Newly declassified British documents show that Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t told details of her long-time art adviser's double life as a Soviet spy because palace officials didn’t want to add to her worries.

The secret files record how the country's security services only told her about the infamous Cambridge Five member and art historian, Anthony Blunt, who was employed as the monarch's surveyor of official pictures, in 1973 long after he had admitted being a ...

Queen Elizabeth II was not officially informed for nearly a decade that Anthony Blunt was a Soviet spy, newly declassified documents reveal.

Queen 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.

British secret intelligence did not tell Queen Elizabeth II that her royal art adviser confessed to spying for the Soviet Union for almost a decade, according to newly released documents. The revelations come from a large tranche of documents made public by British intelligence service MI5 on Tuesday.

Anthony Blunt, an art historian and the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures overseeing the official Royal Art Collection, confessed in 1964 that he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.

When the Queen was finally told the full story in the 1970s, she was characteristically unflappable - taking it "all very calmly and without surprise".

Queen Elizabeth II was not told officially for nearly a decade that one of her most senior courtiers had admitted he was a Soviet spy, newly declassified British files revealed Tuesday.

Anthony Blunt, who worked at Buckingham Palace as Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, was secretly a Soviet spy during WWII.

Members of the spy ring in the 1930s spilled secrets to the Soviet Union from the heart of the U.K. intelligence establishment.