When the commissioners arrived at Lochleven, Sir Robert Melville, knowing that Lindsay was personally disagreeable to his Sovereign, came to her at first alone. Opening to her his errand, and, addressing her with respect, and professions of attachment (for she had often employed him before about her person, or as her ambassador to foreign courts), he urged every argument he could think of to persuade her to affix her signature to the deeds. She listened to him with calm dignity and unshaken resolution. She heard him describe the distracted state of Scotland--the impossibility of ever prevailing on all parties to submit again to her sway--the virulence of her enemies, and the apparent lukewarmness of her friends. She allowed him to proceed from these more general topics, to others more intimately connected with her own person. She listened to his assurance, that, if she continued obstinate, it was determined to bring her to trial,--to blacken her character, by accusing her of incontinency, not only with Bothwell, but with others, and of the murder of her late husband, and, upon whatever evidence, to condemn and execute her.[130] But she remained unmoved, and preserved the same composure of manner, though not without many a secret throb of pain, at the discovery of the utter ingratitude and perfidy of those whom she had so often befriended and advanced. As a last expedient, Melville produced a letter from Throckmorton, in which the ambassador advised her to consult her personal safety, by consenting to an abdication--a somewhat singular advice to be given by one who affected to have come into Scotland for the express purpose of securing her restoration to the throne.[131] But she only remarked on this letter, that it convinced her of the insincerity of Elizabeth's promises of assistance.