On a calm, clear night towards the end of November 1120, the White Ship set sail from Barfleur in Normandy, bound for England. Crowding aboard the little vessel, a riotous party of some three hundred passengers and crew were all royally drunk – literally so, since the three great barrels of wine they had consumed had been destined for the court of the English king, Henry I. It was his son, the seventeen-year-old William Adelin, chief among the passengers, who had ordered the wine to be distributed, but this generous gesture would cost him his life. For as the ship flew speedily but erratically among the treacherous rocks lining the coast off Barfleur, the inevitable happened. Driven hard onto a
