English art historian, teacher and spy Anthony Blunt was BOTD in 1907. Born in Bournemouth to an upper-class family, he was a third cousin of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen of England. He spent much of his childhood in Paris, where his father was appointed vicar at the British Embassy, developing a lifelong love of French culture. Returning to England for his education, he attended Cambridge University, where he joined a clique of gay Socialists, led by his friend and lover Guy Burgess. Biographers are divided as to whether Blunt or Burgess were first approached to spy for the Soviet Union, or which man recruited the other. Either way, both left university as committed Socialists and informants for the KGB. After graduating in 1937, Blunt became a successful art historian, publishing extensively on 17th century painting, specialising in the work of French artist Nicolas Poussin. During World War Two, he joined the British secret service organisation MI-5, where he supplied the KGB with extensive information about British and Allied military strategy. At the end of the war, he was sent to Germany to recover letters detailing the Duke of Windsor’s collaboration with Nazi high command. In reward for his service, he was appointed Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, responsible for the curation and preservation of the Royal Family’s art collection, and was later knighted. In 1947, he became director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, which he developed into one of the world’s leading art history schools. His publications Art and Architecture in France 1500-1700 and Nicolas Poussin were critically praised, becoming standard texts in art history schools. Relatively openly bisexual for his times, he had affairs with his male and female students. After witnessing Blunt seduce two students in a single evening at a Courtauld party, a colleague commented “Anthony, you’re so fickle!”, to which he is said to have replied “Many a fickle makes a fuckle“. Though largely retired from spying, he used his KGB contacts to arrange for Burgess and fellow Cambridge spy Donald Maclean to escape to the Soviet Union in 1951, before their cover was blown. In 1963, he was again commissioned by British intelligence to recover portraits of Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh drawn by Stephen Ward, the osteopath at the centre of the Profumo Affair. Blunt’s secret missions for the Royal Family created a convenient insurance policy, virtually guaranteeing his immunity from exposure. After the 1964 defection of Kim Philby, the “Third Man” in the Cambridge Spy ring, Blunt was investigated by British intelligence. He made a full confession, disclosing his contacts in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The British government, embarrassed by the revelations of a spy ring at the centre of its political establishment, and kept his identity a secret. He retired as director of the Courtauld in 1974, though continued as Royal Surveyor for Queen Elizabeth II. In 1979, newly-elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher revealed that Blunt was the “fourth man” in the Cambridge Spy ring. Blunt was subsequently stripped of his knighthood and Royal position. Vilified by the press, he retreated from public life, taking refuge with his former student and lover, the art critic Brian Sewell. He died in 1983, aged 75. Blunt was portrayed by James Fox in Alan Bennett’s play A Question of Attribution and John Schlesinger‘s 1991 TV film adaptation, and more recently by Samuel West in the TV drama series Cambridge Spies and The Crown. His story also inspired John Le Carré’s spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.