British Government papers reveal MI5 spied on their own Monarch.
According to official documents released this month, The current Queen’s uncle King Edward VIII was spied on by his own government during the constitutional crisis of 1936.
Documents from the Cabinet Office archives show that In November of that year the General Post Office (GPO) were ordered by MI5 to put wiretaps on phone calls between the King’s home at Fort Belvedere, Windsor Great Park, and Mrs Wallis Simpson’s Paris hotel.
The King wanted to marry the twice-divorced American Mrs Simpson, but Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin forbade it because of the the King’s position as Head of the Church of England .
Baldwin believed that the issue was so important that his special adviser Sir Horace Wilson ordered the head of MI5 Sir Vernon Kell, to spy on the man in whose name they governed. Had the King gone ahead and married against the express wishes of the PM, it could have meant either the end of the Monarchy in Britain, or the end of Baldwin’s career.
The agent tasked with monitoring the royal conversations was Tommy Robertson who listened in via a GPO telephone junction box in London’s Green Park.
The crisis ended a month later when King Edward abdicated on the 10th December.