The next morning, Monday, the Queen took leave of her English suite, who were now to return to England. The parting moved her to tears, and she presented Lady Mary Boothby, who had been with her for years, with a watch, set with diamonds, and a cheque for a thousand crowns. It had been stipulated by the Danish court that Matilda should bring no English person in her train to Denmark, so that she might more readily adapt herself to the customs of her adopted country. The Danish suite were, of course, all strangers to the Queen, and the first aspect of her chief lady-in-waiting, Madame de Plessen, was not reassuring. Madame de Plessen was the widow of a privy councillor, and was a little over forty years of age. She had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Sophia Magdalena, who held her in high esteem: it was through her influence that she obtained this appointment. Madame de Plessen was a virtuous and religious woman, with a strict sense of duty and high moral principles, and could be trusted to guide the young Queen in the way she should go. But she had been trained in the old school, and her ideas of etiquette were rigid in the extreme. She sought to hedge round the Queen with every possible form and ceremony, and at first her chill formalism frightened the timid Queen, who had not yet discovered that behind her austere demeanour Madame de Plessen concealed a kind heart. Madame de Plessen was a clever and ambitious woman, and like her former mistress, Sophia Magdalena, she favoured the French party at Copenhagen. Her appointment, as head of the Queen's household, was therefore viewed with no little apprehension by Gunning, who, some time before Matilda's arrival in Denmark, wrote to warn the British Government:-- "The person at the head of the list [of the Queen's household]," he writes, "is a lady of an excellent understanding, possessing a thorough knowledge of the world, and a most intriguing disposition. These talents have recommended her to the Ministers here as a proper person to place about the future Queen, but they are not the only ones. Her being entirely devoted to the French system and interest, pointed her out as the fittest instrument, to either give the young Princess the bias they wish (which they think will not be difficult at her age), or, by circumventing her, prevent that influence they conclude she will have on the King. Their having unhappily effected the latter in the late reign, gives them hopes of being equally successful in this; but if her Royal Highness be prepared against these snares, her good sense and discernment will prevent her falling into them, or being persuaded by all the arguments (however specious) they may use, that it is not the interest of this country [Denmark] to engage itself too close with England."[66] [66] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, May 20, 1766. Marked "_secret_".