Название: The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to DianaАвтор: Richard Aldrich, Rory Cormac
Издательство: Atlantic Books
Год: 2021
Страниц: 736
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf, epub
Размер: 11.4 MB
For the first time, The Secret Royals uncovers the remarkable relationship between the Royal Family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana.
In an enthralling narrative, Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac show how the British secret services grew out of persistent attempts to assassinate Victoria and then operated on a private and informal basis, drawing on close personal relationships between senior spies, the aristocracy, and the monarchy. This reached its zenith after the murder of the Romanovs and the Russian revolution when, fearing a similar revolt in Britain, King George V considered using private networks to provide intelligence on the loyalty of the armed forces - and of the broader population.
In 1936, the dramatic abdication of Edward VIII formed a turning point in this relationship. What originally started as family feuding over a romantic liaison with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, escalated into a national security crisis. Fearing the couple's Nazi sympathies as well as domestic instability, British spies turned their attention to the King. During the Second World War, his successor, King George VI gradually restored trust between the secret world and House of Windsor. Thereafter, Queen Elizabeth II regularly enacted her constitutional right to advise and warn, raising her eyebrow knowingly at prime ministers and spymasters alike.
On matters of espionage, Queen Victoria was decidedly un-Victorian. Spying in nineteenth-century Britain was a dirty word. Victoria’s subjects thought it ungentlemanly; the kind of unscrupulous activity undertaken by despots on the Continent. Yet espionage was more than un-British; it was, so the argument went, unnecessary and counterproductive. The British population, prosperous and content, had no reason to rebel, while the foreign policy of splendid isolationism reduced the risk of war – and with it the need for secret intelligence altogether. Espionage was problematic in so far as spies, saboteurs and undercover surveillance generated mistrust; and mistrust led to rebellion.
In the wake of Wellington’s resounding victory in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had few international worries for the first time in centuries. One historian has described the mid-Victorian period as a vast ‘chasm of spylessness’. The precursor to MI5 and MI6 was not created until 1909, late in the reign of Victoria’s successor, Edward VII. During Victoria’s reign domestic spying was limited; and the British state lacked a formal network of human spies overseas.
Based on original research and new evidence, The Secret Royals presents the British monarchy in an entirely new light and reveals how far their majesties still call the shots in a hidden world.
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