“Hence King’s Messengers and all that. In medieval days you gave a fellow a signet ring as a sort of open sesame. ‘The King’s Ring! Pass, my lord!’ And usually it was the other fellow who had stolen it. I always wonder why some bright lad never hit on the expedient of copying the ring – making a dozen or so, and selling them at a hundred ducats apiece. They seem to have had no initiative in the Middle Ages.”
