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.

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 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.

Documents newly declassified by MI5, Britain's internal intelligence agency, show the late Queen Elizabeth II was not informed for almost 10 years that a member of her staff had spied for the then-Soviet Union.

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.

Recently declassified MI5 files have shed light on one of the most infamous chapters in Cold War espionage, revealing previously hidden details about Soviet infiltration in Britain's intelligence establishment and the royal household.

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

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

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.

Papers released by MI5 show that although Blunt confessed to them he had spied for the Russians during World War Two, the late queen herself was not officially told for nearly nine years. When she was informed of the full story in the 1970s,