bridge, and there were likewise many heaps of stones and other missiles upon it, when the piles were loosened the bridge gave way, and a great number of the men on it fell into the river, and all the others fled-some into the castle, some into Southwark, which was soon afterwards taken by storm. When the people in the castle saw that the river Thames was mastered, and that they could not hinder the passage of ships up into the country, they became afraid, surrendered the town and took Ethelred to be their King. Of this victory the poet Ottar Swarte sang:

London Bridge is broken down-
Gold is won, and bright renown.
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,

Hildur shouting in the din!

Arrows singing,

Mailcoats ringing

Odin makes our Olaf win!

After this King Olaf was entrusted with the defence of the whole of England, and he sailed round the land with his ships of war. He laid his ships on land at Nyamode (New Romney) and defeated the Danes. He remained in England for three years.

THE DEATH OF PRINCE WILLIAM

II20 A.D.

The loss of the white ship, by which Henry I lost his only legitimate son, was one of the saddest events in English naval history. La Blanche Nef, though one of the finest ships of this early period of which we have any record, was probably not so large as this account would make out. It is not probable that all the people mentioned here embarked in one ship; it is rather likely that the retinue of the royal party were distributed over other vessels which accompanied the expedition.

AFTER a successful campaign in France, happily concluded through the Pope's mediation by Pope's mediation by a peace, Henry embarked from Barfleur for England, with his 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 had 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 brother Richard, and their sister the Lady Marie, Countess of Perth, 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 retinues 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, drank, 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 and 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 Catteraze, 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 that he had been the unhappy occasion of this great calamity, 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 sank. 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.

The tidings reached England in the course of that day; but no one would communicate it to the King; no one, not even those who had lost dear connexions of their own by the same awful event, could bear to witness the first emotions of his grief. Three days they persisted in thus concealing it, till the King's anxiety being at length well nigh as painful as the certainty could be, a little boy was then sent in, who, weeping bitterly, with no counterfeited passion, fell at his feet, and told him that the White Ship, with all on board was lost. The King, strong as he was in body and in mind, and in heart also, fainted at the shock; and though he survived it many years, he was never afterwards seen to smile.

ROBERT SOUTHEY