The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream

Written by Charles Spencer

Narrated by Richard Trinder

THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘As gripping as any thriller. History doesn't get any better than this’ BILL BRYSON ’A brilliant read … Game of Thrones but in the real world’ ANTHONY HOROWITZ

PICKED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 BY THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE GUARDIAN, THE DAILY MAIL AND THE DAILY EXPRESS.

The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king’s heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown violently off course.

In a riveting narrative, Charles Spencer follows the story from the Norman Conquest through to the decades that would become known as the Anarchy: a civil war of untold violence that saw families turn in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a desperate game of thrones. All because of the loss of one vessel – the White Ship – the medieval Titanic.

‘Highly enjoyable’ Simon Heffer
‘Brilliant’ Dan Jones
‘Fascinating’ Tom Bower

The #2 Sunday Times bestseller on Sunday 18 June 2021

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Sep 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9780008296834

Charles Spencer

Charles Spencer is the author of seven history books, including Sunday Times (London) bestsellers The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream, Blenheim: Battle for Europe (shortlisted for History Book of the Year, UK National Book Awards), and Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I. To Catch a King: Charles II’s Great Escape was a Times (London) bestseller in 2017 and 2018. He also cohosts The Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast and has presented historical documentaries for television. He was awarded an MA in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford University, before going on to work for the NBC News for a decade, as an on-air reporter for Today, and a presenter for the History Channel.

Reviews for The White Ship

[Kathryn Shearman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great tale about the the sinking of the ship which carried the heir the the English throne and his youthful relatives and companions to their death and changed the course of history. Beautifully written and researched- brings history to life

[Alister · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I recall the narrative skipped backward and forward in time a little too much; made it a bit difficult to follow in audio format. Overall, pretty good though.

[Sheri Lin Poisson ONeill · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a fantastic read. Extremely well researched. I enjoyed it immensely.

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a comprehensive book about the events leading up to the Anarchy, including the wars up to the coronation of Henry II. It's almost a biography of Henry I, and the sinking of the White Ship is covered in that context. The result of losing about 200 people, many royal or noble, was catastrophic in England and northern France, especially the death of Henry I's heir, William.If you've been watching the tv series, The House of Dragons, this is the material that the show is based on - very roughly. Obviously, there were no dragons in medieval England, but George RR Martin used the people and events liberally in writing his fantasy. Mr. Spencer has done a good job of covering the history of that era. Occasionally he gets very detailed - probably too much for an average reader - but I enjoy English history, so I can understand most of it. This is a must-read for those who want to know more about the Conquest and era leading up to the Plantagenets.

[chris.wolak · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Spenser packs a lot into this book. A couple of times I felt overwhelmed by the number of names and relationships* (for example, there are so many Matildas!), but I enjoyed it and will never forget Henry I, his daughter Empress Matilda, or the idiocy that sunk the White Ship 901 years ago on 25 November 1120.

I’d actually like to read more about Empress Matilda. Anyone have reading recommendations?

* Spencer does a good job of reminding the reader who’s who, it just took some extra brain power to keep them all organized in my mind.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Narrative history of events of Henry I and his children, with the sinking of the White Ship occurring nearly exactly half-way through. It is the pivot point on which the fortunes of Henry rise and then fall. Spencer makes the case it had repercussions for the rest of the Middle Ages and even to the present. Henry lost his male heir, was unable to create another, allowing the mixing of a new royal house the Plantagenet ie. the houses of Lancaster and York, leading to the Wars of the Roses, Tudors, and so on. It's a reasonable argument, but also counter-factual "what if", which historians sometimes like to emphasize to demonstrate how important an event was. In the same way certain battles are pivotal to broader history. Hard to imagine another ship sinking more influential to English history. And it was so stupid, like tripping and breaking you neck, or getting hit by a bus, we look for meaning but find only banality and lady fortune for consolation. Spencer has managed to make a decent book with it at the core.

[john257hopper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an account of a 900 year old shipwreck that had a profound effect on English history, leading to civil war and anarchy on a scale that was unprecedented in British history (or at least as far as we know, given that we know comparatively little, for example, about the chaos that must have took place during the vacuum after the Roman legions left 700 years earlier). The White Ship was an advanced craft for 1120, and it was piloted by an experienced captain, whose father had captained the flagship of King Henry I's father William the Conqueror when he had invaded England 54 years earlier. But disaster ensued on a rock off the coast of Barfleur in Normandy on a freezing cold late November night, sending almost all the 300 or so passengers and crew to the bottom of the Channel, including King Henry's only legitimate son and heir, William, two of his numerous illegitimate children (several of whom who were fairly important figures in their own right) and a significant chunk of the cream of the Anglo-Norman ruling class. The cause was chronic drunkenness among both crew and passengers, ironically given large amounts of wine by Prince William himself; intoxication so obvious that several passengers actually disembarked before launch in fear of the consequences, including the king's nephew and eventual successor Stephen of Blois (though he also apparently had diarrhoea brought on by his excessive drinking). William was initially taken away in the only lifeboat by his bodyguards, but he ordered the boat to turn back to rescue his half sister Mathilda, and the boat was swamped by desperate drowning people. We know all this through the account of the only survivor, probably the lowliest of the ship's complement, a butcher named Berold who had joined the ship to chase debts he was owed and whose life was saved by his rough woolen garments protecting him from the extreme cold, and his managing to cling on to part of the ship's mast. Very few bodies were ever recovered, though one of these was that of Richard of Lincoln, one of the king's illegitimate sons.Henry had invested all his hopes in his son William. Possibly due to the intense rivalry he had experienced with his own elder brothers, Robert Curthose and king William II Rufus, Henry only had one legitimate son, in a probable attempt to provide clarity and a clear undisputed succession for both the throne of England and the ducal seat of Normandy. (He had around 9 illegitimate sons, out of over 20 children born out of wedlock to a total of over half a dozen different women). His wife Mathilda had died a couple of years before the disaster. He married again, to Adeliza of Louvain, but they had no children. He forced his barons to swear allegiance to his legitimate daughter Mathilda as his successor, but this was disputed by his nephew Stephen who seized the crown and a bitter civil war ensued, in which much of the country was ravaged, plundered by both sides and by bands of mercenaries. The ebb and flow of war shifted but there was no peace until 1153 when finally Stephen acknowledged as his successor his rival Mathilda's son Henry. Almost certainly none of this would have happened had the White Ship not sank. So it is fair to say that, while there have been many better known shipwrecks (Mary Rose, Titanic, Lusitania), none of these were as politically influential as the White Ship disaster; as the author concludes, "The shipwreck impacted spectacularly on the next generation, resulting in the bloodiest anarchy that England has ever suffered.", the "vacuum" of William's death having, following Henry's failure to produce a replacement heir with his second wife, "morphed into a chasm, into which the subjects on both sides of the Channel fell headlong". Great narrative history that explains the contextual historical background very clearly and colourfully.