As monarch, Queen Elizabeth had many people working for her and her family. Recently, it has been revealed that one of her most senior courtiers, Anthony Blunt, was a double agent. According to newly released documents from MI5 files, this courtier was a Russian spy.
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However, when his true intentions were discovered, Queen Elizabeth was not informed, and the courtier remained in service for several years after his confession. Like many aspects of the Royal Family’s life, the story was dramatised for the hit Netflix series The Crown.
Anthony Blunt was a Russian spy
As reported by Daily Mail, certain MI5 files have been declassified. MI5 released the files to the National Archives in Kew, west London. The documents revealed that Queen Elizabeth’s courtier, Anthony Blunt, was a Russian spy.
Blunt was recruited into a notorious Soviet spy ring in the 1930s. The spy group was later known as the Cambridge Five. Anthony Blunt worked as a senior MI5 officer during the Second World War.
Thanks to his position, Blunt could pass vast quantities of secret intelligence to his KGB handlers. As per Daily Mail, Blunt then worked as Surveyor of George VI’s Pictures from 1945 and continued to pass on information.
Moreover, in 1951, Blunt helped fellow Cambridge spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean escape to Russia. However, in 1964, Anthony Blunt was confronted by MI5 after Kim Philby, another Cambridge spy, had been detained. Anthony Blunt secretly confessed to being a Russian spy.
Queen Elizabeth was not told Anthony Blunt was a Russian spy
The declassified MI5 files suggest that spy chiefs and The Palace decided not to inform Queen Elizabeth that Anthony Blunt was a Russian spy to avoid ‘adding to her worries’, as per Daily Mail. The information was also kept from the Prime Minister at the time, Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
Following his confession in 1964, Blunt was allowed to continue his position as the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and a distinguished art historian until 1973. It wasn’t until February 1973 that then-Prime Minister, Edward Heath, ordered the Queen to be informed about Anthony Blunt.
As reported by Daily Mail, Blunt was suffering from cancer, and Whitehall was concerned the truth would be revealed and Blunt’s death would cause speculation. On March 19, 1973, then MI5 chief Sir Michael Bowen wrote:
Charteris [the Queen’s private secretary] wrote that he had spoken to the Queen about the Blunt case. She took it all very calmly and without surprise.
She remembered that he had been under suspicion way back in the aftermath of the Burgess/Maclean case. Obviously, somebody mentioned something to her in the early 1950s, perhaps quite soon after her accession.
Anthony Blunt’s confession was then made public in 1979, and he was stripped of his knighthood. Blunt died in 1983.
Read more:
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Sources used:
Daily Mail: ‘Elizabeth II was 'not officially' told that one of her most senior courtiers Anthony Blunt was a Russian spy for almost 10 years, secret MI5 files reveal’
Spyscape: ‘Anthony Blunt: The British-Russian Spy Who Collected Royal Secrets’
