The Totally Awesome Book of Crazy Stories by Bill O'Neill

Author:Bill O'Neill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34 Sea Sickness

The line of succession to the British throne dates back more than 1,000 years. In that long history, countless wars, battles, coups, and conquests have seen the throne change hands between rivaling parties on numerous occasions. But on at least one of those, in the winter of 1120 CE, the entire English line of succession was altered forever by a series of events a lot more peculiar than any of those.

At that time, England was still under the control of the Norman rulers of northern France. The Norman Conquest of 1066 had seen William, the Duke of Normandy, defeat England’s King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. In doing so, William had taken control of Harold’s kingdom as the newly-crowned King William I of England.

The entire Norman kingdom was now divided between the northern half of France and the southern half of Great Britain. And lying between the two of them was the English Channel.

That fractured setup meant that the English kings of the Norman era were often obliged to divide their time between the French and English halves of their kingdom, and therefore were compelled cross the English Channel countless times a year. So, on November 25, 1120, a vessel called La Blanche-Nef (literally the “White Ship”) was chartered to carry the present English king, Henry I, the fourth surviving son of William the Conqueror, back across the Channel from France to England, along with all of the closest members of his court, much of his family, and his royal retinue.

At the last moment, however, Henry’s travel plans were changed. A separate vessel was chartered for the King to travel on alone, while much of the rest of his family and his court were left to travel aboard the White Ship. Precisely what happened next is unclear, but as the afternoon drifted into the evening, it seems likely that the aggravating delay to the White Ship’s departure caused by the King’s last-minute change of plans, or, perhaps, the freedom that came from no longer traveling under the King’s watchful gaze, led the 300 or so passengers on board the White Ship to organize an impromptu party. Casks of wine and ale were ordered and brought onto the ship in huge quantities so that, by the time the White Ship was finally ready to depart that night, most of its passengers and crew were by now roaring drunk.

Amid all of this revelry, the White Ship’s captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephen, was challenged by some of his passengers to race the King’s ship back to England. Knowing that his ship was indeed faster than one on which the King was now traveling, Fitz-Stephen accepted the challenge and set sail from the Norman port of Barfleur as quickly as possible. Within minutes of its departure, however, the White Ship came into trouble.

In the darkness of the winter night, the White Ship struck a submerged rock on her port side and quickly began to take on water. Just off the coast

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