In 1851, however, Wurtemburg, at a cost of over £100,000, bought its freedom from the monopolists; and sixteen years later (1867) Prussia paved the way for the completion of the consolidation of the German Empire by purchasing for three million thalers (approximately £450,000) the last remaining rights of the house of Thurn and Taxis in the postal affairs of Germany. In England the royal _Nuncii et Cursores_ were the forerunners of the King's Messengers of to-day, and were exclusively employed upon State affairs and for the correspondence of the Sovereign and of the Court. At what period the people were admitted to the privilege of the posts is obscure. The first Master of the Posts of whom we know was one Brian Tuke, Esq., afterwards Sir Brian Tuke, who is best remembered in Holbein's several portraits of him, and as the author of the preface to Thynne's "Chaucer." He was at one period secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, and it is in a letter (1533) to his successor in that office, Thomas Cromwell, that we find the one clue to the state of the posts at that time: "By your letters of the twelfth of this moneth, I perceyve that there is grete defaulte in conveyance of letters, and of special men ordeyned to be sent in post; and that the Kinges pleasure is, that postes be better appointed, and laide in al places most expedient; with commaundement to al townshippes in al places, on payn of lyfe, to be in suche redynes, and to make suche provision of horses, at al tymes, as no tract or losse of tyme be had in that behalf." In the sixteenth century, there were regular carriers licensed to take passengers, goods, and letters, and of these the most remarkable was Tobias Hobson, who was an innkeeper at Cambridge. His memory is perpetuated in the common expression of "Hobson's choice." The innkeeper kept a stable of forty good cattle, but made it a rule that any who came to hire a horse was obliged to take the one nearest the stable door, "so that every customer was alike well served, according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice." Milton, in one of his two punning epitaphs on Hobson, refers to his position as letter-carrier:-- "His letters are deliver'd all and gone; Only remains this superscription."