Most women can sympathize with what the Queen must have felt when she had to announce to her Council her intended marriage. This took place on November 23d 1839. There was a large attendance, eighty Councillors being present. Greville describes the scene in his usual graphic manner: “The folding-doors were thrown open, and the Queen came in, attired in a plain morning gown, but wearing a bracelet containing Prince Albert’s picture. She read the declaration in a clear, sonorous, sweet-toned voice, but her hands trembled so excessively that I wonder she was able to read the paper which she held. Lord Lansdowne made a little speech, asking her permission to have the declaration made public. She bowed assent, placed the paper in his hands, and then retired.”[10] The Queen describes the same scene in her Journal; it will be seen she confirms Greville in every particular. “Precisely at two,” the Queen writes, “I went in; the room was full, but I hardly knew who was there. Lord Melbourne I saw looking kindly at me, with tears in his eyes, but he was not near me. I then read my short declaration. I felt my hands shake, but I did not make one mistake. I felt most happy and thankful when it was over. Lord Lansdowne then rose, and in the name of the Privy Council asked that this most gracious and most welcome communication might be printed. I then left the room, the whole thing not lasting above two or three minutes.” She adds that the Prince’s picture in her bracelet “seemed to give me courage at the Council.” The Prince, with the Queen’s entire approval, determined to take no English title, thinking that bearing his own name would more distinctly mark his individuality and independence. At this time he felt, as he expressed it in one of his family letters, that whatever changes were in store for him, he should always remain “a true German, a true Coburg and Gotha man.” However sincere and natural this feeling may have been, he learned later thoroughly to identify himself with the country of his adoption, and that the true realization of his personality lay in sinking his own individual existence in that of his wife. [9] Heaven opens on the ravished eye, The heart is all entranced in bliss. SCHILLER: _Song of the Bell_. [10] Greville Memoirs, vol. i., 2d series, p. 247. CHAPTER V. ROCKS AHEAD.