When the court removed from Copenhagen to Hirschholm for the summer, it was officially announced that the Queen was likely again to become a mother. The fact had long been known to people about the court, but the publication of it was unduly delayed. Some months before its announcement Gunning wrote to England: "As no declaration has yet been made of her Danish Majesty's pregnancy, I have long entertained scruples with regard to the propriety of mentioning it; but as nobody seems to make the least doubt of its truth, I am at length convinced I ought no longer to suppress so important a piece of intelligence".[164] Extraordinary mystery was observed. The Saxon minister informed his court that at the last drawing-room held before the Queen's confinement, no one ventured to inquire after her Majesty's health, though it was the usual custom. [164] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, February 12, 1771. The news was ill-received by the Danish people, who had hitherto not been disposed to judge the young Queen too harshly. Except by the clergy, and some women, Matilda was more pitied than blamed, and spoken of with sorrow rather than with anger. But when her pregnancy was at last declared, and an order issued for prayers to be offered for her in the churches, many people (even those who had tried to believe the best) regarded the announcement as a confirmation of their worst suspicions. The clergy in many instances did not obey the order to pray for the Queen, and in some of the principal churches in Copenhagen half the congregation rose up and left the church when the prayer was read. The Danes, though accustomed to the profligacy of their kings, had hitherto regarded their queens as above suspicion. The old Queen-Mother, Sophia Magdalena, had been a model of respectability: Queen Louise was almost worshipped on account of her domestic virtues: even Juliana Maria, the Queen-Dowager, unpopular though she was, on account of her intriguing and vindictive disposition, had never given occasion for the slightest whisper against her fair fame. When, therefore, Matilda, who had come to Denmark little more than four years before, a child-bride with golden hair and blue eyes, the incarnation of innocence, and who (during the early years of her married life) had won all hearts by the way she had borne her sorrows, suddenly put aside her modesty and dignity, surrounded herself with ladies of easy virtue, and compromised herself with a man of inferior position, she alienated the sympathies of the people.