Note (return) — Chapter II · STORM AND SUNSHINE.

We are told that in later years Her Majesty referred to the disagreeable incident we have just related as one that could not have occurred, if she had had beside her Prince Albert "to talk to and employ in explaining matters," while she refused the suggestion that her impulsive resistance had been advised by any one about her. "It was entirely my own foolishness [3]," she is said to have added—words breathing that perfect simplicity of candour which has always been one of her most strongly marked characteristics.