heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

ROYAL HERALDRY. 375
He spent vast sums in his election, and he carried over with him,
according to Matthew Paris, some seven hundred thousand marks. As long
as his money lasted he had plenty of friends and partizans; but as soon
as it was drained from him he found that there was no solid foundation
to his power. Senchia died 1261, and having no family ties there, he
was glad to escape from the dissensions of his new kingdom and return
" a poorer king than he went out an earl," and died at Berkhamstead
Castle, which had been granted to him by his brother, 1272. He left one
surviving son, Edmond, who in the absence of Edward I. from England,
was joint regent of the kingdom with Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester,
whose sister Margaret he married in 1285. He founded on the Ash-ridge
(or ridge of the ashes), in the forest near his castle, a college of the
Bon Hommes, an Order under the rule of St. Augustine, and supposed
by Mosheim to have been a remnant of the Paulicians, to take care of a
sacred relic, i.e. a particle of the Saviour's blood, which, according to
Holinshed, he had found in a gold box amongst the relics of the ancient
emperors in Germany. Here he died, having been divorced from his wife
for some years, leaving no issue.*
He carried his shield, as Duke of Cornwall, suspended by a strap
from an eagle's back, in allusion to his father having been King of the
Romans. This innovation is the first indicated of that custom which is
now common in Austria and Prussia, of emblazoning the shield upon the
eagle displayed.
SPANISH
ALLIANCES.
The three shields, Provence or Aragon, Castile and Leon, and Navarre
(plate 8),
must first be generally noticed, as they form a group not only
representing royal alliances, but the origin and development of those
kingdoms of Spain which played such conspicuous parts in the middle
ages.f
The Roman dominion over the heterogeneous elements of Iberians,
Celts, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthagenians, which composed the early
inhabitants of Spain, practically came to an end A.D. 398, at the death of
the Emperor Theodorus. Soon after which the peninsular was overrun by
swarms of barbarous nations Vandals, Alans, Suevians and Goths, of
which the latter obtained the supremacy for nearly four centuries, until
Roderick the king having ravished Cava, daughter of Count Julian, the
exasperated father invited Muza, lieutenant of Ulit, sole sovereign of the
Moors, or Saracens, to come over from Africa and help him to avenge the
insult inflicted on his family. This he readily did, with 112,000 men; and
* History of Berkhamstead, Rev. J- W. Co'ob. t Mariana's History of Spain, 1699.