Mourning the White Ship
The sinking of the White Ship was a disaster for England’s King Henry I, but it was also felt deeply by his subjects.
On 25 November 1120 King Henry I of England, son of William the Conqueror, was in high spirits. He had recently concluded a peace treaty with France and made a marriage alliance for his only legitimate son and heir, 17-year-old William Adelin. The royal court gathered at the Norman port of Barfleur to return to England in time for Christmas. Accompanying the king and his son were barons, clerics, servants, and knights who had distinguished themselves in recent battles against the French and looked forward to royal rewards. Henry set sail that evening. William, wrote the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon, ‘dressed in silken garments stitched with gold, surrounded by a crowd of household attendants and guards, and gleaming in an almost heavenly glory’, stayed behind to celebrate and drink with two of his illegitimate siblings, Matilda, countess of Perche and Richard of Lincoln, and his peers on board the White Ship. They set off hours later. Determined to overtake the king, the drunken sailors forgot about the treacherous rocks just outside the harbour.
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