Crown, cloak and dagger: the British monarchy and secret intelligence from Victoria to Elizabeth II

The royal family sits at the apex of the unwritten British constitution, consequently wielding an unexpected amount of power and influence. Similarly, intelligence officers are employees of the Crown, rather than civil servants, meaning that they occupy a distinct and politically removed function within the British constitution. The origins of organized intelligence in England, prior to its union with Scotland, can be traced back to Elizabeth I and her secretary of state, Francis Walsingham. Given this longer historical context, it might be more surprising that Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac's Crown, cloak and dagger is one of the few books about the British monarchy and intelligence.

Aldrich and Cormac have made excellent use of newly opened archives, including the journals of Queen Victoria, presidential and prime ministerial notes, and hitherto obscured official record-keeping. Drawing on these materials, they have written a comprehensively researched and entertaining book on how the British monarchy has acted as a gatherer and exploiter of intelligence to defend the position of the Crown and the British empire. The authors have also plotted the shifting contours of a relationship that has often been intimate and personal, but which has become bureaucratic and organized. Aldrich and Cormac are particularly successful in describing how the royal family has acted independently and then in concert with intelligence agencies on intelligence matters.

Early in the book, the focus is on Victoria's concerns surrounding matters of empire and her construction of networks of influence. These networks made the First World War something of an extended family affair, particularly because of the reporting of Victoria's eldest daughter, who was married to the Crown Prince of Prussia. The book moves chronologically through the world wars, the Cold War and domestic and international politics, finally arriving at the reign of Elizabeth II. In the final section, the material becomes nearly contemporary, with discussions around the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the embedded tours of Prince William in the three principal intelligence agencies. Aldrich and Cormac describe the very personal way that British monarchs have responded to the risk to themselves from enemies within and outside the UK. Victoria established the forerunner to the Special Branch—focusing on terrorism and counter-intelligence—to help mitigate the number of assassination attempts.

Victoria's son, Edward VII, was not as adept as his mother in continental networking, but the Boer War and the rise of Germany as a continental superpower convinced him of the need for organized intelligence. Consequently, in 1909 he was involved in the creation of the Secret Service Bureau, the forerunner to both MI5 and MI6. Edward's son and successor, George V, would oversee the division of the Secret Service Bureau into MI5 and MI6, and would play an interesting intelligence role during the First World War. George was intimately involved in trying to keep Russia in the war to improve Britain's chances of victory, and then in trying to save his Russian cousin Tsar Nicholas II from Vladimir Lenin's revolutionary Bolshevik government. George did this through orchestrating what appears to be MI6's involvement in the assassination of Russian court favourite Grigori Rasputin, and in attempting to exfiltrate the Tsar and his family from Russia.

Alrich and Cormac then move through the highly troubled interwar period, which was dominated by clashes of totalizing ideologies and their impacts upon the royal family. The book touches on the abdication crisis of Edward VIII, due to his affair with American divorcée Wallis Simpson. The potential disruption to democratic politics in the UK prompted intelligence officers to intercept the phone calls between Edward and Mrs Simpson. His successor, George VI, sought to understand and minimize the security threat that the abdicated king and his wife presented, given their extensive contacts with Hitler, senior German Nazis and British fascists. In contrast, and setting the tone for the next 80 years, the new king was a strong supporter of the role of intelligence in the war effort.

For scholars of contemporary strategy and security, the material on Elizabeth II will be fascinating. Like Victoria, Elizabeth II endured many assassination plots against her, and lost close family members and friends to assassination and intrigue. The authors note that Elizabeth II was particularly interested in signals intelligence, and her access to secret Cold War intelligence made her a significant source of wisdom to British prime ministers. For those interested in extremism and terrorism, the chapter covering the 1969–84 period provides an interesting alternative history. The authors allow an indulgence in the conspiracy theories around the death of Princess Diana, safely concluding that there are more questions left to answer. Overall, the book is a thoroughly well-researched and valuable contribution to our understanding of intelligence and the monarchy, which deserves reading.