Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley used "text speak"

Elizabeth I, and the man who some report was her lover, Robert Dudley, used what is now known as "text speak" in notes to each other, 400 years before the invention of the cell phone.

Researchers reveal that royal love letters between the British monarch and Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester use abbreviations similar to those currently used in modern text messaging.

Drawing from the Queen's pet name for him, "Eyes", Dudley refers to himself as @@ in a note dated February 17 1571. It reads,

"Your great favour, thus oft and so far to send, to know how your poor @@ doth, is greatly beyond the reach of his thanks."