From this time the boy's interest in the navy grew keen; and we find constant mention made of visits to the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich, where, under Mr. Pett's guidance the prince was thoroughly instructed in questions of ships and shipping. He closely watched the building of a splendid vessel which the king gave him for his own. She was launched in 1610; and was the largest ship that had then been built in England. "The keel was an hundred and fourteen feet long, and the cross-beam forty-four feet. It was able to carry sixty-four pieces of great ordnance, and the burthen was fourteen hundred tons."[76] On September 24, the King, the Queen, the Duke of York,[77] Princess Elizabeth, and a large company, went with Prince Henry to see his great ship launched. But owing to the narrowness of the dock, the launch failed. So the prince had to return next morning; and in the midst of a terrific thunderstorm he stood on her deck as she floated out into the river, giving her the name, _Prince Royal_. Next year Henry determined to examine personally into the condition of the navy. He therefore made a private journey to Chatham, and spent three days closely inspecting all the shipping and storehouses there, and at Queenborough, Stroud, and Gravesend, making careful notes of the state of each ship in his own notebook from Mr. Pett's and Sir Robert Mansel's information, "no other persons being suffered to come near." In January, 1610, Prince Henry gave a great banquet to his father at St. James's Palace, where he now kept his separate Court and gathered round him the most promising young men in the kingdom. The banquet was preceded by a tourney at Whitehall, in which the prince took part, in the presence of the king and queen, the foreign ambassadors and all the greatest personages of the realm. Princess Elizabeth helped her brother to do the honors of the banquet, and distributed the prizes won at the tilting match, which were trinkets garnished with diamonds, the king handing them to her. The banquet was not over till ten at night; by which time King James, who was easily bored, especially with anything done by his son, had gone away. But Henry and Elizabeth, full of the enjoyment of young hosts, went off to a comedy which lasted two hours, and then returned to the gallery, where a fresh supper had been set. It was a most gorgeous affair. The crystal dishes were filled with sweetmeats of all shapes--fountains of rosewater, windmills, dryads, soldiers on horseback, pleasure gardens, the planetary system, etc. Prince Henry led his sister twice round the table to see all these marvels, and they then departed, leaving the company to their own devices. A most crazy company it must have been. For, no sooner had the prince and princess gone, than "the guests scrambled for the plunder, broke down the table and carried off, not only the supper, but all it was served in, to the very water bottles."[78]