I.—THE WHITE SHIP.
Charles Dickens.
King Henry I. went over to Normandy with his son Prince William and a great retinue, to have the prince acknowledged as his successor, and to contract a marriage between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Both these things were triumphantly done, with great show and rejoicing; and on the 25th of November, in the year 1120, the whole retinue prepared to embark, for the voyage home.
On that day, there came to the king, Fitz-Stephen, a sea-captain, and said, “My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea. He steered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow, in which your father sailed to conquer England. I have a fair vessel in the harbor here, called The White Ship, manned by fifty sailors of renown. I pray you, Sire, to let your servant have the honor of steering you in The White Ship to England.”
“I am sorry, friend,” replied the king, “that my ship is already chosen, and that I cannot, therefore, sail with the son of the man who served my father. But the prince and his company shall go along with you in the fair White Ship, manned by the fifty sailors of renown.” An hour or two afterward, the king set sail in the vessel he had chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night with a fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of England in the morning. While it was yet night, the people in some of these ships heard a faint, wild cry come over the sea, and wondered what it was.
Now, the prince was a dissolute young man of eighteen, who bore no love to the English, and who had declared that when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the plough like oxen. He went aboard The White Ship with one hundred and forty youthful nobles like himself, among whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gay company, with their servants and the fifty sailors, made three hundred souls aboard the fair White Ship.
“Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen,” said the prince, “to the fifty sailors of renown. My father the king has sailed out of the harbor. What time is there to make merry here, and yet reach England with the rest?”
“Prince,” said Fitz-Stephen, “before morning my fifty and The White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father the king if we sail at midnight.” Then the prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out the three casks of wine, and the prince and all the noble company danced in the moonlight on the deck of The White Ship.