White Ship disaster

This article is about the twelfth-century shipwreck. For fictional tales with this title, see The White Ship (disambiguation).

The White Ship (French: la Blanche-Nef; Medieval Latin: Candida navis) was a vessel transporting many nobles, including the heir to the English throne, that sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur during a trip from France to England on 25 November 1120. Out of approximately 300 people aboard, only one — a butcher from Rouen — survived.

Those who drowned included William Adelin, the only legitimate son and heir of Henry I of England; his half-siblings Matilda FitzRoy and Richard of Lincoln; Richard d'Avranches, Earl of Chester; and Geoffrey Ridel. With William Adelin's death, the king had no obvious successor, and his own death 15 years later set off a succession crisis and a period of civil war in England known as the Anarchy (1135–1153).

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