Brandt was given several lucrative court appointments, but he neither asked nor received any post in the Government. Gunning thus summed him up: "Mr. Brandt, the King of Denmark's favourite, seems to be too light and insignificant to deserve mention in a political light; he is considered by the others as a sort of dragon which they have planted within the precincts of the court to stop the avenues to the throne".[142] Keith declared him to be "naturally rash, turbulent and waspish".[143] [142] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, April 4, 1771. [143] Keith's despatch, Copenhagen, November 18, 1771. These were the principal men Struensee chose to help him in governing the internal affairs of the kingdom, in place of the experienced statesmen whom he had evicted to make room for them. They were none of them first-class men, but they were the best available. Statesmen of credit and renown held aloof from Struensee, and would not have accepted office at his hands. Neither did he seek them, for the men he wanted were not colleagues but creatures, who would carry out his bidding. He had now complete control of the situation, and was already in fact invested with autocratic power. Although nominally only _lecteur du roi_, he read all letters that came to the King, and answered them in the King's name as he thought best, the King doing whatever the Queen advised him, and signing all the documents laid before him by Struensee. In order to gather power still more into his hands, Struensee caused Christian to issue a rescript to the heads of departments of the state requesting them henceforth to send all communications to the King in writing, and the King would answer them in the same way. Audiences between the King and his ministers were hereby abolished. Struensee followed up this rescript by an attack upon the Council of State, still nominally the governing body. Soon after Bernstorff's dismissal a royal decree was issued, limiting the power of the council and increasing the King's prerogative. The King wished--so the message ran--to have the Council of State organised in the best manner. He therefore requested that the councillors, at their meetings in future, should duly weigh and consider all the business laid before them, but leave the final decision to the King. Their object was not to govern, but to afford the King assistance in governing. The King, therefore, would have them remember that there must be no encroachment on the sovereign power, which was vested wholly in the King.