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, newly declassified documents reveal. The files about royal art historian Anthony Blunt are among a trove from the intelligence agency MI5 released Tuesday by Britain's National Archives.

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.

The identity of a Russian spy among Queen Elizabeth II's courtiers was kept from the monarch for almost a decade, but she took the news with her typically calm demeanour

London: 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, newly declassified documents reveal.

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, newly declassified documents reveal.

Newly released documents from British intelligence reveal new secrets about the late queen’s former art adviser.

Documents reveal how the monarch was not told the full story about Anthony Blunt, a Soviet mole inside MI5 and member of the Cambridge spy ring, until nearly a decade after his confession