Compare 1577 edition: 1 But after he had obteined the kingdome of Eng|land, his couetous desire, increasing still with abun|dance alreadie obteined, found meanes to procure of pope Adrian the fourth (who was an Englishm [...]n borne) a dispensation for that oth:Pope Adrian an Englsh|man borne. A dispensatiõ for an oth. Nic. Treuet. wherevpon (hauing got licence to depart from the office both of right, law and equitie) neglecting his fathers ordinance, he passed ouer into Normandie, and making war a|gainst his brother the said Geffrey, easilie expelled him out of those places, which were assigned him by bequest in his fathers testament, and so tooke the earledome of Aniou into his owne possession. How|beit, he gaue vnto his said brother a pension of a thousand pounds English, & two thousand pounds of the monie of Aniou, with the towne of Lodun, and certeine other lands to liue vpon; who neuerthelesse thinking himselfe euill vsed at the kings hands, re|belled and died.

¶ Here we haue to note the lacke of conscience and religion, not onlie in the pretended successor of Peter in giuing a dispensasion for an oth, but also in his good ghostlie sonne, who was no lesse forward in reuolting from his oth, than the other was willing to acquite him from the force thereof. But if these men had beene profiting scholers in the vniuersitie of the pagans, as they were arrand truants and ranke dullards in the schoole of christians, they might haue learned by profane examples, that as oths are not to be rashlie taken, so they are not to be vnaduisedlie broken. Herevnto alludeth Aristotle in his Meta|physikes, shewing the cause why poetrie hath feig|ned that the gods in old time vsed to sweare by wa|ter, as Iupiter is reported to haue doone in this manner;

—per flumina iuro

Infera sub terra Stygio labentia luco.Ouid. Met. lib. 1. fab. 6.

To signifie vnto vs, that as water is a verie anci|ent and excellent element, and so necessarie that with|out it the life of man cannot consist; euen so we ought to estéeme of an oth, than the which we should thinke nothing more religious, nothing more holie, nothing more christian. Herevnto also tendeth the fable of the transmutation of mariners into dolphins for periurie: Ouid. Met. lib. 3. fab. 8, 9, 10. importing thus much for our instructi|on, that the breaking of an oth, in a case that may pre|iudice, procureth greeuous punishments from God against them that so lewdlie doo offend. But such is the impudencie of the pope, that he will not grant di|spensations onlie for oths, but for incest, for treason, and for any other sinne: which he may doo (as he boa|steth) by vertue of his absolute and vniuersall iuris|diction: as we haue latelie in most lamentable sort séene exemplified. But to the course of our storie.