As to that, the horsemen of the period were, equally with those of over a hundred years later, mentioned by Pennant, “a hardy race.” In March, 1603, for example, Robert Cary, afterwards Earl of Monmouth, eager to be first in acclaiming James VI. of Scotland as James I. of England, left London so soon as the last breath had left the body of Queen Elizabeth, and rode the 401 miles to Edinburgh in three days. He reached Doncaster, 158 miles, the first night, Widdrington, 137 miles, the second, and gained Edinburgh, 106 miles, the third day, in spite of a severe fall by the way. About the same time a person named Coles rode from London to Shrewsbury in fourteen hours.
When Thomas Witherings was appointed Master of the Post, in 1635, the Post Office, as an institution for carrying the correspondence of the public, may be said to have started business, although as early as 1603 private persons were forbidden to make the carrying of letters a business. Like all such ordinances, this seemed made only to be broken every day. It was particularly unreasonable because, before Witherings came upon the scene in 1635 and reorganised the posts, there existed no means by which letters could be sent generally into the country. Only the post-riders on business of State on the four great roads were in the habit of taking letters, and their doing so was a matter of private arrangement.
The postmasters now, on the appointment of Witherings, first officially made acquaintance with letters, and their name began to take on something of its modern meaning. They still supplied horses to the King’s messengers and the King’s liege subjects, and held a monopoly in these businesses.
In 1657 the so-called “Post Office of England” was established by Act of Parliament, and the office of Postmaster-General created, in succession to that of Master of the Posts. His business was defined as “the exclusive right of carrying letters and the furnishing of post-horses,” and these two functions--the overlordship of what were officially known for generations afterwards as the “letter post” and the “travelling post”--the long line of Postmasters-General continued to exercise for a hundred and twenty-three years.