Note 130 — PREFACE
Reading edition
To burn one's bill, was a sign of recantation. "The form of burning one's bill, (says Keith,) or recanting, was this—The person accused was to bring a faggot of dry sticks and burn it publicly, by which ceremony he signified that he destroyed that which should have been the instrument of his death." (Hist. vol. i. p. 15.)