• General Notes

  [316552.ftw]
  
  See Historical Document.
  
  TITL University of Hull Royal  base (England) AUTH Brian Tompsett, Dept of Computer Scienc e PUBL copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 usually reliable but sometimes includes hypothetical lines , mythological figures, etc   WWW, University of Hull, Hull, UK HU6 7RX  bct@@tardis.ed.ac.u k     Electronic
  TITL Ahnentafel for Margery Arundell AUTH Marlyn Lewis PUBL 08 Oct 1997     MEDI Manuscript
  TITL Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy AUTH Alison Weir PUBL rev. ed, Pimlic o Random House,  London 1989, 1996   J.H. Garner     Book PAGE p 47
  ALIA William the Aetheling /Prince of England/
  TITL University of Hull Royal  base (England) AUTH Brian Tompsett, Dept of Computer Science P UBL copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 usually reliable but sometimes includes hypothetical lines, my thological figures, etc   WWW, University of Hull, Hull, UK HU6 7RX  bct@@tardis.ed.ac.u k     Electronic   TEXT b bef 05 Aug 1103, no place
  TITL Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy AUTH Alison Weir PUBL rev. ed, Pimlic o Random House,  London 1989, 1996 REPO J.H. Garner     Book PAGE p 47
  TITL Ordericus Vitalis AUTH Ordericus Vitalis PUBL Le Provost       Book
  TITL Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy AUTH Alison Weir PUBL rev. ed, Pimlic o Random House,  London 1989, 1996   J.H. Garner     Book PAGE p 47
  CAUS Drowned in the White Ship.
  _FA1 PLAC aka William, Prince of England.
  _FA2 PLAC Drowned attempting to rescue sister from wreck of the White Ship.
  _FA3 PLAC of Selby, Yorkshire, England.
  _FA4 PLAC Styled "Atheling," he was made Duke of Normandy in 1120.
  TITL Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy AUTH Alison Weir PUBL rev. ed, Pimlic o Random House,  London 1989, 1996   J.H. Garner      Book PAGE p 47When the white ship was w recked on the deadly rock a boat was launched and William, the King's only legitimate son, wa s rowed to safety. The cries of his half-sister the Countess of Perche induced him to retur n to the wreck where they sank together. This was considered by some to be punishment for Hen ry's sins of lust in having so many illegitimate offspring. One of the two legitimate childre n of Henry I of England [the other was Matilda who married Geoffrey, count of Anjou).  He wa s drowned in the wreck of the "White Ship" (he died without issue).  "Just before twilight o n 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 an d 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 als o by the crew of the boat, the White Ship.  It was a fine, clear evening.  A gentle but stead y wind augured well for the crossing.  But when, towards midnight, the White Ship, the swifte st and most up-to-date vessel in the royal fleer, eventually put to sea, both passengers an d 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, liftin g the prow clean out of the water.  Soon the ship began to fill with water.  After vain attem pts to push it clear, a small dinghy was launched, and Prince William bundled into it.  As h e was rowed away, William heard in the darkness the cries of his illegitimate sister, the cou ntess of Perche, imploring him not to desert her.  He ordered the rowers to turn back.  Onc e they did so, however, dozens of other mentried to clamber aboard, the dinghy overturned, an d all aboard it were drowned. Only one man, a butcher from Rouen, survived the wreck, clingin g all night to the masthead in the icy water, and living to tell the tale.  For days they sea rched 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 labou red so purposefully to build up.  He had intended that William should inherit all from him. N ow his only surviving legitimate child was his daughter Matilda (also known as Maud).  Born i n 1102, Matilda had been married to the German emperor in 1114." --- Chris Given-Wilson and A lice Curteis, *The Royal Bastards of  eval England*, London, 1984, p 74
  REF: (soc.genealogy.medieval) nodpalmer@@CONC.TDSNET.COM.NOT:  "History" has it that the Blanc he Nef sank because its captain (and owner) Stephen FitzThomas allowed himself and his crew t o become drunk on wine William the Atheling and his companions liberated from his father's wi ne stores.  The sole evidence for this is based on the word of the "rustic", a butcher "Berol d" who supposedly clung to the mast and survived (attributed to his fleece garment.) As a ret ired navy officer, I cannot believe that FitzThomas would have been so careless. Think on thi s.  Stephen FitzThomas built the Blanche Nef to be the king's ship.  He had the heritage of h is father (who had piloted the Moira), and when he went to Henry and asked him to have as hi s "fief" to be the "king's ship", was told that Henry had chosen his ship already for that pa ssage,  but that Henry would entrust to him the safe passage of his only legitimate male  hei r, his treasure, and his wine stores.  Did Thomas FitzStephen allow his men to get drunk? I d on'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 w omen who were kin to kings, dukes, and emperors.  Given that those people surely had their wa iting women and attendants with them...that Ralth the Red, Gilbert of Exmes, the Earl of Ches ter and his wife, the nephew of the German emperos, and Henry's own stewards and scribes wer e on board....I can't think that one so lowly as a butcher was on that ship.  It's the equiva lent of saying that a bag lady was the sole survivor of the Concorde's maiden flight crash, o r that a homeless wino survived the crash of Air Force One. Consider also, that Henry had rec ently '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 t askto 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.  Th e earl of Chester died, as did the claimant to Rhuddlan.  Ralph the Red died, who had frustra ted the attempts of most of the rebellious barons in Normandy.  Interesting that Henry's so n 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 t o England. To me, this has always been as large a mystery as the princes in the tower, but mo re so...because of the possibly spurious survivor.  Think of it. Give a butcher a few hundre d pounds worth of gold coin, and he'll probably say he's seen martians. I'm not quite so sur e as Ken Follett who *caused* the sinking. But I'm certain in my heart that the ship's pilo t and owner did NOT run aground because he and his oarsmen were drunk. Paul J. Gans  [gans@@sc holar.chem.nyu.edu):  In my opinion you've made a good argument.  Yet the presence of one but cher boy isn't really all that difficult to explain. See how Sharon Newman does it in her nov el _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 enoug h damage to sink a ship. The Channel has always been treacherous.  Even in the great days o f wooden ships and iron men, the Channel claimed its share of ships.  A moment's inattentio n and a sudden gust of wind could do it.  The Channel is very shallow.  It doesn't take muc h to raise some rather monster waves.  And if the White Ship, heavily laden, found herself  b roadside to a 20-footer that would be all she wrote.  It had happened before and happened man y times since. I agree that the cause remains a mystery.  The enormity of the disaster has fa ded for us, but it was one of those things, like the death of Harold at Hastings, that change d 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 mot her was Matilda of Scotland (called Maud by her husband Henry I) who was the daughter of Marg aret (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 b een the natural Saxon successor had not William of Normandy conquered England.  "Aetheling" w as the Saxon " TITLe" for the heir-apparent to the crown.   Calling Margaret'a son "the Aethe ling" was a "concession" - if the Normans were at all capable of such a thing - to the Saxon s as Henry I tried (initially) to be a little less brutal than his father William, and his br other William Rufus in forming a new kingdom.

Details of William's family with Mathilde (Alice) de ANJOU