Duke William de Normandie, "Athling"

1103 - 1120  (17 years)    Has more than 100 ancestors but no descendants in this family tree.

• Name	William de Normandie  [1, 2]
  Prefix	Duke
  Suffix	"Athling"
  Birth	5 Aug 1103	Winchester, Hampshire, England   [1, 2]
  Gender	Male
  Death	25 Nov 1120	sinking of the White Ship, Barfleur, Manche, France   [2, 3]
  Siblings	2 Siblings
  1. Richard of England,   b. 1105   d. 25 Nov 1120, sinking of the White Ship, Barfleur, Manche, France  (Age 15 years) + 2. Queen Matilda of England,   b. 5 Aug 1102, Winchester, Hampshire, England d. 10 Sep 1169, Notre Dame, Rouen, France  (Age 67 years) ▻ Holy Roman Emperor Henry V der Salier,  m. 7 Jan 1114 ;   Count Gottfried d' Anjou, V, "the Fair",  m. 22 May 1127   3. Duke William de Normandie, "Athling",   b. 5 Aug 1103, Winchester, Hampshire, England d. 25 Nov 1120, sinking of the White Ship, Barfleur, Manche, France  (Age 17 years) ▻ Isabella (Mathilde) d' Anjou,  m. Jun 1119
  Person ID	I6050	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	10 Oct 2002

  
  

  Father	King Henry I "Beauclerc" of England,   b. Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England d. 11 Dec 1135, Gisors, St. denis, Seine-St. denis, France (Age 67 years)
  Mother	Queen Edith (Mathilda) of Scotland,   b. Oct 1079, Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland d. 1 May 1118, Westminster Palace, London, England (Age 38 years)
  Marriage	11 Nov 1100	Westmister Abbey, Lond
  Family ID	F2696	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Isabella (Mathilde) d' Anjou,   b. 1107-1111, Anjou, France d. 1154, Fontevrault-L'Abbe, Maine-Et-Loire, France (Age 43 years)
  Marriage	Jun 1119	Lisieux, Normandie, France   [2]
  Family ID	F2702	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000

  
  

• Event Map	Click to hide
  		Marriage - Jun 1119 - Lisieux, Normandie, France  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Notes

  When the white ship was wrecked on the deadly rock a boat was launched and William, the King's only legitimate son, was rowed to safety. The cries of his half-sister the Countess of Perche induced him to return to the wreck where they sank together. This was considered by some to be punishment for Henry's sins of lust in having so many illegitimate offspring. One of the two legitimate children of Henry I of England [the other was Matilda who married Geoffrey, count of Anjou). He was drowned in the wreck of the "White Ship" (he died without issue). "Just before twilight on 25 November 1120, Henry I set out from Barfleur in Normandy to cross the Channel to England. His son and heir, William Audelin, who was with Henry at Barfleur, decided to stay on and spend a merry evening there with several of his young companions before putting to sea. A great deal of wine was drunk, not only by William and his noble young friends, but also by the crew of the boat, the White Ship. It was a fine, clear evening. A gentle but steady wind augured well for the crossing. But when, towards midnight, the White Ship, the swiftest and most up-to-date vessel in the royal fleer, eventually put to sea, both passengers and crew were in an advanced state of intoxication. The ship never even reached the open sea. The drunken helmsman steered it stright on to a great rock at the mouth of the bay, lifting the prow clean out of the water. Soon the ship began to fill with water. After vain attempts to push it clear, a small dinghy was launched, and Prince William bundled into it. As he was rowed away, William heard in the darkness the cries of his illegitimate sister, the countess of Perche, imploring him not to desert her. He ordered the rowers to turn back. Once they did so, however, dozens of other men tried to clamber aboard, the dinghy overturned, and all aboard it were drowned. Only one man, a butcher from Rouen, survived the wreck, clinging all night to the masthead in the icy water, and living to tell the tale. For days they searched the beaches around Barfleur for bodies, but not more than a handful were ever recovered. (P) The disaster of the White Ship threatened to destroy everything that Henry I had laboured so purposefully to build up. He had intended that William should inherit all from him. Now his only surviving legitimate child was his daughter Matilda (also known as Maud). Born in 1102, Matilda had been married to the German emperor in 1114." --- Chris Given-Wilson and Alice Curteis, *The Royal Bastards of Medieval England*, London, 1984, p 74 REF: (soc.genealogy.medieval) nodpalmer-at-CONC.TDSNET.COM.NOT: "History" has it that the Blanche Nef sank because its captain (and owner) Stephen FitzThomas allowed himself and his crew to become drunk on wine William the Atheling and his companions liberated from his father's wine stores. The sole evidence for this is based on the word of the "rustic", a butcher "Berold" who supposedly clung to the mast and survived (attributed to his fleece garment.) As a retired navy officer, I cannot believe that FitzThomas would have been so careless. Think on this. Stephen FitzThomas built the Blanche Nef to be the king's ship. He had the heritage of his father (who had piloted the Moira), and when he went to Henry and asked him to have as his "fief" to be the "king's ship", was told that Henry had chosen his ship already for that passage, but that Henry would entrust to him the safe passage of his only legitimate male heir, his treasure, and his wine stores. Did Thomas FitzStephen allow his men to get drunk? I don't think so. Consider also, that the Blanche Nef could carry 300. There were fifty oarsmen, a marine force, and a throng of young nobles, their squires, their wives, and at least 18 women who were kin to kings, dukes, and emperors. Given that those people surely had their waiting women and attendants with them...that Ralth the Red, Gilbert of Exmes, the Earl of Chester and his wife, the nephew of the German emperos, and Henry's own stewards and scribes were on board....I can't think that one so lowly as a butcher was on that ship. It's the equivalent of saying that a bag lady was the sole survivor of the Concorde's maiden flight crash, or that a homeless wino survived the crash of Air Force One. Consider also, that Henry had recently 'made peace' (i.e. defeated) after years of war with the king of france (Louis the Fat) and with the rebellious lords of Normandy, wringing huge concessions. It's not so much a taskto think _who_ might have had a motive to sink the ship, as to think who might _not_ have. Henry himself might have been on that ship, if events had been only slightly different. The earl of Chester died, as did the claimant to Rhuddlan. Ralph the Red died, who had frustrated the attempts of most of the rebellious barons in Normandy. Interesting that Henry's son had just married the daughter of Fulk of Anjou (after Henry had fought Fulk to a standstill) but that William's young wife (admittedly prepubescent) didn't accompany her new husband to England. To me, this has always been as large a mystery as the princes in the tower, but more so...because of the possibly spurious survivor. Think of it. Give a butcher a few hundred pounds worth of gold coin, and he'll probably say he's seen martians. I'm not quite so sure as Ken Follett who *caused* the sinking. But I'm certain in my heart that the ship's pilot and owner did NOT run aground because he and his oarsmen were drunk. Paul J. Gans [gans-at-scholar.chem.nyu.edu): In my opinion you've made a good argument. Yet the presence of one butcher boy isn't really all that difficult to explain. See how Sharon Newman does it in her novel _When Christ and his Angels Slept_. As far as the sinking being deliberate, I can't agree. In the days before explosives it would be hard for any single person to secretly do enough damage to sink a ship. The Channel has always been treacherous. Even in the great days of wooden ships and iron men, the Channel claimed its share of ships. A moment's inattention and a sudden gust of wind could do it. The Channel is very shallow. It doesn't take much to raise some rather monster waves. And if the White Ship, heavily laden, found herself broadside to a 20-footer that would be all she wrote. It had happened before and happened many times since. I agree that the cause remains a mystery. The enormity of the disaster has faded for us, but it was one of those things, like the death of Harold at Hastings, that changed history. Not only did it eventually cause the civil war between Stephen of Blois and Maude, Henry's surviving child, but in the end the Angevins took the English throne. William's mother was Matilda of Scotland (called Maud by her husband Henry I) who was the daughter of Margaret (later called St. Margaret) a Saxon who was married to Malcolm III (Canmore) of Scotland. Matilda was descended from the Saxon royal line, and her uncle Edgar Atheling would have been the natural Saxon successor had not William of Normandy conquered England. "Aetheling" was the Saxon "title" for the heir-apparent to the crown. Calling Margaret'a son "the Aetheling" was a "concession" - if the Normans were at all capable of such a thing - to the Saxons as Henry I tried (initially) to be a little less brutal than his father William, and his brother William Rufus in forming a new kingdom.

  
  

• Sources

  [S14] Brian Tompsett, University of Hull Royal Database (England), (copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 , , Repository: WWW, University of Hull, Hull, UK HU6 7RX bct@tardis.ed.ac.uk). [S4] Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Families, (rev. ed, Pimlico Random House, London 1989, 1996 , , Repository: J.H. Garner), p 47 (Reliability: 0). [S280] Ordericus Vitalis, (Le Provost, gives list of prominent deaths of the White Ship.).