To strengthen his power,the King with great ceremony betrothed his eldest daughter MATILDA,then a child only eight years old,to be the wife of Henry the Fifth,the Emperor of Germany.To raise her marriage-portion,he taxed the English people in a most oppressive manner;then treated them to a great procession,to restore their good humour;and sent Matilda away,in fine state,with the German ambassadors,to be educated in the country of her future husband.
And now his Queen,Maud the Good,unhappily died.It was a sad thought for that gentle lady,that the only hope with which she had married a man whom she had never loved-the hope of reconciling the Norman and English races-had failed.At the very time of her death,Normandy and all France was in arms against England;for,so soon as his last danger was over,King Henry had been false to all the French powers he had promised,bribed,and bought,and they had naturally united against him.After some fighting,however,in which few suffered but the unhappy common people (who always suffered,whatsoever was the matter),he began to promise,bribe,and buy again;and by those means,and by the help of the Pope,who exerted himself to save more bloodshed,and by solemnly declaring,over and over again,that he really was in earnest this time,and would keep his word,the King made peace.
One of the first consequences of this peace was,that the King went over to Normandy with his son Prince William and a great retinue,to have the Prince acknowledged as his successor by the Norman Nobles,and to contract the promised marriage (this was one of the many promises the King had broken)between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou.Both these things were triumphantly done,with great show and rejoicing;and on the twenty-fifth of November,in the year one thousand one hundred and twenty,the whole retinue prepared to embark at the Port of Barfleur,for the voyage home.
On that day,and at that place,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 beseech you to grant me the same office.I have a fair vessel in the harbour here,called The White Ship,manned by fifty sailors of renown.I pray you,Sire,to let your servant have the honour of steering you in The White Ship to England!'
'I am sorry,friend,'replied the King,'that my vessel is already chosen,and that I cannot (therefore)sail with the son of the man who served my father.But the Prince and all his company shall go along with you,in the fair White Ship,manned by the fifty sailors of renown.'
An hour or two afterwards,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 those ships heard a faint wild cry come over the sea,and wondered what it was.
Now,the Prince was a dissolute,debauched young man of eighteen,who bore no love to the English,and 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 harbour.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.
When,at last,she shot out of the harbour of Barfleur,there was not a sober seaman on board.But the sails were all set,and the oars all going merrily.Fitz-Stephen had the helm.The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies,wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to protect them from the cold,talked,laughed,and sang.The Prince encouraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet,for the honour of The White Ship.
Crash!A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts.It was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the King heard faintly on the water.The White Ship had struck upon a rock-was filling-going down!