Keen viewers of the Queen‘s funeral may have realized that the Lord Chamberlain who broke his staff in two and placed it upon the royal coffin is a former head of Britain’s MI5 intelligence service. SPYSCAPE explores the often overlooked but crucial fourth pillar of Britain’s most secret of services: The Crown.
On His Majesty’s Secret Service
King Charles’ many titles include Royal Patron of the Intelligence Agencies, a role that involves much more than dropping by the 007 film set. After the poisoning of GRU double agent Sergei Skripal, HRH made a secret visit to British spy agency MI5 and is routinely briefed by the GCHQ cyber spies and by the SIS (aka MI6), Britain’s equivalent to the CIA. SPYSCAPE explores King Charles’ murky history with the security services.
Queen Elizabeth likely knew more state secrets than anyone in history thanks to personal briefings and the mysterious ‘red box’. For 70 years, The Queen received daily intelligence briefings and confidential government papers in a locked leather box bursting with secrets. So what, exactly, do these boxes contain?
Get a FREE copy of a hot new thriller, spy story, or crime novel every Monday with a special Story Mondays ticket to SPYSCAPE HQ. Next Monday it's Bridge to the Sun - the unforgettable story of the secret role of the Japanese Americans who fought in the Pacific in World War II - by #1 New York Times bestselling author Bruce Henderson. Don't miss your FREE copy when you experience SPYSCAPE HQ next Monday.
The Secret Royals lays bare the royal family’s sensational - and at times disturbing - relationship with Britain’s security services. The scandal and intrigue stretch from double dealings with England’s first ‘spymaster’ Sir Francis Walsingham in the 16th century up to Princess Diana’s 1997 death in a Paris car crash. Here are 10 steamy stories from this fascinating history book.
Edward VIII’s scandalous dalliance with American divorcee Wallis Simpson threw The Crown into an epic crisis. The tumultuous affair seemed to be resolved when Edward abdicated and married Wallis, but the drama was ramping up behind the scenes. As the couple toured Nazi Germany, Edward was being spied on by Britain.
One of the most memorable and mercurial characters in Netflix’s The Crown is Lord Mountbatten, brilliantly portrayed by Emmy nominee Charles Dance. In real life, Mountbatten’s legendary influence over the royals began with his nephew, Prince Philip, and extended to King Charles with whom he shared a close relationship before his 1979 assassination. What really happened on that fateful day and what was the role of intelligence in this tragic chapter of Anglo-Irish relations?
Anthony Blunt was a knight, a palace art historian, and a KGB spy at the heart of the establishment who may have blackmailed the royals. Blunt is considered the ‘fourth man’ of the Cambridge Five spies who answered to Moscow during the Cold War. He’s also one of the most dangerous double agents in British history.
