QUEEN ELIZABETH II was left in the dark for almost a decade over the full scale of the actions of one of her most senior courtiers, according to newly released official files.

In 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt, the surveyor of the Queen’s pictures and distinguished art historian, finally confessed he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.

He was recruited, when he was a young don at Cambridge, into one of the most notorious spy rings of the 20th century, the “Cambridge Five.”