He offered to release Miss Brawne from her engagement, but she would not listen to the suggestion.

Harrison, in his Description of England, tells us that those who "are saved by their bookes and cleargie, are burned in the left hand, vpon the brawne of the thombe with an hot iron, so that if they be apprehended againe, that marke bewraieth them to have beene arraigned of fellonie before, whereby they are sure at that time to have no mercie.