[126] Mémoires de mon Temps.
While the King and Queen were at Gottorp Struensee carried out the first of his changes, and recalled Brandt to court. Brandt, it will be remembered, had been banished from Copenhagen, and even from the country, at the suggestion of Holck. He had sought to regain the King’s favour when he was in Paris, but again Holck intervened, and he failed. He was formerly a friend of the Queen, which was one of the reasons why Holck got rid of him, and he was also a friend of Struensee, who had often, in his obscure days, visited at the house of Brandt’s stepfather. Struensee had, moreover, helped him in Paris. Brandt had recently been so far restored to favour as to be given a small appointment in Oldenburg, but no one expected that he would be recalled to court, and Holck was astonished and dismayed when Brandt suddenly appeared at Gottorp and was nominated a chamberlain by the King. Brandt noticed his enemy’s dismay, and said: “Monsieur le Comte, you look as if you had seen a spectre. Are you afraid?” To which Holck bitterly replied: “Oh no, Monsieur le Chambellan, it is not the spectre I fear, but his return”.
Matilda was unwell during her stay at Gottorp, and her indisposition caused the court to remain there longer than had been intended. Struensee saw Prince Charles’s dislike of him, and was uneasy lest he should gain an influence over the King. The silent condemnation of the Viceroy made him impatient to be gone, and directly the Queen was sufficiently recovered to travel she and the King set out for Traventhal, a small royal castle in Holstein. This move furnished the opportunity of getting rid of Holck and his following. The excuse put forward was that Traventhal was not large enough to accommodate so numerous a suite, and therefore Count Holck and his wife, his sister, Madame von der Lühe, and her husband, Councillor Holstein, Chamberlain Luttichau, Gustavus Holck, a page, Fräulein von Eyben, and two more of the Queen’s maids of honour, were ordered to go back to Copenhagen. All these people were either related to Holck, or appointed through his influence, and on their return to the capital they learned that they were dismissed from office. Holck, perhaps in consideration of the fact that he had once befriended Struensee, was granted a pension of two thousand dollars, the others received nothing.
Bernstorff, who went with the King and Queen to Traventhal, as minister in attendance, was not consulted concerning these dismissals, or in anything about the court. Woodford, the English minister of Lower Saxony, then at Hamburg, writes: “Mr. Bernstorff and the ministers appear to be entirely ignorant of these little arrangements, the royal confidence running in quite another direction”.[127] And again: “With regard to the court’s movements at Traventhal, nothing is known, for everything is kept a secret from those who, by their employments, ought to be informed”.[128] The Prime Minister, Bernstorff, was rarely allowed to see the King, for Brandt, who had now stepped into Holck’s vacant place, was always with his master, and made it his business to guard him against any influence that might be hostile to Struensee’s plans. Holck’s sudden dismissal filled Bernstorff with apprehension, which was increased by an important move which Struensee took soon after the arrival of the court at Traventhal—a move destined to exercise great influence on the future of both the favourite and the Queen. This was the recall to court of the notorious anti-Russian, Count Rantzau Ascheberg.
[127] Woodford’s despatch to Lord Rochford, Hamburg, July 13, 1770.
[128] Ibid., July 17, 1770.
Schack Karl, Count zu Rantzau Ascheberg, whom for short we shall call Count Rantzau, had succeeded (on his father’s death in 1769) to vast estates in Holstein. Gunning, the English envoy, thus wrote of him:—
“Count Rantzau is a son of the minister of that name who formerly spent some years at our court. He received some part of his education at Westminster School. His family is the first in Denmark. He is a man of ruined fortunes. It would be difficult to exhibit a character more profligate and abandoned. There are said to be few enormities of which he has not been guilty, and scarcely any place where he has not acted a vicious part. Rashness and revenge form very striking features in his character. With these qualities he possesses great imagination, vivacity and wit. He is most abundantly fertile in schemes and projects, which he forms one day and either forgets or ridicules the next. He would be a very dangerous man did not his great indiscretion put it into the power of his enemies to render many of his most mischievous designs abortive.”[129]
[129] Gunning’s despatch, Copenhagen, April 4, 1771.