treasonous correspondence’ seized by the office.The technical skills to open, decrypt and re-seal the letters was significant. Opening and closing could be done without a trace, and there were meticulously engraved forgeries of seals and duplicates of the special waxes were developed. In a typical operation, a letter from the King of Prussia took three hours to open, copy and reseal.Although this office no longer exists, someone, somewhere is sifting through the nation’s post. Don’t forget, everything that goes into the postal system becomes Royal Mail, is delivered On Her Majesty’s Service and technically belongs to the Sovereign. HM has her own corp of messengers, by the way. -- source link
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