This policy of keeping the heir apparent in ignorance of the constitution and government of the country was part of a set plan. The Ministers wished to retain all power in their own hands, and they viewed with alarm the possibility of a new ruler taking the initiative. For the King of Denmark and Norway in those days was no mere puppet of sovereignty. He was invested with absolute power, and was in theory, at any rate, as much an autocrat as the Tsar of all the Russias. The late King, from indolence and indifference, had let all the power drift into the hands of his ministers, but there was no reason why Christian VII. should do the same. The royal policy of _laissez-faire_ had not been so successful in the last reign that the nation desired its continuance in this. The trend of foreign policy under Moltke had been to sell Denmark bound hand and foot to France. In home affairs, the army and navy had drifted into a deplorable state of inefficiency, the national debt was abnormally large, and the taxes burdensome. Many of the nobility were disaffected and corrupt, the middle classes sullen and discontented, and the peasants ground down to the level of beasts of burden. Undoubtedly there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. The young King at first made a laudable effort to do what he could. "He begins, they say," wrote Titley, "to show a desire of becoming thoroughly master of the state of his affairs, and it is not to be doubted that he will soon make great progress in that knowledge, if he takes right methods and his application is equal to his capacity." Again: "Sensible people here begin to conceive great hopes of their young Sovereign, and cannot enough admire his application to business, and also the quickness and solidity of his understanding".[43] And again: "With a great share of vivacity and youthful levity he yet thinks very seriously and strives to make himself master of his affairs, so far at least as not to be under the necessity of blindly following the suggestions of anybody; ... he is unwilling to do anything that he cannot understand or rationally approve".[44] [43] Titley's despatch, Copenhagen, January 21, 1766. [44] _Ibid._, March 14, 1766.