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.