or a cryme. Then sayde the Abbesse: thou mought est haue bene
helde excused, if thou haddest cryed. The Nunne sayed: so woulde I haue
doone, had it not beene in our Dortour[300] where to crye is contrary to
our Religion.

+ _Of him that sayde he was the Diuelles man._ cxvi.

+ In the ciuile seditious time of Edwarde the fourth and Henry the
syxte,[301] one chaunced to mete with a company, that quickly asked him:
whose man art thou? Kinge Edwardes, quoth he. Art thou so (quoth they)?
and all [set] to beate him: For they were of Henrie's syde. Wherefore to
the nexte company that mette him and demaunded whose man he was, he
answered: kyng Henries. Art thou so (quoth they), and likewyse all [set]
to bete him. For they were on Edwardes parte. The Felow, thus sore
beaten, went foorth, and met with another route, who asked him: whose
man art thou? He, beynge at his wittes ende what to saye, aunswered: the
Dyuelles man. Than the dyuell goe[302] with thee (saide they). Amen
(quoth he): For it is the best maister that I [have] serued this daie.

By this tale ye maye perceiue, how greuouse and perillous all ciuyle
sedicions be, so doubtfull may it stand, that a man can not tel on which
side to holde. For he that now is stronger, another tyme is weaker, as
Fortune list to turne hir wheele.

FOOTNOTES:

[300] Dormitory.

[301] During the Wars of the Roses. In _The First Part of Edward IV._,
by Thomas Heywoud, 1600 (Shakesp. Soc. repr. p. 41), Hobs, the Tanner of
Tamworth, says:--

"By my troth, I know not, when I speak treason, when I do not. There's
such halting betwixt two kings, that a man cannot go upright, but he
shall offend t'one of them. I would God had them both, for me."

+ _Of the vplandishe[303] priest, that preached of Charitie._ cxvii.

+ A priest in the countrey, not the wysest nor the best learned,
preached to his parisheners of charitie so vehemently, that he sayed
plainely, that it was impossible for anye man to be saued or to come to
heauen without charitie, except onely the kynges grace, God saue hym.

FOOTNOTES:

[302] This word is in the original text printed twice by an oversight. I
have struck out the duplicate.

[303] _i.e._ a person dwelling in the uplands or mountainous districts
where the learning of the cities had not very deeply penetrated. Hence
the word became synonymous with ignorant and uninformed. Alexander
Barclay's fifth eclogue is "Of the Citizen and Uplandish Man."