On the king’s birthday on 29 January 1771, the queen founded the Order of Mathilde and bestowed it upon a small group of select people. Her goal was to make the new ruling elite associated with Struensee visible at court. The plan failed completely, however, for now even Struensee’s former friends were starting to distance themselves from him. With his reforms and cost-cutting measures, Struensee had made enemies at every level of the court. Struensee was increasingly open about the fact that he – not the king – was the one making the decisions, and this broke an important taboo. From then on, the situation escalated rapidly:
on 7 July, when Caroline Matilda’s daughter Louise Augusta was born at Hirschholm Palace, the people – who called the child “la petite Struensee” – also began to turn against Struensee and the queen. In September there was a sailors’ revolt in response to unpaid wages. In December there were riots after Struensee disbanded the king’s Royal Guard, which was expensive to maintain but popular with the public. In a first wave of pamphlets, Struensee was publicly attacked and his policies decried.
He seemed to have overplayed his hand, and his position became increasingly isolated.