The White-Nave is a Norman Navire which made shipwreck with Barfleur with broad of the Cotentin, the November 25th 1120 with step less than 140 high barons and eighteen women of high birth, girls, sisters, nieces or wives of kings and counts on his board, among which the heir to the throne of England, the prince Guillaume Adelin, wire of the king Henri Beauclerc.

As it embarked with Honfleur, a man of Normandy, Thomas, wire of Etienne, found it and, offering a gold marc to him, says to him: “My father served yours on sea all his life; it is him which carried it on its vessel to England, when your father went there to fight Harold. Lord king. Grant to me in stronghold the same office; I have for your royal service a vessel equipped well which one calls the White-Nave. ”

The king answered: “I chose the ship on which I will pass, but I entrust readily my sons to you Guillaume and Richard, and all their procession. ” By the order of the king, embarked on the White-Nave nearly three hundred people.

All brilliant youth prepared joyeusement with the voyage. They made give wine to the fifty oarsmen and drove out with derision the priests who wanted to bless the vessel. The night having come, the young princes pressed the Thomas owner to make force of oars to reach the vessel of the king who was already well far. Animated by the wine, the crew obeys with heat and, in order to cross to shortest, the owner took by the short-nap cloth of Barfleur (announced today by the Phare of Gatteville), bordered of shelves with water flower.

The White-Nave having come to strike violently against one of these shelves, it half-opened immediately and one heard an immense cry thorough by all the crew. Water still went up and all returned in silence. Only two men succeeded in retaining themselves with the main-yard, the butcher of the edge, a Rouen are born from the name from Bérold and the young person Godefroi, wire of Gilbert of the Eagle. They saw a man raising the head above water: it was the Thomas pilot, who, after having plunged in the floods, went back to surface. “That became the son of the king? ” he asked them. He reappeared, neither him, neither his brother, nor none as of theirs. ” the two shipwrecked men answered. “Misfortune with me! ” exclaimed Thomas, and it replongea in the sea.

The Godefroi young person of the Eagle could not support the cold of this frozen night of November and released the yard and let himself run thoroughly. Collected the following day by fishermen, his companion remained alone to tell the disaster.

It is said that it was a child who announced to it sinister news with king Henri who, to the first words which he heard, fell to ground as struck down. Since this day, never more one did not see it smiling.

The shipwreck of the White-Nave, by leaving Henri without male heir, resulted in to redistribute to a significant degree the Anglo-Norman political chessboard of the beginning of. An older sister of Guillaume, Mathilde Emperesse succeeded her father like heiress with the throne but, died of Henri, the barons who had sworn to support his accession with the throne give up it, allowing the cousin of Guillaume and Mathilde, Etienne of Blois, which had not been accepted like passenger or had been unloaded at the last time of the White-Nave, to usurp the throne. This reign will cause a civil war of 1135 to 1154 to which only the death of Etienne of Blois will put an end.

This maritime disaster was also prejudicial in France which, hitherto, had always counterbalanced the political weight of Normandy while being combined on Anjou against it. By linking Normandy, England and Anjou, the marriage of Mathilde put an end to this policy and carried the Anglo-Norman domination to the Loire. Then, the marriage of the proper son of Mathilde with Aliénor of Aquitaine will carry this domination until the the Pyrenees.

Victims

• Guillaume Adelin, only son legitimates of the king Henri I {{er}} of England;
• Mathilde, princess Norman, natural girl of the king Henri Beauclerc and marry Rotrou III count of the Pole;
• Richard II Goz, Viscount of Avranches and count de Chester (England) and his Mathilde wife of Blois (sister of Etienne of Blois);
• Otvar d' Avranches, brother of Richard ( Goz ) of Avranches and governor of prince Guillaume Adelin;
• Guillaume de Pirou, royal seneshal;
• Guillaume Bigod;
• Godefroi of the Eagle;
• Raoul the Russet-red one;
• Gilbert d' Exmes

Source

• Régine Pernoud, Aliénor of Aquitaine , Paris, Albin Michel, 1966, ch. 8
• Vital Orderic, History of Normandy