Sinking of the White Ship

I hope all of my American readers and friends had a lovely Thanksgiving and that those of you who are traveling will get home safely. There is a nasty storm looming, though, so take care.
November 25, 1120 was a date of momentous significance, for the sinking of the White Ship and the loss of Henry I’s only legitimate son set in motion events that would lead to civil war and the eventual accession to the English throne of the first king of the Plantagenet dynasty, Henry II. Imagine how different English and French history would have been if the White Ship had not gone down on that frigid November night. (Just the thought of being denied the Plantagenets to write about gives me a shiver.) Over three hundred men and women died when the White Ship struck a rock in Barfleur Harbor, most of them highborn. Here is a passage from that scene in Saints, page 22, as the only survivor, a butcher’s apprentice from Rouen who had clung to the ship’s yardarm during that long, icy night, waits to die.
* * *
When he heard the voices, muffled and distorted in the fog, Berold felt a weary wonderment that his ordeal was over, that God’s good angels were coming for him at last. But they came not in winged chariots as the priests had taught. Instead, they glided out of the fog in a small fishing craft, its hull painted yellow and black, its single sail as bright as blood.
Berold tried to yell; it emerged as a hoarse croak. But they’d already seen him, were dipping their oars into the sea. And then they were alongside, and one of the men had nimbly scrambled out onto the mast, was cutting him loose, and Berold realized that for him, salvation had come in the unlikely guise of three Breton fishermen. He had been spared to bear witness, to tell the world that the White Ship had gone down off Barfleur Point, with the loss of the English king’s son and all aboard, save only a butcher’s lad from Rouen.
* * *
The accepted story is that the crew were drunk, having shared some of the wine on board as they awaited the arrival of the young prince, William, who was carousing with friends in a wharfside tavern. But one historian later made an intriguing suggestion, speculating that it might have been murder. I tend to be very skeptical of conspiracy theories, especially when there is no way of proving them. The obvious suspect would have been the king’s nephew, Stephen, who was supposed to sail on the White Ship and changed his mind at the eleventh hour. From what we know of Stephen, though, he would not have been ruthless enough, or crafty enough, to pull off a mass murder of this magnitude.. But the historian, Victoria Chandler, had a much more interesting—and more plausible—suspect than Stephen in mind. She suggested that attention should be paid to Ranulf de Mechelin, a major character in Saints, whose checkered career indicates he would have been quite capable of such a monstrous crime and without losing a night’s sleep over the three hundred people who died when the White Ship sank. He also had a compelling motive; his uncle was a passenger on the White Ship and his death enabled Ranulf to claim the earldom of Chester. I am not convinced this was the case, but the story set forth in the the following link definitely makes interesting reading. http://www.medievalists.net/2013/05/2...
November 25th was also the date of a significant battle in the Holy Land, when in 1177, the sixteen year old Baldwin IV, known to history as the Leper King, soundly defeated Saladin at the battle of Montgisard, which rated several chapters in The Land Beyond the Sea.
And on November 25, 1487, Henry Tudor finally got around to having his wife, Elizabeth of York, crowned as his queen.