The White Ship [electronic resource]

Spencer, Charles2021

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Summary

Here, Sunday Times bestselling author Charles Spencer tells the real story behind legend, and shows how one incredible shipwreck changed England’s course forever.In 1120, the White Ship was known as the fastest ship afloat. When it sank, it was sailing from Normandy to England with the only legitimate heir to King Henry I, William of Atheling, aboard. He was drunk, carousing with his companions and pushing wine into the eager hands of the crew.The next day only one of the three hundred who had boarded the ship was still alive. A butcher who had slunk aboard to pursue his wealthy debtors clung to the ship’s floating mast and was rescued, along with the story of the shipwreck: the blind-drunk crew, William’s gusto to overtake his father’s ship, the hull-shredding impact with submerged rock, the sinking of the White Ship, and the tragic fate of William, heir to England and Duke of Normandy.William, a raucous, arrogant young Prince and the face of England’s future, had drowned along with a hefty score of the social elite. The absence of an obvious heir led to two decades of tremendous bloodshed as civil war erupted over who should inherit the crown. One incredible shipwreck and two decades of violent uncertainty; England’s course had changed forever.