¶ 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.

Compare 1577 edition: 1 Shortlie after, when king Henrie had dispatched his businesse in Normandie, and made an end of troubles there betwixt him and his brother Geffrey, he returned into England,King Henrie goeth against the Scots. bicause he receiued ad|uertisement, that Malcolme king of Scotland be|gan to make war against his subiects that bordered next vnto him, wherevpon he hasted northwards: and comming first into Cumberland, he tooke the ci|tie of Carleil, seizing all that counrie into his hands; and going after into Northumberland,He wan Car|leil and New|castell and o|thers. he wan the towne of Newcastell, with the castell of Bamburg, and tooke into his possession all that coun|trie which his mother the empresse had sometimes granted vnto king Dauid, as before ye haue heard: howbeit, bicause he would not seeme to offer too much wrong, and be esteemed vnmindfull of former bene|fites receiued, he suffered king Malcolme to enioy the earledome of Huntington,The earldome of Huntingtõ. which king Stephan had giuen vnto his father earle. Henrie, sonne to king Dauid, as before is partlie touched.