claring, 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 tim