The ancient Common Law, relating to wrecks, directed that when a vessel was lost at sea, and the goods or cargo floated to land, they should belong to the king, in accordance with a harsh principle to the effect that, as Blackstone says, by the loss of the ship, all property in it passes away from the original owner. But Henry modified this, and ordained that, if any person escaped alive from the ship, it should not be deemed to be a wreck.[1]
Some judgment my be formed of the size and nature of ships of the period, from the story of the accident which has already been touched upon as having befallen several members of the royal family, in the year 1120. Henry I. had been for some time in Normandy and, in November, assembled a squadron at Barfleur to convoy him back to England. He was met by Thomas Fitz Stephen, commanding a vessel described as La Blanche Nef, who, upon the strength of his ancestor having steered William I. to England, prayed the king to go on board his ship, and make the passage in her. The White Ship had been lately built to the order of Prince William, Henry's only legitimate son, a young man of about eighteen, who had, a very short time before, married a daughter of the Count of Anjou. Henry had made other arrangements for his own passage, but bade Thomas Fitz Stephen carry over the princes and princesses. Accordingly, there went on board, Prince William, his natural brother Richard, his natural sister Mary, Countess of Perche, Richard, Earl of Chester, and his wife Lucia, niece to the king, and about a hundred and forty nobles, of whom eighteen were ladies of high rank. There was an equal number of servants, seamen, etc., or about three hundred in all. The White Ship pulled fifty oars, and Prince William, who was interested in her, induced the captain and sailors, by plying them with wine, to race the royal galley, in which Henry was.
The king's ship had already sailed when the White Ship weighed after sundown. Fitz Stephen, in hopes of gaining on the chase, kept his vessel as close in shore as possible, trusting to the bright moonlight to enable him to avoid the rocks; but he presently struck on a reef in the Ras de Catteville, and stove in the White Ship's port side. "The crowded state of the vessel," says Nicolas, "and perhaps the inebriated condition of the crew," rendered useless all efforts to get the ship into a position of safety, and she soon went down. When she first struck, the seamen got out a boat, and put
- ↑ Blackstone, i. 290.
