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Updated: May 28, 2025
The terrified barons were ready to buy their existence at any price. The leaders of the Church welcomed him as the supporter of Roman discipline. Henry used all his advantages. He consistently carried through the farce of arbitration. The Wexford men brought to him Fitz-Stephen, whom they had captured, as the greatest enemy to the royal majesty and the Irish people.
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.
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.
Ireland, however, was destined to be reached through Wales, and along that mountain coast we early find Norman castles and Norman ships. A bitter feud between North and South Wales hastened an invasion, in which Robert Fitz-Aymon and his companions played, by anticipation, the parts of Strongbow and Fitz-Stephen, in the invasion of Ireland.
"Talk not to me of rocks on a night when the sea is calm and the wind so gentle it scarce fills the sails, and the moon so clear we can see a mile before us! What say you, my men? Shall we overtake the king? Fitz-Stephen," he added, "thou earnest a king's son to-night. If thou and thy men can set me on English ground before my father, I will never sail more, as long as I live, save in thy ship."
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?
But, to show that I hold thy father's son worthy of his name, see, I entrust to thee my son William, heir to my throne, in all confidence that thou wilt conduct him safely over. Let him go with thee, while I myself do set sail in the vessel I had chosen." Fitz-Stephen bowed low, and the young Prince William, a lad of eighteen years, stepped forward gaily towards him, and cried
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