This time there will be no reprieve, no last-minute appeal for clemency and most certainly no gathering of land-owning grandees offering to make a special plea for his salvation.
For the first time in 40 years, the man from nowhere is back where he started.
The story of the rise and fall of Michael Fawcett is a tragedy in two parts.
For Fawcett it is about being raised to a status that was unimaginable when he first arrived at Buckingham Palace as a lowly footman – and then flying too high.
End of the royal road: Fawcett with wife Debbie, who spent this week buying Charles’s Christmas gifts
For the Prince of Wales it is about losing the one man whose service and loyalty he prized above all others, and of whom he once said: ‘I can manage without just about anyone except for Michael.’
Eighteen years ago, when Fawcett’s name was linked to unsavoury allegations concerning the disposal of royal gifts, a report exonerated him of wrongdoing. He was made the scapegoat nonetheless yet, through an adroit piece of royal manoeuvring, Fawcett not only survived but prospered. Just as he had five years earlier when rival staff, tired of his bullying and overbearing manner, plotted to oust him – only for well-connected royal friends to come racing to his rescue.
But this time the claims against him were of an altogether graver nature. Mired in allegations that he had helped secure honours and British citizenship for a wealthy Saudi tycoon who had bankrolled Charles’s charities, it has been a question of not if Fawcett would depart, but when.
The Daily Mail’s revelation that the prince has accepted the resignation of the man who had been with him through thick and thin – and once seemed unsackable – is tinged not with triumph but sadness and sorrow.
Technically, the high-flyer whose life began in a modest bungalow resigned from the Prince’s Foundation, of which he was chief executive. But his exit would not have been sanctioned without the endorsement of Prince Charles.
Bag carrier: With royal luggage
This time there will be no cosy return once the dust has settled. For the man with the spit-and-polished tasselled loafers, Turnbull & Asser shirts and hand-tailored suits – a style epitomised by the prince he served with such devotion – is severing every royal connection.
He has relinquished his role at Dumfries House, the Scottish treasure Charles saved from destruction and which, even his enemies would agree, Fawcett has overseen with a forensic eye for detail.
And perhaps most significantly of all, Fawcett’s private company Premier Mode, the events business he established after a previous ‘sacking’, has severed its links with Clarence House.
This means it is not only the end of the royal road for Fawcett but also his wife Debbie. She too was a symbol of selfless service, having completed her final task this week – purchasing the presents on the prince’s Christmas list.
As brutal as only a Palace coup can be, Fawcett’s departure represents the most significant transition for Charles from Prince of Wales to king-in–waiting.
Courtiers who have long viewed Fawcett as a negative presence in the prince’s life are understood to view his leaving as a vital and necessary step.
Not so long ago, Fawcett was being talked of as a future Master of the Household under King Charles – a position of considerable influence.
There was talk too of a knighthood, which would be the ultimate honour for the son of a cashier and a district nurse brought up in suburban Bexley, Kent. He repeatedly bounced back because of the seemingly unbreakable bond between the master and his ‘indispensable’ servant, forged in the acrimony of the royal marriage break-up. But not this time.
Fawcett might once have escaped this uproar over cash for access. But with the prince nearing the throne, the taint of wrongdoing, however well-intentioned, was simply too toxic to tolerate any longer.
The writing was on the wall when, instead of backing him as she always had in the past, the Duchess of Cornwall withdrew her support. This was a pivotal moment in the fallout from the scandal.
Years ago, first in 1998 and later in 2003, it was the then Mrs Parker Bowles who was the most vociferous of Fawcett’s defenders. But two months ago it was revealed that Fawcett, who was appointed head of The Prince’s Foundation in 2018, had helped to fix a CBE for a Saudi tycoon who donated £1.5million to royal charities.
He also accepted a six-figure donation from a controversial Russian businessman who Charles later thanked and offered to meet.
Trouble and strife: Diana changed the locks after marriage split to keep out Charles... and Fawcett
In a third incident he is reported to have offered to help secure a knighthood – and British citizenship – for another foreign donor.
The disclosures shone a light on an unseemly world of favours and royal backscratching.
Fawcett stood down from his £90,000-a-year role while an independent inquiry investigated.
I understand that he has not had sight of the inquiry’s report – which has not yet been completed in any case – but yesterday’s dramatic move indicates that Fawcett fears its findings will be damning.
What is beyond doubt is that he has been shattered by the fallout from the revelations, which has had a
