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If we may believe Fitz-Stephen, London, in the middle of the twelfth century, possessed a considerable portion of trade: among the imports, he mentions gold, spices, and frankincense from Arabia; precious stones from Egypt; purple drapery from India, palm oil from Bagdad: but it is certain that all these articles were obtained directly from Italian merchants.
"Now, my merry men," shouted the prince, "row hard, for the night is getting on!" Fitz-Stephen at that instant uttered an exclamation of horror, and wildly flung round his helm. There was a sudden roar ahead, and a gleam of long lines of broken water. "Pull for your lives!" shouted the captain, "or we shall be on the Ras de Catte!" It was too late.
"Then may we not overtake him before the night is past? You know this coast; can we not steer closer in, and so gain on them?" "My lord," said Fitz-Stephen, "there are many sunken rocks on this coast, which the mariner always avoids by keeping out to sea."
Fitz-Stephen, a writer of English history, reckoned in his time in London one hundred and twenty-seven parish churches, and thirteen belonging to convents; he mentions, besides, that upon a review there of men able to bear arms, the people brought into the field under their colours forty thousand foot and twenty thousand horse. VIDE Camden's "Britannia," Middlesex.
Henry threw him into prison, but as soon as he had won the smaller kings of the south separately to make submission to him, and given the chief castles into the hands of his own officers, he conciliated the knights by releasing Fitz-Stephen. He spent the winter in Dublin, in a palace built of wattles after the fashion of the country.
By-and-by, another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz-Stephen. 'Where is the Prince? said he. 'Gone! Gone! the two cried together.
With him went Nesta's son Robert Fitz-Stephen, a powerful man of the Norman type, handsome, freehanded, sumptuous in his way of living, liberal and jovial, given to wine and dissipation. His nephew, Meiler Fitz-Henry, showed stronger traces of Welsh blood in his swarthy complexion, fierce black eyes, and passionate face.
There were, in South Wales, two other broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called ROBERT FITZ-STEPHEN, and MAURICE FITZ-GERALD. These three, each with a small band of followers, took up Dermond's cause; and it was agreed that if it proved successful, Strongbow should marry Dermond's daughter EVA, and be declared his heir.
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! Fitz-Stephen hurried the Prince into a boat, with some few Nobles.
'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.
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