them. "I shall see who will follow me," was his reply; "and, if I understand the temper of the youth of this country, I shall have people enough." Waiting for nothing, he reached the port almost unattended, and embarked immediately, although it blew a storm. The sailors entreated him to have patience till the weather should abate, and the wind become more favourable. But he made answer, "I never heard of a king that was shipwrecked. Weigh anchor, and you will see that the winds will be with us!" He has been extolled for this act of characteristic impatience and resolution, because the event happened to be fortunate: celerity was of great importance; and the news of his landing, as it was concluded that he came in force, sufficed for raising the siege. It was not in him a bravado in imitation of Caesar: that well-known story was known to very few in those ages, -the Red King had neither inclination nor leisure for learning; and it was even more in character with him than with Cæsar, the act itself being of more daring and less reasonable hardihood. On the other hand, he has been condemned, and with more justice, as manifesting here a spirit of audacious impiety, for which, among his other vices, he was peculiarly noted; and there are writers who, falling into an opposite extreme, have presumed to say that this special sin was visited by a special judgment upon the person of his nephew, Prince William, the pride and hope of his father, and, indeed, of the English nation, who saw in him the representative, by his mother's side, of the old Anglo-Saxon line. William's bravado would, no doubt, be remembered after that catastrophe with poignant feelings by the bereaved father; but Henry Beauclerc had in his own conscience an unerring witness that his own sins of ambition had too surely deserved such a chastisement. Many shipwrecks have been attended with far greater loss of lives, and with far more dreadful circumstances; but none can ever have produced so general an emotion in this country, nor has any single event ever been the occasion here of so much national suffering, as this, which opened the way for Stephen's usurpation. After a successful campaign in France, happily concluded through the pope's mediation by a peace, Henry embarked from Barfleur for England, with this his only legitimate son, then recently married, and in his seventeenth year. One of the finest vessels in the fleet was a galley of fifty oars, called "The White Ship," and commanded by a certain Thomas Fitzstephens, whose grandfather had carried over the Conqueror when he invaded the kingdom which he won. Upon this ground Fitzstephens solicited the honour of now conveying the king, upon an occasion as much more joyful as it was less momentous. Henry was pleased with a request preferred for such a motive; and, though having chosen a vessel for himself, he did not think proper to alter his own arrangements, he left Prince William, with the rest of his family, and their friends and attendants, to take their passage in the White Ship; and embarking towards evening on the 25th of November, in fair weather, he sailed for England. There were with the Prince his natural brother Richard, and their sister the Lady Marie, Countess of Perch, Richard, Earl of Chester with his wife, who was the king's niece, and her brother the Prince's governor, and the flower of the young nobility both of Normandy and England, 140 in number, eighteen being women of the first rank: these and their retinue amounting, with the crew, to about 300 persons. The prince, being detained a little after his father, imprudently ordered three casks of wine to be distributed among the men; and the captain, as well as the sailors, drunk, in the joy of his heart, too freely; and promised to overtake every ship that had sailed before them. Accordingly he hoisted all sail, and plied all oars. The evening had closed before they started, but it was bright moonlight; the men exerted themselves under all the excitement of hilarity and pride of emulation, dreaming of no danger; the captain and the helmsman, under the same excitement, were unmindful of any ; and when the ship was going through the water with all the stress of oars and sails, she struck upon a rock, called the Catee-raze, with such violence that several planks were started, and she instantly began to fill. A boat was immediately lowered, and the Prince was escaping in it, - which he might easily have done, for the shore was at no great distance, - when his sister, whom there had been no time to take off, or who in the horror of the moment had been forgotten, shrieked out to him to save her. It was better to die than turn a deaf ear to that call: he ordered the boat to put back and take her in; but such numbers leapt into it at the same time that the boat was swamped and all perished. The ship also presently went down with all on board: only two persons, the one a young noble, son of Gilbert de Aquila, the other a butcher of Rouen, saved themselves: by climbing the mast, and clinging to the top, they kept their heads above water. Fitzstephens rose after the vessel had sunk, and might have taken the same chance of preservation; but calling to mind, after the first instinctive effort, that he had been the unhappy occasion of this great calamity, and dreading the reproaches, and perhaps the punishment that awaited him, he preferred present death as the least evil. The youth became exhausted during the night; and commending his poor companion to God's mercy with his last words, he lost his hold, and sunk. The butcher held on till morning, when he was seen from the shore and saved; and from him, being the only survivor, the circumstances of the tragedy were learnt. 53. THE WRECK OF THE WHITE SHIP. SCENE FIRST. Barfleur-near the Harbour. REV. J. WHITE. Enter Prince William: Countess de la Perche-Lords, Ladies and Minstrels. Servitors with golden flagons. A confused noise of revelry is heard before they enter. Prince (crowned with vine-leaves.) Here stand ! There comes a faintness o'er the sky, As if it paled to think its joy was over, At sight of the white moon o'er yonder hill. Countess. Moonlight is sweetest ever on the sea. Point lovingly for England. To her health! A brimming cup, brave friends, and then on board !— Prince. Sing, Eustace, with a voice Fit for our bacchanal ears. We listen. Sing. Eustace sings. The sea foams white o'er rock and shoal, And gathers to a heap, Where the wild wind pipes, and the waters roll, And high o'er the Godwins leap.— I hate the sea with land on our lea, A merrier life for me! II. A foam I know more dazzling white Than waves o'er rock and shoal; That dances and leaps with bound more light— Tis the bright wine in our bowl.— I hate the sea with land on our lea, A merrier life for me! III. No rock lurks here, no shoal is found In all this ocean wide! But yet if there's one that is born to be drown'd— I hate the sea with land on our lea, A merrier life for me. Prince. Ill omen'd croaker, with your rock and shoal, You've cast a shadow o'er my sister's face That drowns the flush that wine and joy had given. You heed not what an idle minstrel sings. Countess. No, William; I should fear if he were pilot; His hand would scarcely guide the helm so surely As now it guides the tune along the chords Prince (looking to the harbour.) Hark! mirth on board-'Tis right; 'twere pity, sister, If happiness were a lubber all his days, And never went to sea. Countess. Prince. We saw, when gorged, coil up its glossy length And sleep so calmly. Countess. (alarmed.) Dreaming of fresh food And ready for the spring. Stay here the night You are too happy; too o'erjoyed, my brother; So crowned with these deep vine leaves that their spirit Has slipt within, and your poor soul lies sleeping Half buried 'neath the clusters of Champagne ! Prince. Then cover it all over! for no King What weather, master, Pilot (flustered with wine.) I call it not weather at all"Tis but the corpse of weather, wanting breath, As wanting breath man's but the corpse of man— So as you said, sir—(takes a flagon from servitor and drinks.) Milksoppy weather-weather only fit For painted boats; weather, where little maids Pilot. When I was anything else. Have you been long a pilot ? Countess. And know the sea? Never a time. Pilot. As if I had married her like the Doge of Venice; And rule her better;-and care less for her frowns Than e'er a husband in the realm of France [Music and dancing heard on board. Prince. Away! the sound of merry feet on deck Beats the pulsed air to music-Your fair hand ;Sister-your heart holds a divided blood Drawn from two founts, one kingly, one a churl's Let the red half find mastery in the struggle, And glow 'mid terror like a rose in snow Countess (with an effort.) The daughter of a King knows nought of terror: Come, brother; and the lightest step and voice Shall be your sister's. Prince. Way there; sound the horn! Horn is sounded. Exeunt towards the ship. SCENE SECOND. The Custle in Dover.-Henry.-Hubert of Chester. Henry. So long detained, and not a wind in heaven To stir the pear-tree blossom. Hubert. Pleasure, sir, Heeds not of wind-Along the shores of France And dance, or sitting round some babbling fountain Henry. If William cared to share our troubles more To taste his pleasures less. "Twould please me better Once more, I pray you, Go to the toppling cliff and watch their coming. We sit in judgment here, and it were fit [Exit Hubert. Enter Arnulf of Lancaster.-Yvo his son, bound; guards, &c.— Arnulf. Is there no hope? No throb of pity for a father's grief Within that heart filled with a father's joys? Henry. Arnulf of Lancaster, if lowlier state Were ours, we might have ears to hear the throb But there's a tumult in the soul of kings That drowns all voices save the trumpet tongue Of justice; we have doom'd your son to death. Yvo. As Heaven bears witness 'twas no treasonous aid I promised to your Norman rebels. Henry. That Rests with the Judges who with searching eyes Viewed the whole cause; their voice pronounced you guilty.— It fits not the King's office to withstand The course of RIGHT, which as a mighty river, Turns its clear waters. They have doom'd your death: Arnulf. The unbending scale, let Yvo owe his life To mercy!-to the sweet companionship "Tween him and princely William. Yvo. For short space Let me at least have room for secret speech Is fixed as mine in such a cause as this, I would, sir king, I had known how hard your heart Ere I had emptied these poor veins of blood |