British Kings, Queens, and Prime Minister have received mysterious red boxes for centuries but what secrets do they hold?
King Charles with the red box
Secrets of the Red Box
Britain’s royalty likely knows more state secrets than any family in history thanks to personal briefings and the mysterious ‘red box’ of secrets delivered daily to the monarch wherever they may be.
The royal boxes are bursting with secrets from British intelligence agencies, British government ministers, and Commonwealth countries. Documents are sent through the Private Secretary’s Office to the King or Queen, wherever they are in residence, in a locked red despatch box. But what’s inside?
Here are seven secrets of the red box.
For 70 years, Queen Elizabeth received her daily papers via red despatch boxes
British Kings, Queens, and Prime Minister have received mysterious red boxes for centuries but what secrets do they hold?
King Charles with the red box
Secrets of the Red Box
Britain’s royalty likely knows more state secrets than any family in history thanks to personal briefings and the mysterious ‘red box’ of secrets delivered daily to the monarch wherever they may be.
The royal boxes are bursting with secrets from British intelligence agencies, British government ministers, and Commonwealth countries. Documents are sent through the Private Secretary’s Office to the King or Queen, wherever they are in residence, in a locked red despatch box. But what’s inside?
Here are seven secrets of the red box.
For 70 years, Queen Elizabeth received her daily papers via red despatch boxes
During the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), one of the red box’s reports concerned Russian military intentions that had come from a human source via the Duke of Wellington, according to Spying and the Crown (2021). Together, the PM and Queen decided the intelligence was unlikely to be true - in any case, they couldn’t verify it - but the historic meeting illustrated that the red box of intelligence has long predated the 1909 founding of Britain’s elite MI6 intelligence service.
The tradition of the despatch box can be traced back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), where the term 'despatch' referred to an important message for the Queen. The modern red leather and pine boxes used by royalty and government to transport state documents were introduced in the early 1840’s under Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and Prince Albert, painting by George Hayter
2. A colorful history
Why are the boxes red? Prince Albert, Consort to Queen Victoria, is said to have preferred red as it was in his family’s Saxe-Coburg-Gotha coat of arms. Others believe, however, that the color reflected events in the late 16th century when Francis Throckmorton - a key conspirator in the 1583 Throckmorton Plot to replace Elizabeth I with Mary, Queen of Scots - presented Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza with a red briefcase filled with black puddings. “It was seen as an official communication from the Queen, and so the color red became the official color of the state,” according to Barrow Hepburn & Gale, one of the official box makers along with Wickwar & Co.
3. Intelligence and security
The red boxes are embossed in gold print with the royal cypher, a monogram of the country's reigning sovereign. Each has a unique number to aid identification and control the contents, and each recipient accesses the coded lock with an authorized key. They are designed to last. Queen Elizabeth II received red boxes every day of her 70-year reign, including weekends (Christmas Day excluded). She was still using the red boxes made for her 1953 Coronation decades later, the Royal Family said in 2015.
4. Scandal at the top
King Edward VIII (1894-1972), who abdicated in 1936 to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson, left red box documents scattered around his unofficial residence Fort Belvedere - a messy trail of intelligence reports, Cabinet papers, and diplomatic telegrams. An American attaché was even asked to drop off red boxes at Buckingham Palace on his way back into London. Some of these red boxes were actually lost and, for the first time in British history, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin urged that the monarch should only be sent material requiring his signature, according to Michael Thornton’s Royal Feud.
Kings and Queen’s aren’t the only recipients of red boxes. Sensitive papers are also provided to British prime ministers including Winston Churchill, whose red box was auctioned off for almost £160,000 ($180,000) in 2014 - 25 times the estimated price.
This red box, used by the British Prime Minister in the mid-19th century, is part of the SPYSCAPE collection
A rare despatch box made by Wickwar & Co., part of the SPYSCAPE collection (above), was used to transport top-secret intelligence reports for the prime minister’s eyes only during the Victorian period. Its contents included documents that took the country to war, preserved peace, and shaped the course of history. Emblazoned on the lid in gold lettering is the title ‘First Lord of the Treasury’, the formal title of the Prime Minister prior to 1905.
Today, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer also has a red box, displayed annually on budget day and - on rare occasions - red boxes are given as gifts, a symbol of the UK-US ‘special relationship’. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at the time Foreign Secretary, presented a red box to US Secretary of State John Kerry, and ex-PM Tony Blair gifted a red box to former US President George W. Bush.
6.Hidden messages
Queen Elizabeth is said to have had 12 official red boxes, including those inherited from her father King George VI. While one was being refurbished, a secret message was found hidden inside. “We discovered that one of our craftsmen had inscribed in pencil a secret message to the Queen's parents,” a spokesman for box makers Barrow and Gale told the media. “It was barely legible but read: God Bless And Keep Safe Their Majesties… It was very moving and when we relayed this to the Queen's private office everyone was incredibly touched.”
Old Stripey
7. Old Stripey
Although the red box is synonymous with royalty and Prime Ministers, other colors are used. Black boxes are sent to government whips, who keep Members of Parliament in line, and black boxes are also used for discretion while traveling. Intelligence officials use a blue box with a red stripe to send confidential papers to the prime minister, known as ‘Old Stripey’ due to the red stripe.
British PM Margaret Thatcher read the contents of ‘Old Stripey’ first, her former private secretary, Lord Armstrong, said, "It had the juicy stuff in it." Former Defense Minister Jonathan Aitken, writing in his biographyMargaret Thatcher: Power and Personality, added, “Only she and her Principal Private Secretary had a key to it. This was because ‘Old Stripey’ contained daily top-secret reports from the intelligence services and other highly sensitive material deemed to be for the eyes only of the Prime Minister.”
The red boxes are lined with lead, once meant to ensure they sank if thrown overboard on a ship
When Queen Elizabeth visited the cyber spies at GCHQ - the source of much of her red box material - she was asked for her thoughts about the GCHQ strike in the '80s. The Queen replied that she was delighted as she had less 'homework' to do at night.
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