During the Regency there were three ways to send a letter. The first was to send it to the recipient who paid for the honor of receiving said letter. The second was by way of a messenger that the sender would pay and the receiver would probably tip. The third way was by using franking privileges.
All peers had franking privileges. This was because they had seats in the House of Lords. Members of the Commons also had them. Even today politicians holding elected office in the UK, Canada, the US, and probably other countries have franking privileges. That means that the government actually pays for the letter to be sent.
Once the letter had been written, sealed, and was ready to be sent, the peer or MP would write his name diagonally across the sealed part of the letter. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find an image of a Regency era franked letter.
Stamps were not used until about 1840.
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Ella Quinn ~ Author 