Queen’s relative

Press, 26 November 1979, Page 9

Queen’s relative

NZPA-Reuter London The “Sunday Times” said; yesterday that the disgraced; British former Royal art| adviser Anthony Blunt, re-f vealed as a one-time Soviet! spy, was a distant relative of the Queen. Mr Blunt, who was the! I Queen’s art adviser until last year, was a third cousin jonce removed, the paper /said. The relationship was 'through a common ancestor Ito whom the Queen Mother I was related. The “Sunday Times” also said today' Mr Blunt had been sent on a special mission to Germany at the end of World War II by King George the Sixth, the Queen’s father. i King George had been! worried that letters written

by Queen Victoria, and later by his mother Queen Mary, Ito German relatives, might fall into American hands and ;be published the “Sunday (Times” said'. Mr Blunt found the letters at Korenberg Castle near Frankfurt, home of Prince Philipp of Hesse, to whom they belonged. Mr Blunt confessed in 1964 that he had spied for the Russians during World War II when he worked for British military counterintelligence. This revelation 11 days ago and the fact that he had never been prosecuted have caused a row in Britain. The Queen stripped the former Sir Anthony Blunt of his knighthood, granted for services as an art expert to The Royal household.