The King’s former trusted aide, Michael Fawcett, is said to have no way back into the royal fold despite being invited to meet with Charles at Windsor Castle.
The King held a private audience with his former longtime aide “several months ago”, it is understood.
A royal source suggested that it was a “farewell audience” for Fawcett, who stepped down in disgrace over a cash-for-honours claim more than four years ago.
It is understood to be the first time that Charles has seen Fawcett since he left his role as chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation, now King’s Foundation.
A palace source said: “While we wouldn’t comment on individual private meetings, His Majesty often holds farewell audiences for departing senior staff. Some of these can be subject to delay, due to diary pressures, circumstance or ill health.”
On Sunday, Charles was seen driving himself and the Queen to church near Balmoral after The Mail on Sunday reported the meeting between the King and his former valet.
It was reported that Fawcett was “welcomed back into the King’s charmed circle once again” and smuggled in and out of the royal apartments in a “military-style operation”. However, it is said that there are no plans for the men to meet again.
Charles with Fawcett in 2001
TIM GRAHAM/GETTY IMAGES
Fawcett left his role in disgrace in 2021 after a letter emerged in which he offered to help a billionaire Saudi donor obtain British citizenship and an honorary knighthood.
It prompted the Metropolitan police to launch an investigation into the charity. Detectives carried out interviews but concluded their investigation in 2023, by which time Charles had acceded the throne, with police saying that they would be taking no further action.
Fawcett, who began his career as a Buckingham Palace footman, went on to become Charles’s most indispensable aide over four decades, with the prince once saying: “I can manage without just about anyone, except for Michael.”
The former valet previously resigned twice from Charles’s employment including in 2003 when, as the prince’s personal assistant, he was accused and cleared by an inquiry of selling royal gifts. He was, however, revealed to have accepted valuable gifts from outsiders, which earned him the nickname “Fawcett the fence”.
In 1998 he left Charles’s service because of his alleged bullying and claims of his overbearing manner but was later reinstated.
During his longstanding relationship with Charles, Fawcett held roles as a fixer and party planner, including a position with the company which oversaw the sale of merchandise for Charles’s Highgrove estate shop.
Fawcett was appointed to the role of chief executive of the then Prince’s Foundation in 2018 amid a reorganisation of Charles’s charities. His latest departure from the King’s charity in 2021 resulted in a £60,000 pay-off.
An independent investigation in 2021 found that Fawcett co-ordinated with “fixers” over honours nominations for Saudi billionaire donor Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz. He was also in post when James Stunt loaned works of art to Dumfries House, the Ayrshire mansion that serves as the charity’s headquarters, some of which were revealed to be forgeries rather than genuine paintings.
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In January this year, an inquiry by the Scottish charity regulator found that Fawcett exposed The King’s Foundation to “substantial risk” but said that his actions did not amount to misconduct over his failure to make sure high-value paintings loaned to the charity were insured.