How could you prove the authenticity of a "king's seal" and what would stop others from forging it?

by NolaOG

In shows like Game of Thrones and Last Kingdom a messenger would express the importance of a letter by saying something like "I have a message with the seal of____". Unless it's just popular misconception, I believe kings and other important people did have seals, but how would the recipient know it's legit? Has there ever been incidents of forged seals on major messages that led to something big?

DanKensington

More answers are always welcome on this matter from anyone who wishes to contribute their knowledge on the matter of seals. For the meantime, we can see that identity theft has not been a joke for a long time with these previous answers: