Title: |
The White Ship |
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Author: |
Charles Spencer |
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Category: |
Non Fiction |
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Rating: |
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Date Reviewed: |
June 10, 2024 |
The English nobles were in a festive mood. Barrels of wine were breeched, and everyone drank heavily, including all the crew members of the White Ship. Although King Henry had already departed, the revelers boasted how the speedy White Ship would beat the king across the channel. The carousing got so intense that some would-be passengers opted to depart the ship once they saw how deep everyone was into their cups. Alas staggering off of the ship before it left was Stephen of Blois, who contracted a bad case of diarrhea. When the White Ship departed, the oarsmen stroked mightly and craft shot forth. The sail was put up, even before the ship left the harbor, though normally the sails were not raised until open water was reached. As a result, the White Ship sailed much faster than the drunken helmsman realized, and the White Ship collided with a well known rocky promontory just outside Barfleur. Water poured in. The king's heir was hastily loaded onto the lone small boat and three retainers rowed him toward safety - but a woman cried out, imploring William Ætheling not to abandon her. The prince heard her cries, and ordered the rowboat back to the sinking ship - where upon panic-stricken and drowning people all grasped at the small craft until it too was swamped. Everyone on board drowned except for one butcher named Berold who clung to a mast. In one drunken tragedy, Henry's dynastic ambitions had been shattered. The book The White Ship is really the story of King Henry I's reign. The book begins with the details of William the Conqueror's invasion of England and the establishment of his rule. William the Conqueror had four sons, of whom the fourth was Henry. Since he was fourth in the line of succession, nothing was expected of Henry. But the third brother died in a hunting accident (there are several instances in this book of nobles dying during the hunt - it was a dangerous sport!) The eldest brother, Robert Curthose, went off on a crusade to the Holy Land, and thus, when the second brother died, King Henry was able to act quickly and seize the treasury, and had himself crowned. When Curthose returned from Jerusalem, war broke out between the two brothers over the right to rule. The downside to this book is the endless warfare. There is always some noble or prince challenging Henry's right to rule. Many of these men are abetted by the King of France (Louis the Fat). Normandy must have been a wasteland as decades of soldiers marched back and forth, plundering farms and burning villages. All of this violence takes place on the southern side of the English channel, though once in a while the Scots or the Welsh will also attack. Despite vows of loyalty and pledges of fealty, it seems any aristocrat who sees a glimmer of advantage will immediately abandon all oaths and go on the attack. King Henry I is considered a good king, mostly because England was at peace during his reign. Henry tried to cut down on corruption, and dealt harshly with criminals. King Henry was ruthless against the minters, who were authorized to create the silver coins of the English currency. If the minter was found to have debased the silver content in the coins, Henry ordered their right hand and their balls cut off (this penalty apparently was enacted on the majority of the minters.) People accused of treason were blinded. Thieves were hung. Once, when peasants were caught gathering firewood in the King's hunting forest, Henry ordered their feet cut off. To assemble the enormous dowry King Henry needed to raise to marry off his daughter, Matilda, Roger of Salisbury invented a counting table covered with cloth on which there appeared a pattern of big squares, like a checkerboard. The columns of squares represented pennies, shillings, pounds, all the way up to tens of thousands of pounds. The royal accountants used counters to show how much money had been collected and how much was still owed. This system of squares was called the Court of the Exchequer, and it was an enormous aid in the time of clumsy Roman numerals. The Exchequer had two arms - a group of barons would travel around the country settling disputes on rents and payments. This legal arm came to be known as the Upper Exchequer and evolved into the British Judicial branch, while the Lower Exchequer became the modern Treasury. After the death of William Ætheling, King Henry married again (his wife, Queen Matilda, had died before the White Ship catastrophe). But Henry was unable to bring another son into the world, so he gathered all of his mightiest knights and nobles and had them swear solemn oaths that they would recognize the right of Henry's daughter, the Matilda, to rule as Queen of England. Henry died after eating a surfeit of lampreys, and you can guess what happened next. Stephen of Blois (yes, the same man who disembarked from the White Ship just before it hoisted anchor) proclaimed himself king, and many powerful men supported his claim, because there is no way a woman should be allowed to rule the kingdom. The result was civil war, and this time the battles were fought on English soil. After years of back and forth warfare, Matilda and Stephen eventually reached an agreement where Stephen could be King, but after his death, then Matilda's son, King Henry II, would inherit the throne. And this is exactly what happened - King Henry II was the first of the Plantagenet kings, who ruled England for over 300 years until the Tudors took the throne. I thought this was interesting history, it filled in a big gap in my understanding of British history. Now if I could just figure out where the Wars of the Roses fits into British history... |
