Bernstorff fell with great dignity. He replied to the King saying “that he accepted his pleasure with all submission, but begged leave to join the resignation of his seat on the council to that of his other employments”.[137] He accepted the pension, but how beggarly a reward it was for his long years of service was shown by comparison with that assigned to Count St. Germains, a friend of Struensee and Rantzau, who had been granted 14,000 dollars annually after only three years of office. Count Bernstorff had grown grey in the service of the state, and had sacrificed a large portion of his private fortune in the cause of his adopted country. His great achievement as Prime Minister was the treaty effecting the territorial exchange with Russia; for that alone he deserved the gratitude of Denmark. He had his faults, but he was a man of honourable and upright character, virtuous in private life, and in public matters earnestly desirous of the welfare of the state. Bernstorff’s fall called forth loud expressions of regret, not only from the most considerable people in Denmark, but from many foreign courts. Especially was this the case with the court of St. James’s.
[137] Gunning’s despatch, Copenhagen, September 18, 1770.
On the return of the Princess-Dowager to England with the news of her fruitless mission, and on receipt of Gunning’s despatches, specifying the changes likely to take place in the Danish Government, George III. resolved to write a private letter to his sister, appealing to her directly, and urging her, whatever she did, not to part with Bernstorff, who had shown himself zealous of his country’s welfare, and who was, moreover, a friend of England and its royal house. But this letter arrived too late; it reached Copenhagen a week after Bernstorff’s dismissal. It was enclosed in a private despatch from Lord Rochford to the English envoy, with orders that he was to deliver it into the Queen’s own hand. Gunning thereupon set out at once for Hirschholm “to force the entrenchments,” to quote his own phrase; but the Queen, who probably guessed his errand, would not see him. “On my arrival there,” writes Gunning, “I had the mortification to find that her Majesty was so much indisposed by a fresh attack of cholick as to render my admission to her impracticable. It not being, therefore, in my power to present the King’s letter myself, I took care to have it safely conveyed to her Danish Majesty, who commanded her Grand Master to tell me that I should be informed when she had any orders for me.”[138] But Matilda had no orders for the English envoy, and when she wrote to her brother of England, it was to tell him that Bernstorff had already been dismissed, and if he wished to write to her in future about political matters in Denmark, she would be obliged if he would send his communications to her through her ministers. How George III. received this rebuff is not related.
[138] Gunning’s despatch, Copenhagen, September 22, 1770.
Bernstorff’s dismissal was followed by that of several other ministers. Men who had grown old in the service of the state were suddenly deprived of their portfolios, and sweeping changes took place in the personnel of the Government. Several important political appointments were made while the court was at Hirschholm. General Gahler, who was avowedly the friend of France, and had spent many years of his life in the French service, was appointed head of the War Department. He did not possess any great military knowledge, and owed his promotion largely to his wife, who was a friend of the Queen. Gunning described him as “a smooth, designing, self-interested man, submissive, cool, deliberate and timid,”[139] and Keith wrote of him later as “dark, intriguing and ungrateful”.[140]
[139] Gunning’s despatch, Copenhagen, April 4, 1771.
[140] Keith’s despatch, Copenhagen, November 18, 1771.
Bernstorff had united the office of Prime Minister with that of Foreign Secretary. The first of these posts, with amplified powers, Struensee reserved for himself, but he did not at once formally assume it. Rantzau was understood to desire the Foreign Office, and his ambition placed Struensee and the Queen in a position of great difficulty. Rantzau’s violent hostility to Russia, and his rash and mercurial temperament, made this appointment impossible. Denmark would probably be embroiled in war in a week. On the other hand, he had rendered great services to Struensee; he was powerful in Holstein, and dangerous to offend. Struensee compromised the matter by giving Rantzau the second place in the War Department. Rantzau took it under protest, and never forgave the affront. From that time he was the secret enemy of Struensee and the Queen, and only waited for an opportunity to wreck them. It would have been a mistake to send him to the Foreign Office, but it was a greater one to place him in a subordinate post, and showed a strange lack of judgment on the part of the Queen and Struensee. It did not satisfy him, and it gave him opportunity to betray the secrets of the Government.
Struensee sought to conciliate Rantzau by paying the most flattering attention to his opinions, and it was at Rantzau’s suggestion that Colonel Falckenskjold was recalled from the Russian service and entrusted with the reform of the Danish army. Falckenskjold was a Dane of noble family, and had fought with distinction in the French service during the Seven Years’ War; subsequently he entered the service of Russia. He was a man of upright character, but poor and ambitious. It was the prospect of power that induced him, in an evil hour, to accept an appointment at Struensee’s hands. “His views of aggrandisement are said to be boundless,” wrote Gunning.[141]