How do you get to Rome in the year 1520 from Hampton Court?

Question

I'm watching the Tudors and a royal messenger is sent to ask the pope a question. How did he get from England to Rome in the year 1520?? Was there some kind of basic public transport for royal messengers or did he use his horse all the way there? Was there any efficiency to it? How long would it have taken? Seems like a LOT of work to ask the pope one question... did we use smoke signals etc. to save the travel?

Answer 1

No, their was no basic public transport system of any sort in the 16th century for messengers, royal or otherwise. The Roman system of roads and mansiones with changes of horse etc had ceased with the fall of the Empire. However, there would have been a 'post horse' system, whereby a horse would be hired in one town, and exchanged for another further along the journey. There would have been two ways to travel for the royal messenger in 1520. Either he could have sailed across the channel and then ridden or hired a carriage (very basic and very bumpy with the roads being bad). Alternatively, he could have taken a boat all the way. This could well have depended on the time of year. I doubt if such a voyage would have been made in winter for the fear of storms, especially in the Bay of Biscay.

Remember that life in those days was very much slower. Yes, it would have taken a long time, but in those times people expected any lengthy journey to take weeks or even months. They didn't have 'bean counters' calculating the efficiency or otherwise of the journey. Their world view would not have encompassed such a thought. The question had to be asked, so the journey had to be made.

Answer 2

Public transport as we understand it won't exist for at least 250 years. The fastest transport for this period whether on land- (single horse or horsed carriage) or seaborne (a message sloop or other fast vessel) would take weeks and was subject to weather, war, bandityr, etc.