1584.] THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 537 opened to make men careless of oaths, ready to swear anything albeit they meant to perform nothing ; ' while many ' affirmed that they thought themselves bound to perform their oath plainly and truly as they had made it ; ' ' that without excuse, colour, or pretext whatsoever, they were bound to prosecute such perjured persons as would separate themselves, and that no mor- tal authority could dispense with them.' ' I, for my own part,' writes the unknown person from whose narrative the description of the scene is borrowed, ' with great grief of mind hearing these con- trary conceits of this oath from those present which had taken the same, did, methought, behold the bloody effects which must ensue when so many thousands, rising in arms with weapons in their hands, should in mind be thus distracted and by oaths impelled to em- brue their swords in the blood of their brothers. Me- thought seeing all these associators must for their own safety, upon any such accident, put themselves and their friends in arms, lest otherwise they be persecuted by their fellows as perjured persons that occasion was offered for any meaning by faction to advance an under- title to intrude themselves, and by linking themselves with the more violent affections, to calumniate whom they list and extol them whom they would, or spoil or prey on any that did wish for deciding of claims in more quiet course. ' Briefly, I thought I did behold a confused company of all parts of the realm, of all degrees and estates there, rising in arms, at such a time as there was no
