The coat of arms selected by Struensee, and engraved on the cabinet seal, was a remarkable allusion to his regency and system of government. The escutcheon (symbolical of the state) was divided into five fields, the centre one of which represented a sailing vessel (the symbol of commerce) with a crown over it, typical of the monarch and the persons representing him. The first and fourth quarters displayed four rivers (exports and imports idealized) on a field _or_, which was the symbol of Denmark, rich in corn, and Norway, abounding in metal, wood, and fish. In the third and second quarters was a crown surrounded with palm leaves (the symbol of peace and victory) and two crossed keys (the image of authority and might) on a field _azure_, which allegorically typified fidelity and constancy. Below the coat of arms was the royal crown with the badge of the Matilda order, surrounded by a laurel wreath (the symbol of fortune, joy, and honour), from which flowed two rivers running round the chief escutcheon (the state), supported by two beavers (the representatives of industry and architecture), and guarded by bourgeois helmets (emblems of national armament), counts' crowns (the symbol of the servant of the state), and an owl holding a key in its mouth (as allegories of thought and reflection). Above the whole was displayed between two eagle wings (the symbols of power, strength, and victory) a man-of-war in full sail (typical of the navy), and above this, again, a suspended crown, surrounded by palm branches (the type of peace).[155] Brandt, on the other hand, took the seal of his ancestor, Councillor of the Exchequer Peter Brandt, as his coat of arms. No estates were connected with the dignity of the new counts. It was certainly reported that the large domains of Wemmetofte and Wallô, in Seeland, were intended for Struensee, and other estates for Brandt. But that Struensee was of a different opinion was proved by the answer he gave to a letter which Brandt wrote him on this subject. He said that if the king really intended so exaggerated a mark of kindness for him, he should in no way promote it, but, on the contrary, oppose it. Within two short years, Struensee had made really gigantic strides on the slippery path of court favour. By his elevation to the rank of a privy cabinet minister and of count, fourteen months after his appointment as reader to the king and cabinet secretary to the queen, he had attained the highest post in the kingdom. Possessing the unbounded confidence of the most absolute monarch in Europe, he stood immediately next to the throne, and the world gazed in amazement upon his fortune and his reforms.