King’s Messenger Passports: A Rare Diplomatic History
King’s Messenger Passports: Britain’s Rarest Diplomatic Documents
Diplomatic relations between nations are always delicate, and in times of war they become especially fragile. A ciphered letter intercepted and decoded by the wrong government could disrupt relations between countries and escalate conflict. For this reason, the British Foreign Office has long relied on a special class of courier to hand-carry confidential state documents to embassies and legations abroad: the King’s or Queen’s Messenger.
The Origins of the King’s Messengers
The corps was founded by King Charles II, who was in exile in Holland when he established the service. He selected two English and two Dutch officials to carry his dispatches. According to tradition, the King was at breakfast when the first Messengers prepared to depart. He pulled a silver porringer toward him, broke off four greyhound ornaments from its rim, and handed one to each courier as their identification and informal passport. That silver greyhound became the defining symbol of the corps and has been worn as a badge ever since.
In the early years, Messengers had to be skilled horsemen and expert with a pistol. They defended royal dispatches with sword and firearm, often riding through bandit-infested mountain passes at night. The last Royal courier to lose his life on duty disappeared outside an Austrian inn during the Napoleonic Wars and was never seen again.
In former centuries, Messengers also served warrants issued by the Secretary of State for the arrest of persons accused of high treason and other grave offences. That function has long since ceased. Today, Messengers serve exclusively in foreign diplomatic service, and by 2015 there were 19 on active duty for the Queen.
Six Messenger Passports on the Antiques Roadshow
Messenger passports are among the rarest British diplomatic documents a collector can encounter. When a collection of six King’s and Queen’s Messenger passports appeared on the BBC Antiques Roadshow, it drew immediate attention.
ℹ️The appraiser noted the passports held little financial value on the open market. Any serious passport collector would disagree: each of these documents represents a chapter of British diplomatic history that very few surviving items can illustrate.
“Finding one Queen’s or King’s Messenger passport is already extremely rare,
but seeing six of them on the table in this show is outstanding.”
For an individual example with full details, see The King’s Messenger passport of Sir Cyril Fraser. Two authoritative books cover the broader history of the corps: The History of the King’s Messengers by V. Wheeler-Holohan (Grayson and Grayson, 1935) and King’s Messenger 1918-1940: Memoirs of a Silver Greyhound (Herbert Jenkins, 1941). If you hold King’s or Queen’s Messenger passports or related diplomatic documents, feel free to get in touch.
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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