Queen Elizabeth ‘kept in dark’ over palace spy as treachery hidden for almost a decade
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Queen Elizabeth II was kept in the dark for nearly a decade about the full extent of the betrayal of one of her top courtiers, according to recently released official documents. In 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt, the Royal Family's picture surveyor and renowned art historian, finally admitted that he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.
He was recruited as a young don at Cambridge into one of the most infamous spy rings of the 20th century. Despite passing vast amounts of secret intelligence to his KGB handlers during his time as a senior MI5 officer during World War II, Blunt was allowed to keep his position within the British establishment due to fears of a major scandal if he was dismissed and the truth came out.
When the Queen was finally told the full story in the 1970s, she took it "all very calmly and without surprise", according to declassified MI5 files now available at the National Archives in Kew. The decision to fully inform her came amid growing concerns in Whitehall that the truth would inevitably emerge when Blunt, who was seriously ill with cancer, passed away and journalists, who were already on the scent of the story, were no longer held back by libel worries.
In February 1973, then-Prime Minister Edward Heath braced for a storm of bad press over the Blunt scandal, instructing Sir Martin Charteris, the Queen's private secretary, to give her the heads up. On March 19, MI5's top dog Michael Hanley got wind that Sir Burke Trend had clapped eyes on a "personal manuscript letter" from Sir Martin, confirming Her Majesty was in the loop.
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