King Charles quietly met with his former right-hand man for the first time in four years in a discreet meeting at Windsor Castle.
PEOPLE confirms that the King, 76, recently held a secret meeting with Michael Fawcett.
The two reunited for the first time since Fawcett resigned as chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation amid a cash for honors scandal in 2021, with the former aide spirited in and out in a “military-style operation” to keep it low-key.
“His Majesty has never stopped feeling the loss of Michael being forced to resign. He often confides that this is the one person he can scarcely do without,” a source told The Mail on Sunday on Oct. 4.
Michael Fawcett and the future King Charles at Ascot Racecourse on Nov. 23, 2018.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
The meeting between Charles met with and Fawcett took place “several months ago” and described the meeting as a “farewell audience,” PEOPLE confirms.
“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,” a palace source says.
The King continues treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer, a diagnosis which Buckingham Palace announced in February 2024.
Though the two met, the source emphasized that the former aide has no way back into the royal fold after the scandal several years ago.
King Charles and Queen Camilla attend a Sunday church service at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral on Oct. 5, 2025.
Paul Campbell/PA Images via Getty
Fawcett was once considered to be King Charles’ closest confidant and the royal was widely cited as saying, “I can manage without just about anyone, except for Michael.”
Fawcett joined the royal household as a footman to Queen Elizabeth in 1981 and rose through the ranks to become then-Prince Charles’ valet and then head of The Prince’s Foundation, which was later renamed The King’s Foundation following Charles’ accession in 2022.
In November 2021, Fawcett stepped down as chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation, a charity that Charles founded in 1990 as the Prince of Wales to create communities where people, places and the planet can coexist, amid an inquiry involving cash for royal honors.
The aide left his plum post after The Mail on Sunday unveiled a letter in which Fawcett offered to help Saudi billionaire donor Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz secure British citizenship and a prestigious knighthood.
There are no suggestions of any wrongdoing by Mahfouz.
Prince Charles and Michael Fawcett in 1981.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
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The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation but wrapped the probe in 2023, saying that no further action would be taken, The Times reported.
The BBC noted that no one was arrested or charged, and that the authorities did not request to speak to the King.
“The Prince’s Foundation has noted the decision of the Metropolitan Police,” a spokesperson for the foundation told the outlet then. “Following the conclusion of its own independent investigation and governance review last year, the charity is moving forward with a continued focus on delivering the education and training programs for which it has been established.”