Compare 1577 edition: 1 Now when we had communed a little concerning hir sonne, as I shall shew you after, and were depar|ted, shée to our ladie of Worcester, and I to Shrews|burie: I then new changed, and in maner amazed, began to dispute with my selfe, little considering that thus my earnest title was turned to a tittell not so good as Est Amen. Eftsoones I imagined whether were best to take vpon me, by election of the nobilitie and communaltie, which me thought easie to be done, the vsurper king thus being in hatred and abhorred of this whole realme; or to take it by power, which standeth in fortunes chance, and difficile to be atchi|ued and brought to passe. Thus tumbling and tossing in the waues of ambiguitie, betwéene the stone and the sacrifice,The office of a king verie hard to dis|charge. I considered first the office, dutie, and paine of a king, which suerlie thinke I that no mor|tall man can iustlie and trulie obserue, except he be called, elected, and speciallie appointed by God as K. Dauid, and diuerse other haue beéne.

Compare 1577 edition: 1 But further, I remembred that if I once tooke on me the scepter, and the gouernance of the realme; that of two extreame enimies I was dailie sure, but of one trustie friend (which now a daies be gone a pilgrimage) I was neither assured nor crediblie as|certeined; such is the worlds mutation. For I mani|festlie perceiued, that the daughters of king Ed|ward, and their alies and freends, which be no small number, being both for his sake much beloued, and also for the great iniurie & manifest tyrannie doone to them by the new vsurper, much lamented and piti|ed, would neuer ceasse to barke if they cannot bite at the one side of me. Semblablie, my coosine the earle of Richmond, his aids and kinsfolks, which be not of little power, will suerlie attempt like a fierce greihound, either to bite or to pearse me on the o|ther side. So that my life and rule should euer hang by a haire, neuer in quiet, but euer in doubt of death, or deposition.

Compare 1577 edition: 1 2 And if the said two linages of Yorke and Lan|caster,The dukes resolution not to medle in seéking to ob|teine the crowne. which so long haue striued for the imperiall di|adem, should ioine in one against me, then were I suerlie mated, and the game gotten. Wherefore I haue cléerelie determined, and with my selfe conclu|ded, vtterlie to relinquish all such fantasticall ima|ginations, concerning the obteining of the crowne. But all such plagues, calamities and troubles, which I feared and suspected might haue chanced on me if I had taken the rule and regiment of this realme, I shall with a reredemaine so make them rebound to to our common enimie that calleth himselfe king, that the best stopper that he hath at tenice shall not well stop without a fault.