Claudia Gold

How the wreck of the White Ship plunged England into chaos

The tragic loss of Henry I’s son in 1120 led to a succession crisis that resulted in 19 years of famine and civil war, says Charles Spencer

The wreck of the White Ship. Credit: Getty Images

Never was a monarch so undone by water as Henry I. A fruit of the sea killed him in 1135: he ate too many lampreys, a jawless, parasitic fish that sucks its prey to death. But the tragedy of his reign occurred 15 years earlier. At the most ill-fated party of the Middle Ages, his heir — the 17-year-old William Ætheling (Anglo-Saxon prince) — drowned when the White Ship sank, taking nearly 300 of his friends and relatives with him.

The ramifications of his death were seismic, leading to a succession crisis that saw thousands die in a bitter civil war. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle famously described this 19-year-war as a time when ‘The earth bore no corn, for the land was all laid waste… and people said that Christ and his saints slept.’ Torture, kidnappings, burnings and desecrations of church property were commonplace.

Henry I has been neglected by popular culture. He remains little known except among medieval historians and enthusiasts. We have not seen his character starring in a bonkbuster such as The Tudors (despite the fact that he had more than 20 illegitimate children with several different mistresses); nor has he attracted a playwright of the calibre of James Goldman (The Lion in Winter). But Henry’s life was as full of drama as his grandson Henry II’s, and his descendant Henry VIII’s. He has found a master storyteller in Charles Spencer.

No one dared tell Henry about the wreck – until a young boy was persuaded to impart the news

The tragedy of the White Ship is at the heart of Spencer’s book. He tells the story from Henry’s father William the Conqueror’s conquest of England, to the crowning of his grandson Henry II, 19 years after Henry’s death. And what a story.

Henry was the fourth and youngest son of William the Conqueror.

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