Handfasting or troth-plighting constituted a "true contract" or irrevocable promise to marry George Wither, A Collection of Emblems, Book 3, 1635. The work was commissioned by a thrifty printer who acquired a set of plates abroad and hired Wither to provide an English commentary. When Wither was captured in 1642 during the Civil War by troops loyal to the King, Sir John Denham intervened to save his life, pleading "that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England."