Page:The philosophy of beards (electronic resource) - a lecture - physiological, artistic & historical (IA b20425272).pdf/61

 The stout king Stephen wore his Beard, and a Saxon chronicler complains that in the civil wars of his time, in order to extort the wealth of peaceable people, they were "hung up by their Beards;" a proof the latter were long and strong. Stephen's cotemporary. Frederick the 1st of Germany, to prevent quarrelling, laid a very heavy fine on any one who pulled another's Beard.

Henry II, is said to have had a vision in which all classes of his subjects reproached him in his sleep for his tyranny and oppression. A cotemporary MSS, illuminator, having fortunately designed several cartoons, really much more expressive than some in the New Houses of Parliament, from which we learn that the faces of all classes of the people and of the Clergy then appeared as nature made them, I selected one, representing the leaders of the distressed agriculturalists of that remote period, because while it illustrated my subject, it seemed to possess great interest for that patient and much enduring class. One could almost imagine the stout fellow with the one-sided Saxon spade, to be urging on the heroes with the pitchfork and scythe, nearly in the words of Marmion,

""Charge. Sibthorp, charge! On. Stanley, on!""