[170] Keith’s despatch, July 10, 1771.
[171] Ibid., July 27, 1771.
Keith quickly found that it did not depend on the King of England’s orders for him “to court or to disgust” Struensee as he pleased. The precise degree of intimacy which was permitted him at court, or with the affairs of the government, was regulated by Struensee himself, and a line was laid down beyond which Keith could not pass. The Minister, who probably guessed the motive which prompted George III. to send Keith to Copenhagen, treated the English envoy with marked coldness, and would not permit him to have private audience either with the King or with the Queen. Keith thus found himself checked on the very threshold of his mission; he sent home a bitter complaint of his reception at the court of Denmark. He writes:—
“Count Struensee, after removing from the court every person of this country who could give him umbrage, has at last been prompted by his jealousy of the foreign ministers to make an entire change in the forms of the audiences granted to them.” ... [Here follows an account of how the Russian envoy had been refused audience.]
“When I presented copies of my credentials to Count Osten, he was so civil as to offer to conduct me himself to the audiences at Hirschholm, as there was no Master of the Ceremonies, and I cannot suppose that the Count foresaw a repetition of the above innovation in my case, as, on the contrary, he talked with pleasure of the gracious and even distinguished reception I might expect, being the bearer of the strongest assurances of the friendship and affection of the King for both his Sovereigns. For my part, I had no suspicion of such intention, not being able to figure to myself that any court could pretend to establish by surprise a regulation subversive of the very nature of private audiences.
“When I was ushered into the room, where his Danish Majesty stood alone, I imagined that the folding doors, which had been opened only at my entrance, were again shut after me; but during the audience I found that one, or both, of the doors behind me had been left ajar, or pushed open, after I had begun to deliver the compliment with which I was charged to the King of Denmark.
“I was afterwards carried through several rooms of the palace into one where, unexpectedly, I found her Danish Majesty alone, and the doors on each side of that apartment stood wide open. But, as the Queen was supposed to be within a few hours of her lying-in, I did not judge it proper to make any difficulty with regard to that circumstance, and therefore delivered the King’s letter, accompanied with the expressions contained in my instructions. It had occurred to me from the beginning that to retire in the midst of the audience from the King, or to refuse that of her Majesty in the apparent situation of her health, might be interpreted as disrespectful to one or other of their Danish Majesties.... When I spoke upon this matter to Mr Osten, he was so far from vindicating the innovation that he assured me in positive terms that none such had been intended, and that the door of the King’s room being open must have been owing to accident. I have since had good reason to believe that Mr Osten was either misinformed in this affair, or not sincere in what he advanced.... About a fortnight ago Baron Hamilton was sent by the King of Sweden upon his accession with a compliment to this court, and the audiences granted to him upon this occasion were with open doors.... The affair now came to a crisis, and, as I was sensible how much my court was averse from a dispute of this nature, I not only said all in my power to Count Osten, but, in order to prevent any harsh step being taken, I offered to wait upon Count Struensee at Hirschholm, to lay before him in the most dispassionate manner the forms observed by all the great courts of Europe upon this head, and the impropriety, not to say impracticability, of excluding all private audiences whatever, which was evidently the object of the intended regulation. Count Osten was waiting to see the event of a representation in writing he had just made to the same effect, but if that should fail he accepted my offer of visiting the Cabinet Minister.
“This happened on Wednesday last, prior to our going to pay our court at Hirschholm, and I cannot tell your Lordship how much I was surprised at Count Osten’s acquainting me the same evening that his endeavours were unsuccessful, and my intended conference needless, as it had been declared to him positively that the King of Denmark would abide by the resolution of granting hereafter no audiences to foreign ministers with shut doors.”[172]
[172] Keith’s despatch, Copenhagen, July 29, 1771.
Keith soon found that nothing remained for him but to play the waiting game at the court of Denmark. He was subjected to a form of boycott, and both at court and the foreign office he was kept at arm’s length. “At the court,” he writes, “where everything is carried on with an affection of mystery, where the Sovereign and the Prime Minister are equally inaccessible, a foreign envoy is obliged to watch ... the slightest indications to form a judgment of the system of politics likely to be adopted.”[173] And again he writes to his father privately: “An intercourse of an hour for once a week with the court, a formal supper once a fortnight with the fashionable people—make the whole of my public appearances. And what may form a sure prognostic of the future society, I can safely assure you that in a residence of two months I have not been admitted to any one visit that I have made to man or woman, Dane or diplomatique.”[174]
[173] Keith’s despatch, Copenhagen, August 31, 1771.
[174] Memoirs of Sir Robert Murray Keith, vol. i.
In October he writes again to his father: “I am sorry to say that the climate, society and politics of this kingdom are equally uncomfortable.... The little of summer I saw was sultry and languid, August and almost all September rotten and rainy, and the few clear days we have had lately too chilly to be abroad with pleasure. Five months of a dismal and variable winter are now awaiting us, with as little defence against the cold, both of body and spirit, as can well be imagined. After looking round me with an anxious yet a benevolent eye for anything that may be called ‘society,’ or even a single friend, male or female, I am forced to own to myself that there is not any hope of succeeding.”[175]