Elizabeth II was not officially informed for almost a decade that one of her most senior courtiers had confessed to being a Soviet spy, according to newly released MI5 files. Art historian Anthony Blunt was for decades Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, overseeing the official Royal Art Collection, and in 1964 admitted he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s. Papers released by MI5 show that although Blunt confessed to them he had spied for the Russians during World War Two, the late queen herself was not officially told for nearly nine years. When she was informed of the full story in the 1970s, she was characteristically unflappable, taking it “all very calmly and without surprise”, according to the declassified files released to the National Archives.
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