With limited options, she returned to Normandy, where she was named as successor to her father, King Henry I. A widow without children, she had no leverage to establish a base of power in her late husband’s domains.
King Henry I, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, had two legitimate children who survived infancy: William Adelin, whose fate was a watery grave off the coast of Normandy, and Empress Matilda, wife of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V.Ī mere five years after the catastrophe of the White Ship, Empress Matilda’s husband died of cancer. William Adelin, the eldest son and heir of King Henry I, and a grandson of William the Conqueror, was aboard the White Ship, and his death led to a crisis of succession that is known today as the “Anarchy.” An Empress without an Empire There was only one survivor, and it is estimated that nearly 300 people drowned that fateful night.Īlthough the sheer number of casualties would be enough to mark the event in the memories of those living at the time, the scope of this disaster would reach far beyond the number of bodies washing ashore the following morning, for this disaster claimed the life of a man who had been destined to rule both England and Normandy. Setting sail after dark, it had struck a submerged rock and capsized. Was the boat dangerously overloaded? Were the passengers engaged in drunken revelry? Was the crew similarly incapacitated? Had the captain been goaded into unsafe speeds in an attempt to overtake a second ship carrying King Henry I of England?Īll that is known with certainty is that on 25 November 1120, the White Ship sank in the English Channel off the coast of Barfleur, Normandy. The legends are many, but they can never be verified. The details are lost in the mists of time.
Titanic struck an iceberg and plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic, another vessel crowded with the elite of its day met a similar fate.
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