25.11.1120 The White Ship was wrecked

The tragic consequences were the accident of the so-called White Ship in November 1120. Among the victims was William Aetheling, who was the only legitimate heir of King Henry I of England.

Envoys of Duke Godfrey came to London in 1120 to negotiate the terms of a marriage with Henry I. The king willingly renounced the celibacy he had observed after Matilda's death, for he could not wait to see the heirs he would have with his new wife, and was anxious to avoid ungodly conduct.

A marriage contract was signed on 10 April 1120, by which the king renounced the bride's dowry and promised the rich himself, and in addition Adeliza was declared to be "mistress of the English". She was not to be addressed as queen until her coronation. But Adezila did not come to England immediately afterwards. Perhaps she was not yet old enough to live with her husband-to-be, who was fifty-two at the time.

"The date of her birth is nowhere recorded, but we know that to contemporaries she was a little girl or virgin at the time of her betrothal. Perhaps she was not yet twelve years of age, and therefore had not yet reached the canonical age of marriage, which may perhaps explain why she had not reachedthe delayed marriage and to estimate Adezilla's birth to be sometime around 1109," writes Alison Weir in The Norman Queens of England.

That same year Henry I married his successor William to Mahaut of Anjou and the following year granted him the title of Norman duke. The young duke certainly did not unite the nations as his father had done; on the contrary, he proudly boasted that when he was king he would harness the English like donkeys to the plough. But his future devotees were spared such a cruel fate.

For on November 25, 1120, the king and his court prepared to return to England from Normandy. Two ships were waiting for them at Barfleur. Henry I. with his daughter-in-law and numerous courtiers, boarded one, and his seventeen-year-old son the other, which bore the name of Blanche-Nef-White, with almost all the young noblemen swarming around him.

The commander of the White Ship was the son of a man who had been captain of the Mora. William was accompanied by his tutor, two of the King's lion-faced sons, and the Marquise of Perche and Stephen of Blois. When darkness fell, the White Ship left the harbour as the drunken company urged the crew to overtake the King's, but in doing so she struck a massive rock and capsized bottom up without warning.

Berold was the only survivor, and everyone on board died, including Henry's only legitimate son William.

Sources: Alison Weir: The Norman Queens of England, https://justhistoryposts.com/, https://familypedia.wikia.org/