The White Ship was written in 1880; _The King’s Tragedy_ in the spring of 1881. These historical ballads we must briefly consider together. The memorable events of which Rossetti has made poetic record are, in _The White Ship_, those associated with the wreck of the ship in which the son and daughter of Henry I. of England set sail from France, and in _The King’s Tragedy_, with the death of James the First of Scots. The story of the one is told by the sole survivor, Herold, the butcher of Rouen; and of the other by Catherine Douglas, the maid of honour who received popularly the name of Kate Barlass, in recognition of her heroic act when she barred the door with her arm against the murderers of the King. It is scarcely possible to conceive in either case a diction more perfectly adapted to the person by whom it is employed. If we compare the language of these ballads with that of the sonnets or other poems spoken in the author’s own person, we find it is not first of all gorgeous, condensed, emphatic. It is direct, simple, pure and musical; heightened, it is true, by imagery acquired in its passage through the medium of the poet’s mind, but in other respects essentially the language of the historical personages who are made to speak. The diction belongs in each case to the period of the ballad in which it is employed, and yet there is no wanton use of archaisms, or any disposition manifested to resort to meretricious artifices by which to impart an appearance of probability to the story other than that which comes legitimately of sheer narrative excellence. The characterisation is that of history with the features softened that constituted the prose of real life, and with the salient, moral, and intellectual lineaments brought into relief. Herein the ballad may do that final justice which history itself withholds. Thus the King Henry of _The White Ship_ is governed by lust of dominion more than by parental affection; and the Prince, his son, is a lawless, shameless youth; intolerant, tyrannical, luxurious, voluptuous, yet capable of self-sacrifice even amidst peril of death. When he should be King, he oft would vow, He ‘d yoke the peasant to his own plough. O’er him the ships score their furrows now. God only knows where his soul did wake, But I saw him die for his sister’s sake.