Were we to single out the day in Mary's whole life in which it might be fairly concluded that she suffered the most intense mental anguish, we should fix on the 25th of July 1567, the day on which the Commissioners had their audience. Shut up in a gloomy edifice, which, though dignified with the name of a castle, was little else than a square tower of three stories; and instead of a numerous assemblage of obsequious nobles, attended by only three or four female servants;--it must have required a more than common spirit of queenly fortitude to support so great a reverse of fortune.[128] But the misery of her situation was now to be increased a hundred fold, by a blow the severest she had yet experienced. When the report first reached her, that it was in contemplation to force her to abdicate her crown, she indignantly refused to believe so lawless an attempt possible. Mary had been all her life fond of power, and proud of her illustrious birth and rank; and there were few subjects on which she dwelt with greater pleasure, than her unsullied descent from a "centenary line of kings." Was she now, without a struggle, to surrender the crown of the Stuarts into the hands of the bastard Murray, or the blood-stained Morton? Was she to submit to the bitter mockery, introduced in the very preamble to the instrument of demission, which stated, that, ever since her arrival in her realm, she had "employed her body, spirit, whole senses and forces, to govern in such sort, that her royal and honourable estate might stand and continue with her and her posterity, and that her loving and kind lieges might enjoy the quietness of true subjects;" but that, being now wearied with the fatigues of administration, she wished to lay down her sceptre?[129] Even though prepared to lay it down, was she also to countenance falsehood, and practise dissimulation?