Two coincidences in one week

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Last week was very hectic. I was working ten-hour days, which meant leaving home at 7 am and getting back at 7 pm, something I haven’t done for a while. Luckily the weather here at the moment is absolutely beautiful so at least I was able to enjoy my bicycle rides each way, although I missed out on most of the daytime sunshine. Anyway two surprising coincidences cropped up during the week. The first is a slightly convoluted story… I’m currently reading the book ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ by Flora Thompson, first published in 1943, which is a semi-autobiographical series of stories about growing up in a poor hamlet in rural Oxfordshire in the 1880s. In that book the author describes their school days and mentions that the children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic but no geography or history, but they did pick some up from the maps adorning the walls of the schoolroom and the stories reproduced in the ‘readers’ that they all worked through. For example the reader might contain extracts from well-known novels and poems, descriptions of interesting places like Greenland and the Amazon, and historical episodes such as King Alfred burning the cakes, King Canute commanding the waves, Raleigh spreading is cloak over a puddle for Queen Elizabeth, and the sinking of the White Ship. I knew all those stories except the White Ship, so I had to look that up. I was surprised when I did so that such an important episode in English history seems to be largely forgotten today, although it was obviously still well known in the 1880s. Basically in 1120 the King of England, Henry I (son of William the Conqueror) was also duke of Normandy and as such was meant to pay homage to the French king. But he didn’t think it was seemly for one king to have to pay homage to another, so he sent his son William Aetheling, instead. Afterwards they all met up again on the Normandy coast and planned to sail back to England. The king set sail in his own royal ship, but his son and heir was offered a place on the White Ship, a beautiful and fast vessel that had just been refitted and was captained by Thomas FitzStephen, son of the man who had captained the ship that brought William I over to England for the Norman conquest of 1066, and who was keen to showcase his ship as well as highlight his family’s loyalty to the crown. The king agreed to his son, his other (illegitimate) children, and many nobles, knights and young men of the court travelling on this ship and they were all pleased to be on board and celebrated by opening some casks of wine, which they also shared with the crew. One man, Stephen of Blois, was too drunk to travel and disembarked, but the rest set sail late at night in an attempt to overtake the king’s ship, which had already departed. Less than a mile from shore they struck a rock and rapidly sank. William Aetheling apparently managed to get into a boat, but hearing the cries for help of his half-sister he ordered the already overloaded boat to turn back, whereupon many more people tried to get on board and the result was that they all drowned. Only one person of the more than 300 on board survived. The result was that when Henry I died in 1135, England was plunged into a 20-year period of civil war known as The Anarchy, when Stephen of Blois seized the crown from his cousin Matilda. I did know a little bit about this, as I had heard the story of how Stephen had besieged Matilda in Oxford castle and she escaped through the snow disguised in a white cloak. But I knew nothing of the wider war nor the background to it, and I was surprised that it seems to be so largely forgotten these days. Well on Monday I was chatting to one of my colleagues as we walked from one venue to another, and I asked her what other work she did and she mentioned that she was going to do the commentary on a documentary her friend was making about a little-known episode of English history. As soon as the said that I just knew what it was going to be - yes the story of the White Ship disaster and The Anarchy! So there you go. Sorry this is such a long post. There’s a lot more of the story to be found online if you’re interested! As for the other coincidence, I’ll have to write about that later!