White Ship

This article is about the twelfth-century vessel. For fictional tales with this title, seeThe White Ship (disambiguation).

TheWhite Shipsinking
History
Name	Blanche-Nef
Out of service	25 November 1120
Fate	Struck a submerged rock offBarfleur,Normandy
General characteristics
Class and type	Sailing ship
Installed power	Square sails
Propulsion	Wind and oars

TheWhite Ship(French:la Blanche-Nef;Medieval Latin:Candida navis) was a vessel transporting many nobles, including the heir to the English throne, that sank in theEnglish Channelnear the Normandy coast offBarfleurduring a trip from France to England on 25 November 1120.Only one of approximately 300 people aboard, a butcher fromRouen,survived.

Those who drowned includedWilliam Adelin,the only legitimate son and heir ofHenry I of England,his half-siblingsMatilda of PercheandRichard of Lincoln,the earl of ChesterRichard d'Avranches,andGeoffrey Ridel.With William Adelin's death, the king had no obvious successor, and his own death 15 years later set off a succession crisis and a period of civil war in England known asthe Anarchy(1135–1153).

Shipwreck

TheWhite Shipwas a newly refitted vessel captained byThomas FitzStephen(Thomas filz Estienne), whose father Stephen FitzAirard (Estienne filz Airard) had been captain of the shipMoraforWilliam the Conquerorduring theNorman conquest of Englandin 1066.Thomas offered his ship toHenry I of Englandto return to England fromBarfleurinNormandy.Henry had already made other arrangements, but allowed many in his retinue to take theWhite Ship,including his heir,William Adelin,hisillegitimate childrenRichard of LincolnandMatilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche,and many other nobles.

According to chroniclerOrderic Vitalis,the crew asked William Adelin for wine and he supplied it to them in great abundance.By the time the ship was ready to leave there were about 300 people on board, although some, including the future kingStephen of Blois,had disembarked due to the excessive drinking before the ship sailed.

The ship's captain, Thomas FitzStephen, was ordered by the revellers to overtake the king's ship, which had already sailed.TheWhite Shipwas fast, of the best construction and had recently been fitted with new materials, which made the captain and crew confident they could reach England first. However, when it set forth in the dark, its port side struck the submerged Quilleboeuf Rock, and the ship quickly capsized.

William Adelin got into a small boat and could have escaped but turned back to try to rescue his half-sister, Matilda, when he heard her cries for help. His boat was swamped by others trying to save themselves, and William drowned along with them.According to Orderic Vitalis, Berold (Beroldus or Berout), a butcher fromRouen,was the sole survivor of the shipwreck by clinging to the rock. The chronicler further wrote that when Thomas FitzStephen came to the surface after the sinking and learned that William Adelin had not survived, he let himself drown rather than face the king.

One legend holds that the ship was doomed because priests were not allowed to board it and bless it with holy water in the customary manner.For a complete list of those who did or did not travel on theWhite Ship,seeVictims of theWhite Shipdisaster.

Repercussions

Main article:The Anarchy

Henry I and the sinkingWhite Ship

A direct result of William Adelin's death was the period known asthe Anarchy.TheWhite Shipdisaster had left Henry I with only one legitimate child, a second daughter namedMatilda.Although Henry I had forced his barons to swear an oath to support Matilda as his heir on several occasions, a woman had never ruled in England in her own right. Matilda was also unpopular because she was married toGeoffrey V, Count of Anjou,a traditional enemy of England's Norman nobles. Upon Henry's death in 1135, the English barons were reluctant to accept Matilda asqueen regnant.

One of Henry I's male relatives,Stephen of Blois,the king's nephew by his sister Adela, usurped Matilda as well as his older brothersWilliamandTheobaldto become king. Stephen had allegedly planned to travel on theWhite Shipbut had disembarked just before it sailed;Orderic Vitalis attributes this to a sudden bout of diarrhoea.

After Henry I's death, Matilda and her husband Geoffrey of Anjou, the founder of thePlantagenet dynasty,launched a long and devastating war against Stephen and his allies for control of the English throne. The Anarchy lasted from 1138 to 1153 with devastating effect, especially in southern England.

Contemporary historianWilliam of Malmesburywrote:

No ship that ever sailed brought England such disaster, none was so well known the wide world over. There perished then with William the king's other son Richard, born to him before his accession by a woman of the country, a high-spirited youth, whose devotion had earned his father's love; Richard earl of Chester and his brother Othuel, the guardian and tutor of the king's son; the king's daughter the countess of Perche, and his niece, Theobald's sister, the countess of Chester; besides all the choicest knights and chaplains of the court, and the nobles' sons who were candidates for knighthood, for they had hastened from all sides to join him, as I have said, expecting no small gain in reputation if they could show the king's son some sport or do him some service.

Historical fiction

• Reference to the sinking of theWhite Shipis made inKen Follett's novelThe Pillars of the Earth(1989) and its latergame adaptation.The ship's sinking sets the stage for the entire background of the story, which is based on the subsequent civil war between Matilda (referred to as Maud in the novel) and Stephen. In Follett's novel, it is implied that the ship may have been sabotaged; this implication is seen in theTV adaptation– even going so far as to show William Adelin assassinated whilst on a lifeboat – and thevideo game adaptation.
• Ellen Jones,The Fatal Crown(1991)
• Sharon Kay Penmandescribes the sinking in detail in her historical novelWhen Christ and His Saints Slept(1994).
• The sinking of theWhite Shipis briefly referenced inGlenn Cooper's novelThe Tenth Chamber(2010).
• TheWhite Shipsets the stage for the 2009 novelHiobs Brüder(The Brothers of Job) by the German author Rebecca Gablé, which details the rise ofHenry II of England,son of Empress Matilda.
• The long conflict between Stephen and Matilda is important in theBrother Cadfaelseries. This 20-book set of mysteries, byEllis Peters,has a 12th-century Benedictine monk as its protagonist. Depending on the book, the conflict is either very important or serves as a backdrop to the plots. The sinking directly affects the outcome of the short story "A Light on the Road to Woodstock".

Poetry

TheKelmscott Presspublication of Rossetti's poem on the White Ship, as part of theirBallads and Narrative Poemsedition of his work.

• Felicia Hemans,"He Never Smiled Again", c. 1830
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti,"The White Ship: a ballad"; first published 1881 in his collectedBallads and Sonnets.
• Edwin Arlington Robinson,"Ballad of a Ship", 1891
• Geoffrey Hill,"The White Ship". In his first book,For the Unfallen,1959.
• Franck K. Lehodey,"White Ship". A graphic novel, 2011.