Prince William Normandy ENGLAND

   Other names for William were PLANTAGENET and ENGLAND Prince.

   Ancestral File Number: 8XJ0-M4.

   General Notes:

Prince of ENGLAND.

Drowned in the wreck of "The White Ship".

BOOKS
Kings and Queens of Great Britain, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute, 1990: "William Atheling, Mar Matilda Daughter of Fulk V Count of Anjou, Drowned in the White Ship 1120."

The Political History of England, Vol II, George Burton Adams Longmans Green and Co, 1905, Ch VII, p151:
[1109] "...Just before the death of Anselm occurred that of Fulk Rechin, Count of Anjou, and the succession of his son Fulk V. He was married to the heiress of Maine, and a year later this inheritance, the overlordship of which the Norman dukes had so long claimed, fell in to him. OfHenry's marriage with Matilda two children had been born who survived infancy- Matilda, the future empress, early in 1102, and William in the late summer or early autumn of 1103..."
p158: "During Lent of the next year, 1113, Henry made formal peace with both his enemies, the king of France and the Count of Anjou. The peace with the latter was first concluded. It was very possibly Fulk's refusal to recognize Henry's overlordship of Maine that occasioned the war. To this he nowassented. He did homage for the county, and received investiture of it from the hand of the king. He also promised the hand of his daughter Matilda to Henry's son William. Henry, on his side, restored to favour the Norman allies of Fulk..."
p163: "At an important meeting of the great council at Salisbury in March, 1116, the king forced upon Thurstan the alternative of submission to Canterbury or resignation. The barons and prelates of the realm had been brought together to makeformal recognition of the right to the succession of Henry's son William, now fourteen years of age. Already in the previous summer this had been done in Normandy, the barons doing homage and swearing fealty to the prince. Now the English barons followed the example, and, bu the same ceremony, the strongest tie known to the feudal world, bound themselves to accept the son as their lord on the death of his father. The prelates, for their part, took oath that if they should survive Henry, they would recognize William as king, and then do homage to him in good faith. The incident is interesting less as an example of this characteristic feudal method of securing the succession, for this had been employed since the Conquest both in Normandy and in England, than because we are told that on this occasion the oath was demanded, not merely of all tenants in chief, but of all inferior vassals..."
Ch VIII p168: [1119] "...Henry was, however, quite willing to make peace. He had won over Louis' allies, defeated his attempt to gain the assistance of the pope, and finally overcome the revolted Norman barons. He might reasonably have demanded new advantages in addition to those which had been granted him in the peace of 1113, but all that marks this treaty is the legal recognition of his position in Normandy. Homage was done to Louis for Normandy, not by Henry himself, for he was the king, but by his son William for him. It is probable that at no previous date would this ceremony have been acceptable, either to Louis or to Henry. On Louis' part it was not merely a recognition of Henry's right to the duchy of Normandy, but it was also a formal abandonment of William Clito, and an acceptance of William, Henry's son, as the heir of his father. This act was accompanied by a renewal of the homage of the Norman barons to William, whether made necessary by the numerous rebellions of the past two years, or desirable to perfect the legal chain, now that William had been recognized as heir by his suzerain, a motive that would apply to all the barons.
This peace was made sometime during the course of the year 1120. In November Henry was ready to return to England, and on the 25th he set sail from Barfleur, with a great following. Then suddenly came upon him, not the loss of any of the advantages he had lately gained nor any immediate weakening of his power, but the complete collapse of all that he had looked forward to as the ultimate end of his policy. His son William embarked a little later than his father in the `White Ship,' with a brilliant company of young relatives and nobles. They were in a very hilarious mood, and celebrated the occasion by making the crew drunk. Probably they were none too sober themselves; certainly Stephen of Blois was saved to be king of England in his cousin's place, by withdrawing to another vessel when he saw the condition of affairs on the `White Ship.' Itwas night and probably dark. About a mile and a half from Barfleur the ship struck a rock, and quickly filled and sank. It was said that William would have escaped if he had not turned back at the cries of his sister, Henry's natural daughter,the Countess of Perche. All on board were drowned except a butcher of Rouen. Never perished in any similar calamity so large a number of persons of rank. Another child of Henry's, his natural son Richard, his niece Matilda, sister of Theobald and Stephen, a nephew of the Emperor Henry V, Richard, Earl of Chester, and his brother, the end of the male line of Hugh of Avranches, and a crowd of others of only lesser rank. Orderic Vitalis records that he had heard that eighteen ladies perished, who were the daughters, sisters, nieces or wives of kings or earls. Henry is said to have fallen to the ground in a faint when the news was told to him, and never to have geen the same man again."

The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes, Elizabeth Longford, 1991, Oxford Univ Press, pxix: "Normans and Plantagenets Genealogy: William Duke of Normandy died 1119."

A History of the English Speaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co p188:
"What may be judged malignant fortune now intervened. The King had a son, his heir apparent, successor indisputable. On this young man of seventeen many hopes and assurances were founded. In the winter of 1120 he was coming back from a visit to Francein the royal yacht called the `White Ship.' Off the coast of Normandy the vessel struck a rock and all but one were drowned. The prince had indeed been embarked in a boat. He returned to rescue his sister. In this crisis the principle of equality asserted itself with such violence that at the ship's side so many leaped into the boat that it sank. Two men remained afloat, the ship's butcher and a knight. `Where is the Prince?' asked the knight above the waves. `All are drowned.' replied the butcher. `Then,' said the knight, `all is lost for England,' and threw up his hands. The butcher came safe to shore with the tale. None dared tell it to the King. When at last he heard the tidings `he never smiled again.' This was morethan the agony of parental grief for an only son. It portended the breakdown of a system and prospect upon the consolidation of which the whole life's work of Henry stood. The spectre of anarchy grew, and every noble in his castle balanced hischances upon who would succeed to the Crown."

The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, Antonia Fraser, 1975, Alfred Knopf, p24: "William Athling, mar Matilda of Anjou, died 1120..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File 8XJ0-M4 ?"Atheling" Died 26 Sep 1119, Ver 4.10 Died 26 ?Nov 1119 Brother Richard Died 26 Sep 1119 also "at sea", HESP Died Winter 1120, TPHE Died Aft 25 Nov 1120, 9HPW-GM William De NORMANDY Mar Jun 1119 Mathilde D' ANJOU [DUCHESS OF NORMANDY] 8XJ2-D6.

   Marriage Information:

William married Duchess Matilda D' Anjou NORMANDY, daughter of Count Fulk V ANJOU and Countess Ermentrude Du Maine ANJOU, in Jun 1119 in Lisieux, Calvados, Normandy, France. (Duchess Matilda D' Anjou NORMANDY was born about 1107 in Angers, Maine-Et-Loire, France and died in 1154 in L' Abbey, Fontevrault, Maine-Et-Loire, France.)