St. Augustine is figured with his Beard on his appearance to convert these Islands in the sixth century. His followers must soon have shaved, because a writer of the seventh century, complains that “the Clergy had grown so corrupt as to be distinguished from the Laity less by their actions than by their want of Beards.” The illustrious Alfred was so careful of the Beards of his subjects, that he inflicted the then heavy fine of twenty shillings on any one maliciously injuring the Beard of another. The Danes who invaded this country were Bearded. Fosbrooke says, some of them wore Beards with six forks, and history mentions Sueno the fork-beard.[18] Footnote 18: Many princes have borne the title of Bearded—as the Greek Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, Count Godfrey, the Emperor Barbarossa, and Eberhard Duke of Wirtemberg in the reign of Maximilian, whose wisdom might truly be said to have grown with his Beard, and on whom the following verse was made:— “Hic situs est cui _barba_ dedit cognomina Princeps, Princeps Teutonici gloria magna soli.” (Here is a Prince whose Beard gave his surname, A Prince the glory of the land Almayne.) During this period, the French monarchy was growing. Its first kings held the Beard as sacred, and ornamented it with gold. Their subjects were proud of it as marking them out to be free men in contradistinction to the degenerate Roman population. Alaric touched the Beard of Clovis as a solemn mode of confirming a treaty, and acknowledging Clovis as his godfather. The Merovingian Dynasty were Bearded. Then came Charlemagne who swore by his Beard, as did Otho the Great and Barbarossa, Emperors of Germany, after him. The following story shows the faith of those early times in the sacredness of this form of adjuration. A peasant, who had sworn a false oath on the relics of two holy Martyrs, having taken hold of his Beard, as further confirmation, heaven to punish him, caused the whole to come off in his hand! Charlemagne also enacted that any one who should call another red beard or red-fox, should pay a heavy fine; a law explained by a prejudice embodied in two German proverbs.[19] Footnote 19: Rothbart nie gut wart Rothbart Schelmen art. Of red beard no good heard Red beard—a knave to be feared;