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 was left in the dark for almost a decade over the full scale of the treachery of one of her most senior courtiers, according to newly-released official files

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

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

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.

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

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.