Queen took news of spy in royal household ‘without’ surprise

Art aide Blunt a KGB mole

- Emily Ferguson

QUEEN Elizabeth II reacted "without surprise" when finally told the full scale of the treachery of one of her top courtiers, newly-released official files show.

Anthony Blunt, surveyor of her pictures and eminent art historian, confessed in 1964 that he had been a Soviet spy since the 1930s.

He was recruited as a young don at Cambridge into one of the most notorious espionage rings of the 20th century. Then, as a senior MI5 officer in the Second World War, Blunt passed vast quantities of intelligence to his KGB handlers.

But he was nevertheless allowed to keep his position at the heart of the British establishment amid fears of a major scandal if he was sacked and the truth came out.

When the Queen learnt the full story in the 1970s, she was characteristically unflappable taking it "all very calmly and without surprise", according to declassified MI5 files released to the National Archives in Kew, West London.