Early in the morning of June twentieth, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain hastened to Kensington Palace to acquaint Victoria with the fact that she was queen of England. They reached there in the gray dawn and found no one stirring. After much waiting and knocking, they were shown into the palace, and finally succeeded in having the princess's special attendant sent to them. They asked her to inform her mistress that they desired to see her immediately on very important business; whereupon the attendant told them that she preferred not to waken her mistress, who was sleeping soundly. With great dignity then the Archbishop said, "We are come on business of State to _The Queen_"; and thus, startled out of her sleep, Victoria was told by her attendant that she was now the first person in Great Britain. Hastily taking off her nightcap and throwing a shawl over her nightgown, Victoria descended to receive the official announcement of her succession to the throne of England, and to receive on her hand the kiss of allegiance from these two great lords of the realm. Her first reported words after she was made queen were to the Archbishop of Canterbury--"I beg your Grace to pray for me;" and one of her very first acts after the august messengers had left her was to write to the widowed queen of William IV, Adelaide, offering her condolences and begging that she would remain as long as she chose in the royal palace. She addressed the letter to "Her Majesty the Queen," and when some one standing by said to her, "you are now the queen, and your aunt deserves the title no longer," she replied, "I know that, but I shall not be the first to remind her of that fact." Later in the same day, the eighteen-year-old queen was called upon to meet the council of the high officers of Church and State. Dressed in her simple mourning she looked dignified and calm, and her behavior corresponded well with her looks. Of course all the great statesmen who were thus called on to meet her, felt much curiosity as to how she would carry off her new honors, and one of the greatest. Sir Robert Peel, said afterward that he was "amazed at her manner and behavior; at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty and at the same time her firmness. She appeared to be awed but not daunted." On the following day she was publicly proclaimed at Saint James's Palace, and all of those who had gathered to watch the ceremony, which was performed at a window looking out on the courtyard, were as deeply impressed as the peers and princes had been on the preceding day. It must have been difficult for the simple, unassuming young girl to preserve her calm dignity when she heard the singing of that grand national anthem, _God Save the Queen_, and knew that it was for her.