up and shouting wildly strove long to push the ship off the rock with their iron boat-hooks; but fortune was against them and all their efforts were useless. The oars also were dragged against the rock and snapped, and the forepart hung jambed and shattered; and now some were washed overboard, and others were drowned by the inrushing water, when the ship’s boat was at length pushed off, and the king’s son put in it; he could have reached the shore in safety, had not his sister, the countess of Perche, struggling with death in the larger vessel, with shrieks implored her brother’s help, and begged him not to abandon her so cruelly. He was moved with pity, ordered the skiff to be brought close to the ship to rescue his sister, and thus through tenderness of heart pitifully met his death; for at once a crowd of men jumped into the boat and upset it, and all alike sank to the bottom. Only one man, a rustic, escaped, and by clinging to the mast all night lived to tell the whole tragic story the next day. No ship ever brought on England misery so great, no ship was so notorious throughout the world. With William perished also Richard, another son of the king, the child of a woman without rank, born before his accession to the throne, a young man of excellent parts and dear to his father for his devoted service; also Richard earl of Chester and his brother Otwell, the tutor and guardian of the king’s son; also the king’s daughter, the countess of Perche, and his niece, the sister of Theobald, countess of Chester; and indeed almost the whole flower of the court, whether knight or chaplain, and the sons of the nobility in training for knighthood; for, as I have said, they flocked to him from all sides, hoping to gain no small glory from either amusing or serving the son of the king. The disaster was increased by the difficulty of recovering their bodies, which could not easily be found by the searchers scattered along the coast; their noble limbs became food for the cruel monsters of the deep. The news of the prince’s death caused remarkable changes. His father abandoned the celibacy observed by him after Matilda’s death, scheming to beget heirs from a new queen. His father-in-law, on the other hand, on his return home from Jerusalem, faithlessly joined the party of William, son of Robert duke of Normandy, giving to him in marriage his second daughter and the county of Maine, his wrath being roused and sharpened against the king for keeping the dowry of his daughter in England after the prince’s death. A NORMAN PRELATE. =Source.=--Henry of Huntingdon, _Epistola de Contemptu Mundi_, ed. Arnold, p. 299. (Rolls Series.)