Stewart Pearce recently told the British tabloids about the Queen and the incident with the paper plane. When he was a seven-year-old boy, he played with a paper airplane on the grand staircase in Buckingham Palace. Suddenly he heard a woman’s voice behind him who asked: “What are you doing?” The woman was Queen Elizabeth II, and when she realized whose son he was, she took him to her private room to have tea and juice with him.
As with almost all anecdotes from inside the palace, this one can hardly be reliably verified. However, it is plausible: Stewart Pearce’s father was Joseph Pearce, Prince Philip’s valet at the time, a good 50 years ago. Joseph Pearce was an official part of royal private life, as far as that is possible.
Responsible for clothing and hygiene
There are numerous stories about the royals and their valets, the position of the always male “valets”, as they are called in English (women have “maids”), is not only centuries old, but automatically brings a rare closeness to theirs Gentlemen with themselves. The valet sometimes takes care of travel arrangements and also the personal finances of the lord, but above all he is responsible for his clothing and therefore also hygiene.
The fact that the special relationship between a valet and a member of the British royal family is once again an issue these days has to do with another former valet, Michael Fawcett, former servant of Prince Charles. The relationship between Charles and Fawcett is considered particularly close, it is said that Fawcett even smeared toothpaste on the prince’s toothbrush. Charles once said that he could get by without any help, “but not without Michael”. Fawcett accompanied Charles everywhere during his service in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and there are numerous photos showing Fawcett in the background.
But now Fawcett, 58 years old and in the past few years in various functions in Charles’ foundations, is said to have played a decisive role in a process that is likely to keep the British newspapers and thus Charles busy for a while. the Times revealed that Saudi businessman and billionaire Mahfouz Marei Mubarak donated more than £ 1.5 million to Charles’ foundations a few years ago in exchange for British citizenship and knighting. According to Mail on Sunday Fawcett, one of Charles’ closest confidants even after retiring, confirmed this in writing in 2017. It is unclear whether Charles knew about it, but he may have approved the offer to Mahfouz. Neither citizenship nor accolade became a reality, but the money flowed.
The prince doesn’t know anything
Fawcett, who began his career in the royal household as a 17-year-old footman, a simple servant, immediately resigned from his well-paid position as managing director of “The Prince’s Foundation”. The Metropolitan Police has been asked by a member of parliament to investigate. Fawcett has been involved in unclean transactions before, including several years ago there should have been inconsistencies in the Crown Prince’s finances, which were managed by Fawcett. Even Charles’ private secretary was conducting an investigation at the time.
Charles always stood by his valet – until now. On Tuesday, his spokesman announced that the prince did not know about any of this. He supported the investigation of the allegations.