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1570 J. Foxe Actes & Monumentes (rev. ed.) II. 1020/2 Certeine of the other prisoners, whiche were not condemned to death, were depriued of their goodes, commaunded in a white sheete to come to the Church, and there knelyng with a Taper in their hand, to aske forgeuenes.

1594 Zepheria xxxvi. sig. F2^v Thy face being vayld, this pennance I award, Clad in white sheet thou stand in Paules Churchyard.

a1679 Earl of Orrery Mr. Anthony (1690) v. 48 He shall stand publickly in a White-Sheet by way of Pennance Seven days in Sequence, to Mortify the flames of Lust in the Spectators.

1841 C. Dickens Old Curiosity Shop xxxi. 272 I will write to the legislative authorities and have her put in the stocks, or compelled to do penance in a white sheet.

1901 J. Rhŷs Celtic Folklore I. v. 351 Old people still living remember men and women clad in white sheets doing penance publicly in the churches of Man.

1930 E. Easton Roger Williams vii. 32 In 1617, Lady Markham..stood in a white sheet (and was amerced in a penalty of a thousand pounds) for marrying one of her servants.

2000 S. W. Waddams Sexual Slander in 19th-cent. Eng. 262 That the white sheet was still in regular use in the Isle of Man appears from a case of 1823 where two men were charged with performing a mock ceremony in a public house involving a horse covered with a white sheet.