Hundreds of years ago, people developed ingenious methods to secure their letters from prying eyes – and they did it with only paper, adhesive and folds. Late at night on 8 February 1587, an ...

Mary, Queen of Scots used a “spiral locking” technique to seal the last letter she wrote before her execution, indicating that she wanted the contents to remain secret, according to research published ...

In a steady, stately script, an anonymous Dutch writer living around 1700 wrote a letter: “I never thought you’d be such a miserable dog,” it went. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it to my ...