History of the house and race of Douglas and Angus

house of dotjglas. 2D 5
Pope for a dispensation and confirmation of the marriage.
But that suit was crost by the King's letters. 1 find it in an
ancient book written of the Douglases, in metre, that she her-
self alleged, that her first husban 1 Earl William had never
carnal copulation with her, and that she gave her oath there-
upon; which giveth some colourable excuse to this fact, which
otherwise is so enormous, and void of all appearance that he
could have been so shameless as to have gone about it without
some such reason or pretext, which therefore I would not o-
mit to intimate, and I remember not that I have reap it else-
where. However it was, he kept her as his wife, and conti-
nued the wars that year, and the next two years, pillaging and.
wasting the King's possessions, and the King doing the like
to him, especially in Annandale, Galloway, and the forest.
Hereupon ensued a famine, and upon the famine a pestilence;
towns and castles were destroyed on both sides; and no kind
of hostility pretermitted. The King notwithstanding caused
try indirectly where the Earl could be persuaded to yield him-
self to him, and the wisest of his friends counselled him to do
it, alleging that his predecessors had often done so; chiefly
seeing he had been a King of a gentle nature, and who would
be entreated by friends, not to extinguish so noble a family,
and undo so many noblemen as joined with him, or to reduce
them to that necessity, that they should be forced to take a
course for themselves; that it would be easier for him to get
good quarters now, while matters were as yet not past recon-
ciliation, and while his friends were about him, than after-
wards when he should be deserted, and left alone; then there
would be no hope of pardon. To this he answered, That he
would never commit himself to the credit of those whom nei-
ther shame nor honesty could bind, who regarded neither the
law of God nor man; but having allured his cousins and bro-
ther with fair promises, had so traiterously and cruelly slain
them, that he would rather suffer all extremity, than come
into their power. This speech was approved or disapproved
according to every man's disposition, some praising his mag_
Kaolin it y and courage, some disliking his obstinacy, and ex-