Sinking of the White Ship
November 25, 1119
Off Barfleur, a crew drunk on wine rowed the White Ship onto a rock in the moonlight. Henry I's only legitimate son William Adelin drowned along with a hundred and forty young nobles. Chroniclers said the king never smiled again. The succession crisis would produce the Anarchy, two decades of civil war between Stephen and Matilda that devastated England and left castles and fields in ruin.
In context
Also in 1119 (3 other events on record)
- Field of Blood · Middle East · War
- University of Bologna consolidates · Europe · Culture
- Almoravid decline begins · Africa · Politics
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Disaster
Era
High Middle Ages (1000–1300), one of 1,306 events from that era on Saeculum.