Rumors Swirl of a Comeback for King Charles’ Former Top Aide After Corruption Probe Quashed

Anyone who has observed his career over the past forty years would hesitate to write off King Charles’ former righthand man, Michael Fawcett.

And, predictably, less than 48 hours after Britain’s Metropolitan police slipped out an announcement that they were dropping a corruption probe triggered by letters allegedly sent by Fawcett offering cash for honors, there is already talk of a potential Fawcett comeback.

Corruption Probe of King Charles’ Charities Inexplicably Dropped

Witness not one, not two, but three articles in the Daily Mail on Wednesday speculating on the chances of a “Lazarus-like” return to favor for the “innocent man.” One source, for example, told the Mail: “Michael Fawcett is still in touch with the king, from what people hear. He won’t ever truly be gone.”

The king’s office told The Daily Beast it wouldn’t be commenting on the claims, however. And a separate report by The Telegraph disputed the rumors, citing a source who said Fawcett has “no appetite” for a return to the “maelstrom” of palace life. The Telegraph’s story also reiterated the claim that there has been no contact between Fawcett and Charles since he quit.

“The King is sensible, Michael Fawcett is sensible. Both understand that it would be entirely inappropriate for them to have any contact,” the source was quoted saying.

Were it anyone else, of course, such speculation would be fanciful.

After all, whatever the cops decided, in the letter, sent on Aug. 18, 2017, Fawcett clearly stated that cash given to Charles’ charities would result in honors and favors in return.

Fawcett wrote to an aide to Saudi billionaire Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, who has donated close to $2 million to charities operating under Charles’ aegis, saying: “In light of the ongoing and most recent generosity of His Excellency… I am happy to confirm to you, in confidence, that we are willing and happy to support and contribute to the application for Citizenship.”

“I can further confirm that we are willing to make [an] application to increase His Excellency’s honour from Honorary CBE to that of KBE in accordance with Her Majesty’s Honours Committee,” the letter said.

“Both of these applications will be made in response to the most recent and anticipated support [of] The Trust, and in connection with his ongoing commitment generally within the United Kingdom. I hope that this confirmation is sufficient in allowing us to go forward.”

If the venality were not enough, the truly unforgiveable sin of writing it all down would sink any other royal career. And while it is true that Fawcett did resign after the letter was published, few truly believe palace spin that there has been zero contact since then between Charles and his former top man.

Long-term observers of the curious dynamic between his former valet Fawcett, who famously squeezed toothpaste onto the royal toothbrush when Charles had broken his arm in a polo accident, know that if there is one thing you should never discount, it is the possibility of a comeback by Fawcett, the working class boy from Kent who entered royal service as a junior footman directly from school, and rose through the ranks to become Charles’ top aide.

Charles reportedly once said of him, “I can manage without just about anyone, except for Michael.”

His indispensability is evident in the fact that this is his third resignation, having twice previously resigned and been reinstated in new positions at new organizations by Charles, once after being accused of bullying in 1998 and again in 2003 when he was nicknamed ‘Fawcett the Fence’ for selling royal gifts.

His most recent resignation was from his role as head of the Prince’s Foundation, a position he was appointed to in 2018.

The 2003 resignation was triggered by a report into misconduct in Charles’ office by Elizabeth Burgess, a staffer in Charles’ office at Highgrove House.

She had previously alleged in a 2001 tribunal case that she was called a “fucking nigger typist,” by Fawcett in 1996. She wept while giving evidence, saying: “We are servants. To be a servant’s servant is bad enough: to be a black servant is worse.” She lost her case after the tribunal ruled that she had failed to prove any of the allegations she had made about her treatment.

However, Burgess had a bigger secret. In 1995, she alleged, a troubled assistant valet experiencing a mental health trauma, George Smith, told Burgess that he had been raped by a staff member and that he had witnessed a sexual incident between Charles and a staff member.

Princess Diana heard about the allegations and went to visit Smith at the Priory clinic, where she recorded his claims about the incidents and confronted Charles with them in 1996, as part of a campaign to get rid of Fawcett, whom she believed was helping her husband conduct his then-secret affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.

In one videotaped interview, made as part of a public speaking training session, Diana said, “He is too close to Fawcett…What can one do when your husband is in an unhealthy relationship with a servant?”

After Diana’s death, the “rape tape” she had made of Smith, allegedly held in a mahogany box, along with hundreds of her other personal items and letters, passed into the possession of Paul Burrell, her former butler.

The whole matter got swept into an inquiry into the running of Charles’ office by Charles’ accountant, Sir Michael Peat, after a trial of Burrell for stealing the items collapsed at the last minute when the queen intervened. She said Burrell had told her he was taking some of Diana’s things for safe keeping.

The Peat report found Fawcett had accepted gifts and hospitality (it was this for which he resigned), but the report glaringly failed to mention the sexual allegations—despite them swirling around newspaper and royal gossips.

The Mail on Sunday finally published some of the allegations after persuading Smith to swear an affidavit that he witnessed a sexual incident.

Incredibly, after the report was published, Mark Bolland, Charles’ former spin doctor, disclosed that Peat had asked him privately whether he thought Charles was bisexual.

Bolland, who is gay, wrote in the News of the World: “A year ago, Michael Peat called me on holiday and asked: ‘Do you think the Prince of Wales is bisexual?’”

Bolland, per the Guardian, said he had told Peat it “was emphatically not the case” that Charles was gay or bisexual. Bolland characterized Peat’s enquiry as part of “a wicked quest to destroy Michael Fawcett.”

“So fed up were his enemies that they invented rumours about why Charles would not listen to their pleas to sack Michael. A few of them started suggesting there was something unnatural about the relationship. It was all very unfair,” he said.

Bolland subsequently told the Guardian: “I think what I’ve said is quite helpful because I’ve tried to explain where the rumour came from and how it got currency. The fact that Michael Peat was asking questions about it just showed the level of seriousness with which it was being treated in the household, which is just crazy.”

In the report, Peat said of Fawcett: “His robust approach to dealing with some people combined, perhaps, with his having been promoted from a relatively junior position within the household, undoubtedly caused jealousy and friction in some quarters…This has encouraged some to voice rumors as to his financial probity; but they are just that, rumors.”

But the latest rumor, that he is set for a sensational comeback to the heart of the court of King Charles will, if it happens, surely be the most extraordinary development yet in the amazing story of the variable fortunes of Michael Fawcett.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.