The youngest son of the sagacious Conqueror, after the death of the “Red king,” by a rare union of audacity and cunning, Henry, had seized the sceptre of the fair island—the hereditary right of his romantic, generous, and gallant brother, who with the feudatories of his Norman duchy was waging war upon the Saracen, neglectful of his own and of his subjects’ interests alike, beneath the burning sun of Syria. Already firmly seated in his usurped dominion ere Robert returned homeward, nor yet contented with his ill-gained supremacy, he had wrung from the bold crusader, partly by force but more by fraud, his continental realms; and adding cruelty which scarcely can be conceived to violence and fraud, deprived him of Heaven’s choicest blessing, sight, and cast him—of late the most renowned and glorious knight in Christendom—a miserable, eyeless captive into the towers of Cardiff, his dungeon while he lived, and after death his tomb!
No retributive justice had discharged its thunders upon the guilty one; no gloom sat on his smooth and lordly brow, no thorns had lurked beneath the circle of Henry’s blood-bought diadem. Fortune had smiled on every effort; had granted every wish, however wild; had sanctioned every enterprise, however dubious or desperate: he never had known sorrow; and from his restless, energetic soul, remorse and penitence were banished by the incessant turmoil of ambition and the perpetual excitement of success. And now his dearest wish had been accomplished—the most especial aim and object of his life perfected with such absolute security, that his insatiate soul was satisfied. Absolute lord of England, and undisputed ruler of the fair Cotentin, he had of late disarmed the league which for a time had threatened his security; detaching from the cause of France the powerful count of Anjou, whose daughter—the most lovely lady and the most splendid heiress of the time—he had seen wedded to his first-born and his favorite, William. The previous day he had beheld the haughty barons tender the kiss of homage and swear eternal loyalty to the young heir of England, Normandy, and Anjou; the previous night he had sat glad and glorious at the festive board, encompassed by all that was fair, and noble, and high-born, in the great realms he governed, and among all that proud and graceful circle his eye had looked on none so brave and beautiful as that young, guiltless pair for whom he had imbrued, not his hands only, but his very soul, in blood! He sat on the high dais, beneath the gilded canopy; and as he quaffed the health of those who had alone a kindly tenure of his cold and callous heart, a noble knight approached with bended knee, and placing in his hand a mark of gold—“Fair sir,” he said, “I, a good knight and loyal—Thomas Fitz-Stephen—claim of your grace a boon. My father, Stephen Fitz-Evrard, served faithfully and well, as long as he did live, your father William—served him by sea, and steered the ship with his own hand which bore him to that glorious crown which he right nobly won at Hastings. I pray you, then, fair king, that you do sell to me, for this gold mark, the fief I crave of you: that, as Fitz-Evrard served the first King William, so may Fitz-Stephen serve the first King Henry. I have right nobly fitted—ay, on mine honor, as beseems a mighty monarch—here, in the bay of Barfleur, ‘the Blanche Navire.’ Receive it at my hands, great sir, and suffer me to steer you homeward; and so may the blessed Virgin and her Son send us the winds which we would have!”
“Good knight and loyal,” answered the prince, as he received the proffered coin, “grieved am I, of a truth, and sorrowful, that altogether I may not confer on you the fief which of good right you claim: for lo! the bark is chosen—nay, more, apparelled for my service—which must to-morrow, by Heaven’s mercy, bear me to that land whither your sire so fortunately guided mine. But since it may not be that I may sail myself, as would I could do so, in your good bark, to your true care will I intrust what I hold dearer than my very soul—my sons, my daughters—mine and my country’s hope; and as your father steered the FIRST, so shall you steer the THIRD King William, that shall be, to the white cliffs of England!”
“Well said, my liege!” cried Foulke, the count of Anjou, a noble-looking baron of tall and stately presence, although far past the noon of manhood, the father of the lovely bride; “to better mariner or braver ship than stout Fitz-Stephen and La Blanche Navire, was never freight intrusted! Quaff we a full carouse to their blithe voyage! How sayest thou, daughter mine,” he added, turning to the blushing girl, who sat attired in all the pomp of newly-wedded royalty beside her youthful lover—“how sayest thou? wouldst desire a trustier pilot, or a fleeter galley?”
“Why,” she replied, with a smile half-sweet, half-sorrowful, while a bright tear-drop glittered in her eye—“why should I seek for fleetness, when that same speed will but the sooner bear me from the sight of our fair France, and of thee, too, my father?”
“Dost thou, then, rue thy choice?” whispered the ardent voice of William in her ear; “and wouldst thou tarry here, when fate and duty summon me hence for England?”
Her full blue eye met his, radiant with true affection, and her slight fingers trembled in the clasp of her young husband with a quick thrill of agitation, and her lips parted, but the words were heard by none save him to whom they were addressed; for, with the clang of beakers, and the loud swell of joyous music, and the glad merriment of all the courtly revellers, the toast of the bride’s father passed round the gleaming board: “A blithe and prosperous voyage—speed to the Blanche Navire, and joy to all who sail in her!”
Thus closed the festive evening, and thus the seal of destiny was set upon a hundred youthful brows, foredoomed, alas! to an untimely grave beneath the ruthless billows.
The wintry day wore onward; and, wintry though it was, save for a touch of keenness in the frosty air, and for the leafless aspect of the country, it might have passed for a more lightsome season; the sky was pure and cloudless as were the prospects and the hopes of the gay throng who now embarked secure and confident beneath its favorable omens. The sun shone gayly as in the height of summer, and the blue waves lay sleeping in its lustre as quietly as though they ne’er had howled despair into the ears of drowning wretches! There was no thought of peril or of fear—how should there be? The ships were trustworthy; the seamen skilful, numerous, and hardy; the breezes fair, though faint; the voyage brief; the time propitious.
The day wore onward; and it was high noon before the happy king—his every wish accomplished, secure as he conceived himself, and firm in the fruition of his blood-bought majesty—rowed with his glittering train on board the royal galley. Loud pealed the cheering clamors of his Norman subjects, bidding their sovereign hail; but louder yet they pealed, when, with its freight of ladies, the second barge shot forth—William and his fair sister, and yet fairer bride, and all the loveliest of the dames that graced the broad Cotentin.