reuolting from his oth, than the other was willing to acquite him from
the force thereof. But if these men had beene profiting scholars 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
Metaphysikes, shewing the cause why poetrie hath feigned that the gods
in old time vsed to sweare by water, as Jupiter is reported to haue
doone in this manner;
[Sidenote: _Ouid. Met. lib. 1. fab. 6._]
---- per flumina iuro
Infera sub terra Stygio labentia luco.

To signifie vnto vs, that as water is a verie ancient and excellent
element, and so necessarie that without 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. [Sidenote: _Ouid. Met. lib. 3. fab. 8, 9, 10._] Herevnto also
tendeth the fable of the transmutation of mariners into Dolphins for
periurie: importing thus much for our instruction, that the breaking of
an oth, in a case that may preiudice, 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 dispensations onlie for
oths, but for incest, for treason, and for any other sinne: which he may
doo (as he boasteth) by vertue of his absolute and vniuersall
iurisdiction: as we haue latelie in most lamentable sort séene
exemplified. But to the course of our storie.

[Sidenote: 1156.] Shortlie after, when king Henrie had dispatched his
businesse in Normandie, and made an end of troubles there betwixt him