King’s Messenger Passport History & Current Status
The King’s Messenger Passport: History and Current Status
King’s Messengers have been carrying Britain’s most sensitive paperwork across borders for the better part of eight centuries, and remarkably, nobody is legally allowed to open their bag to check what’s inside. That’s not a quirk of tradition. It’s written into international law, and it’s part of why the passport this small corps carries is one of the more fascinating documents in British diplomatic history.
I’ve spent years tracking down the passport types issued to King’s (and before 2022, Queen’s) Messengers, and thanks to Jeremy “Jake” Clark, a serving King’s Messenger and historian for the Corps of King’s Messengers, I’ve been able to piece together both the paper trail and the human story behind it. Here’s what I’ve found.
The Diplomatic Bag: Untouchable, But Not the Messenger
The diplomatic bag itself is legally inviolable, but the person carrying it is not. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the diplomatic bag cannot be opened, X-rayed, or investigated by any authority, foreign or domestic. King’s Messengers are the couriers entrusted with transporting these bags between British embassies and consulates worldwide on behalf of the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO). Many are retired military personnel, and they travel discreetly in business class with an official diplomatic case that is never to be separated from them, often secured with a chain.
That said, the Convention’s protection stops at the bag. The messengers and their personal luggage remain subject to normal security screening like any other traveller.
Eight Centuries of Errand-Running: From King John to the Present
The role of the King’s Messenger traces back to 1199, during the reign of King John, based on an entry in the Great Roll of the Pipe, the Crown’s annual financial record. It’s a genuinely long institutional memory for a job that, on paper, still amounts to “carry this and don’t lose it.”
The early record has some grim highlights. In 1257, King’s Messenger John Faukes was rewarded with a cash gift worth £1, over £2,000 in today’s money, for delivering good news, a rare and cheerful entry in an otherwise dark ledger. Less cheerful: in 1377, King’s Messenger Sir William de Faryngton was tasked with transporting the four quarters of the executed traitor Sir John of Mistreworth to different parts of England, and in 1397, King’s Messenger Thomas Monkton carried a quarter of the body of traitor Henry Ropere to Norwich, almost certainly for public display on the city’s gibbet.
Not every mission was so macabre, though. King Edward III subsidised his Messenger William Clerk’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Mount Sinai, a reminder that the role has always carried a mix of state business and personal trust.
A Shrinking Corps: What the FCDO Numbers Reveal
The Corps of King’s Messengers has contracted significantly over the last thirty years. FCDO figures show 27 positions in 1995, 19 in 2015, and just 15 in 2025, a steady decline that tracks the broader shift toward electronic and encrypted diplomatic communication. Serving messengers are paid on a C4 Officer pay scale (£25,200 to £33,200), and in 2022/23 the corps completed 302 journeys, moving 330,000 kilograms of diplomatic material. That’s still a remarkable physical footprint for a role many assume has been made obsolete by email.
Who Becomes a King’s Messenger Today
Today’s King’s Messengers are drawn primarily from the mainstream civil service rather than exclusively from military and police backgrounds, as was historically the case. There is currently one female King’s Messenger serving, a detail that says something about how slowly this particular corner of British institutional life has diversified.
The Chained Briefcase: Myth or Reality?
The image of a King’s Messenger handcuffed or chained to a locked briefcase is, according to the corps’ own historian, largely fiction. As Jake Clark told me: “The briefcase and chain is a romantic notion probably drawn from the many fictitious novels and films centred on the Royal Messenger role. I have never come across any firm evidence of this practice either past or present.” It’s a good reminder that the cinematic version of diplomacy and the actual paperwork rarely match up.
When the Job Turned Fatal: Messengers Lost in the Line of Duty
King’s Messengers have died in the line of duty on more than one occasion, largely in air disasters tied to the golden age of long-haul flying. In 1945, King’s Messenger Captain Robert MacDonald Guthrie was killed when an RAF Avro York carrying support staff to the Yalta Conference crashed near Malta. In August 1947, King’s Messenger Paul Simpson died when a British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian crashed in the Andes en route from Buenos Aires to Santiago; the wreckage wasn’t located until 1998, with human remains recovered years after that.
In January 1949, King’s Messenger Ralph Kinnard survived a serious crash of a British South American Airways Avro 685 shortly after takeoff from Caravellas, Brazil, and returned to duty after a lengthy hospitalisation. In November 1949, King’s Messenger Lieutenant Colonel A.J.S. Fane was among those killed when an American Airlines Douglas DC6 crashed near Dallas en route from New York to Mexico City. In May 1963, Queen’s Messenger Colonel H.C. Drake died when an Air Afrique DC6 crashed into Mount Cameroon en route from Cameroon to Lagos.
Not every incident ended in tragedy. In March 1974, Queen’s Messenger Geoffrey Miller was aboard British Airways flight 771 from Mumbai to Heathrow when it was hijacked mid-flight by Palestinian terrorists and diverted to Amsterdam. All passengers and crew walked away uninjured, a rare bit of good news in this particular section of the record.
From Queen’s Messenger to King’s Messenger: How the Document Itself Changed
The dedicated Queen’s Messenger passport was phased out around 2017 because it could no longer keep pace with advances in passport screening technology being rolled out globally. With an establishment of only around fifteen Queen’s Messengers at the time, maintaining a bespoke passport type for such a small category had become financially difficult to justify.
My sincere gratitude to Jeremy (Jake) Clark for keeping me informed on the latest developments in this area. Jake currently serves as a King’s Messenger and holds the role of historian for the Corps of King’s Messengers.
Further reading:
Portrait of a King’s Messenger
Messenger related articles
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Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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