The King and Queen remained at Traventhal nearly a month in seclusion. The Queen was left without any of her ladies, and nearly the whole of the King's suite had gone too. Except for Bernstorff, who was kept that Struensee might have an eye on him, the King and Queen were surrounded only by the favourite and his creatures. At Traventhal Struensee was very busy maturing his plans. In concert with Rantzau and General Gahler, an officer of some eminence who had been given a post in the royal household, Struensee discussed the steps that were to be taken for overthrowing Bernstorff and the other ministers, and reforming the administration. There is nothing to show that the Queen took a leading part in these discussions, though she was of course consulted as a matter of form. Unlike her mother, the Princess-Dowager of Wales, or her grandmother, the illustrious Caroline, Matilda cared nothing for politics for their own sake, but she liked to have the semblance of power, and was jealous of her privileges as the reigning Queen. When she had a personal grievance against a minister, as against Bernstorff, she wished him removed, and when she was thwarted by a foreign influence, as in the case of Russia, she wished that influence broken; but otherwise it was a matter of indifference to her who filled the chief offices of state, or whether France or Russia reigned supreme at Copenhagen. Her good heart made her keenly solicitous for the welfare of her people, and some of the social reforms carried out by Struensee may have had their origin with the Queen; but for affairs of state in the larger sense Matilda cared nothing, and she lent herself blindly to abetting Struensee's policy in all things. In complete abandonment she placed her hands beneath his feet and let him do with her as he would. Her birth as Princess of Great Britain, her rank as Queen of Denmark and Norway, her beauty, her talents, her popularity, were valued by her only as means whereby she might advance Struensee and his schemes.