Queen Elizabeth ‘kept in dark’ over palace spy as treachery hidden for almost a decade

London: So, it turns out Queen Elizabeth II was kept in the dark about a palace spy for almost ten years! Recent documents show that Sir Anthony Blunt, who was a big deal in the Royal Family, had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s. Can you believe that?

Blunt was recruited while he was at Cambridge and ended up spilling secrets to the KGB during World War II. Despite all that, he kept his job because they were worried about the scandal it would cause if he was fired. Crazy, right?

When the Queen finally got the full scoop in the 1970s, she took it pretty calmly. Apparently, she wasn’t shocked at all. The decision to tell her came because they were worried the truth would come out after Blunt passed away, especially since journalists were already sniffing around.

Back in February 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath was gearing up for some bad press and told the Queen’s private secretary to fill her in. MI5’s head, Michael Hanley, later confirmed that she was indeed in the loop. But it turns out she had some idea about Blunt’s shady dealings way earlier, maybe even in the early 1950s.

In fact, there was a time when Hanley wanted to cut Blunt loose from the Palace, but the private secretary thought it was better not to worry the Queen with it. They figured she didn’t really like Blunt anyway and rarely saw him.

The communication between MI5 and the Palace about Blunt was pretty spotty. In April 1964, they were about to confront him with evidence of his betrayal, and the Palace was only informed just before that. It’s wild to think that even the Prime Minister at the time, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, wasn’t told about Blunt’s confession.

Blunt was finally outed by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and he died in 1983 after losing his knighthood. The newly released files are part of an upcoming exhibition about MI5, which should be pretty interesting!