heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

376 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
after a battle at Xeres which lasted eight days, Roderick was defeated, and
fled, and was either drowned or escaped to Portugal. The Moors overran the
country, and for two and a half years held undisputed possession of Spain.
Then commenced a reaction on the part of a remnant of determined
men who had fled for shelter to the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the
mountainous districts of the Pyrenees. Here they found congenial spirits,
for the inhabitants of the former love to derive their name from Ayster the
Avenger, who after the siege of Troy had settled here, and whose descendants
had never been conquered even by the Goths. The opportunity for
action soon arrived. Four of their number daily met at a hermit's cell on
Mount Uruela, for mutual consolation and consultation as to the best means
of emancipating their country from its present misery. The good recluse
happened to die, and the fame of his sanctity drawing together to his
funeral 600 of the principal inhabitants, the four friends persuaded them to
rise against their oppressors. Garcia Ximinides, one of their number, being
chosen king, they marched at once against the Moors, and captured several
towns, amongst them Sufa, the capital of Sobrave. Garcia was conspicuous
by his red shield, and when his son, Garcia Iniquez, conquered Navarre,
that was adopted as the name, and the plain red shield as the arms of the
kingdom; and so it remained until nearly 500 years after, viz. 1212 A.D.,
when Sancho the Strong, King of Navarre, brother of Berengaria, wife of
Richard I., together with the kings of Aragon and Castile, achieved a
triumphant victory over the Moors.
The allied forces had advanced to the
foot of Sierra. The wily Moors occupied the pass of Lofa, the only passage ;
but guided by a shepherd, some said an angel, the confederate kings
gained the summit of the mountains, fortified their camp, and then at their
leisure swept down upon the camp of the Moors below, who had fortified
their king's tent with bars and chains, and guarded
it with the bravest of
their forces.
All day the Moors sustained the brunt of the attack, then fled,
200,000 of them, according to the ancient chronicler, being slain and in
;
memory of this victory of Navas de Tolosa, the King of Navarre added to
the arms of his ancestors viz. the red shield, with its cross ribs decorated
with gold in honour of Garcia, termed an escarbuncle, chains and an
emerald in the middle, in token that he was the first who broke the
chains which defended the citadel of the enemy's camp.
And in like manner the movement had rapidly spread. Agna, son of
Eudo, in 710, having gained some towns from the Moors on the banks of
the Aragon, was established by the King of Navarre as Earl of Aragon,
subject to him. Taken from, and retaken by, the Moors several times, the
country finally capitulated to Charlemagne and his son, Louis the Debonnaire,
80 1, and was established as an independent State, with the title
Condado de Barcelona. Tradition says that one Geoffry, fighting amongst