History Sunday: Anniversary of the White Ship disaster

I always miss anniversaries of historical dates, I'm either a day late, or in this case almost a week.  I just happened upon this one and decided it wasn't too late to write a post (my first one in a while).

William Adelin, Duke of Normandy, isn't a common household name, is it?  Unlike Richard III, Edward Longshanks,Thomas Becket, he's barely a footnote in history books.  He deserves more of a place in history considering it was his death that began the infamous Plantagenet dynasty in England.

William Adelin was the eldest, and only, son of King Henry I of England, and his first wife Edith (Matilda) of Scotland.  Looking back through the patrilineal side, William's grandfather was William the Conqueror (part I, part II, part III), Duke of Normandy and first Norman King of England, and his grandmother was Matilda of Flanders.  Through his mother, Edith of Scotland, his grandfather was King Malcolm III of Scotland, and grandmother Saint Margaret of Wessex.  Some confusion with his mother's name, she was christened Edith (an Anglo-Saxon name), however when she became Queen of England she changed it to Matilda, however I prefer referring to her as Edith because she was Scottish, and there are far too many Matilda's in this era.  All in all, William Adelin has some lineage going for him.

He became Duke of Normandy (ish) in 1120 because his father was a little too proud to do homage to the King of France for Normandy, and so sent his son.  This all sounds very familiar, doesn't it?  Henry I is certainly not the last king to send his son to France for this reason.

It can safely be said that William Adelin was the future of England and Normandy for the period he was alive, as the heir of Henry I.  We can only imagine what the father's expectations for his son were, or those of the nobles and normal folks'.  However, they were never to be lived up to.

Now, my cultured friends, many of you will know what the White Ship disaster is considering you've found this blog post, however for those of you who are simply curious wanderers I'll briefly explain.

The White Ship disaster is one of those important moments in the history of England from which there spilled lots of "what ifs".  The year is 1120, Henry I is sitting comfortably on the throne of England, he and his only son and heir are across the sea in Normandy.  Wanting to test out a new ship, the guilty "white ship" of the title, it's offered to the King, who refuses and instead passes it to his son.  The young heir to the throne, along with a handful of Henry I's illegitimate children, plus a good few hundred people, march onto the ship and both set sail from Barfleur in Normandy, heading to England.  Only one party would arrive.

The white ship sunk, leaving only two survivors, and William Adelin, only son of King Henry I, was not one of them,

The rest is a very dark, cold, corrupt part of history, known aptly as the Anarchy.

The white ship disaster has the potential to spark a multitude of different what if scenarios.  What if William had survived?  What sort of king would he have made?  How would the rest of the history of England have gone?  What would an England without the Plantagenet dynasty at the head have looked like?

Probably quite dull.

I am joking, but you can't say the Plantagenet family didn't know how to kick up turmoil.

Getting back to it.....William Adelin was only 17 when he perished in the Channel with his wife.  As he was so young, and had almost no power in his own lifetime, he's been mostly forgotten by history except as a footnote at the beginning of the Anarchy.  I couldn't really find that much about Adelin, save from reading before he got in a lifeboat he went to fetch his illegitimate sister, and by doing this killed pretty much everyone in said lifeboat by overfilling it.  If it's true, at least we know he's wasn't selfish.

It's all well and good making what if scenarios about history, but the nature of the beast is to be chaotic and messy, even when there is an obvious heir.  If Adelin hadn't perished, and become King of England something else would have happened.  A war between him and his cousin William Clito for the throne, or for Normandy?  His sons would have rebelled, died, something else.  If one remarkable thing hadn't happened, then something else would.  No king's reign in England was not marked by some important date.

Unfortunately, for William, the important date in his life to be contributed to history was his death.

I've read a few fiction novels about the 12th century, mostly because I'm obsessed with Henry II, who would never have became king if Adelin had survived. Just imagine, a red haired, energetic, intelligent man amounting to a measly Count of Anjou, forgotten by most.  What a waste.

Thankfully history was on Henry's side, however it certainly did no favours for the innocent people of England between the grandfather's death and the grandson's ascension.  From what I can imagine, and what history tells us in the famous quote:

"Christ and his Saints slept"

We can only have nightmares about what the anarchy was actually like for people living through it.  I don't know who had it worse, noble men and women who had to decide which horse to place their bets on, or the ordinary folk who were caught up in something that they probably didn't care much for.  Do you care who's Queen of England?  Does it affect you in any way?  I can't imagine it affected the people working the land much either, but maybe that's the ignorant part of my speaking.

The Anarchy all ended in Henry of Anjou, Matilda of England's eldest son, and Henry I's grandson, becoming King of England, hence beginning one of the most tumultuous dynasties in English history, the Plantagenets as they're known now, but that's another story.

And that brings to end this modest post about a very interesting figure of English history, one of the only few who's "what ifs" could have changed English history.  William Adelin, Duke of Normandy, only son and heir of Henry I of England.

Travelling Scot: ALWAYS check your train!

I have been travelling around the country since I was 17; every summer I would chose a handful of places I wanted to go to, usually landmarks I wanted to see, and then plan accordingly.  My Most ambitious was the summer before last when I literally did a very large loop around England.  I travel everywhere on trains, short distances on buses, usually day trips, so I am a seasoned train traveller.  My first solo train journey was when I was about 15 coming back from my family in Newcastle in the North East of England.  That's six years and a hell of a lot of trains, even when I went to Carcassonne it was trains all the way.

I will now tell you a story that has stuck in my mind.  I was on a train to Newcastle about two or three years ago now, I was in my late teens and already by that point trains were comfortable.  For those of my readers who don't know England, or who have never been north of Manchester or York, there aren't many stops down the North-East Coast.  They usually begin in Aberdeen and end at London but the stops are few because there aren't really any major cities on the East Coast of England.  There is only one stop between Edinburgh and Newcastle, sometimes there isn't any, and that is the lovely town of Berwick-Upon-Tweed, a place I go to annually.  It's roughly 40 minutes away from Edinburgh and probably the same, if not less, from Newcastle.  Edinburgh is a big station, and I mean big, I avoid changing there because it's just so vast and the platforms are every which way to Narnia; go up the stairs, hop on your right foot, click your tongue and roll down a ramp, there you are at platform 11.  On this journey to Newcastle we stopped at Edinburgh, from Glasgow anyway, and we sat there for about 10 minutes.  People get on, you watch them look around awed trying to find their seats and hope no one takes the empty one next to you.  We pull away from the platform after 10 minutes is up and this girl suddenly gets up and runs for the doors.  Turns out she's got on the wrong train, the next stop isn't for another 40 minutes until Berwick-Upon-Tweed.  I have told people about this girl for years, wondering how she managed it.

Folks, I no longer wonder.

I've been having a bad week, we all know what University stress is like, and so when I booked to see Love Labour's Won in Stratford-upon-Avon, I thought it would set this week up to be good.  The play was good, the fact I couldn't sleep at night was not.  I've been to Stratford many, many times, you have to change at Birmingham, the same for Glasgow, the same for Leicester.  I've only ever changed at Birmingham for Leicester once in the summer, it was quiet, the terminating station was Leicester, it was all plain and simple.  The platforms at New Street are not.  They have the evil letter subscripts, like 9a, 10b, etc.  The train I was booked on terminated at Stansted Airport, via Leicester, and was leaving from platform 9a, Crosscountry service,  The train I got on was a crosscountry, although not one like I'd ever seen before, and stopped at my platform.

I think you know where I'm going with this.

It turns out where I was standing was very near the border between 9a and 9b.  The train I actually got on was for Plymouth.  The next stop, I was to find out too late, was Cheltenham, 50 minutes away.  I cannot tell you how much of a bullet I dodged on this trip.  There was another guy, slightly older than me, who was not so lucky and had done the exact same thing as I had.  He had a flight to catch at Stansted, one he could now potentially miss.

Anyone could freak out, be worried, but thanks to my experience in travelling I honestly wasn't worried, probably the only thing I haven't been worried about for a few weeks.  All you do is get off at the next stop, which unfortunately for me was so far away, and then hop on the next train back to Birmingham.  I did have a booked seat on the Crosscountry to Leicester, but it was an open return ticket, meaning I could use it once at any time between now and the 14th January 2015.

I got talking to the Spanish PhD student from Birmingham who had made the exact same mistake as I had.  I thought it funny how two possible future academics can be so clueless about transport.  After all of these years of travelling, I make a rookie mistake.  The only thing I've done on trains that came close was getting an express train to an area of Glasgow with a bad rep by accident, but that was only 10 minutes away by train anyway.  Cheltenham was a whole other city!

The ironic thing in this pic is that I actually went down
past Stratford-Upon-Avon where I had set off from.

If anyone does do this by accident, the rail don't charge you for making this mistake, thank God, and so you just explain to a conductor what's happened and they'll tell you what train you need to catch to get back to your original destination.  Crosscountry staff were really good with us two idiots when we explained, and they did their very best so my new Spanish friend had a chance of catching his flight home for Christmas.

Spanish dude, I hope you caught that flight.

The reason for this post, well reasons, were that:
1. Always, always, always, check the train you're on.  It says on the front of the train, sometimes, but not always, it's kind enough to say it inside the carriage (not for me, of course).
2. To give everyone a laugh at my mistake

When I did eventually get back to Birmingham I got the 2 hour later train to Leicester from the same platform, and one of the platform attendants recognised me and had a good ol' laugh at what had happened to me.  I must admit I wasn't in the best of moods for this to happen to me this week, if it was any other, less stressful, time of the year I would have laughed, and now I'm sitting in my flat at Leicester, I find it does have some mirth, and it will certainly make my friends laugh when I get home for Christmas.

Warning folks, always check your train, or you may find yourself seeing the inside of another city's train station, rather than the city itself.  Has anyone else done the same thing as I?  Did you get on an express train that didn't stop at all from one point to anther, 2+ hours away?

The social tight rope between the sexes

I was actually reluctant to write this post because of the obviously precarious subject matter; don't want to go insulting any of the four regular readers I have accumulated.

I don't have to deal with this much, the relationships between men and women thing.  My friends are girls, I now live with girls, and I don't have a boyfriend to worry about (not in that way but from what I've heard, boyfriends are....work...some of the time).  I live quite a male-secluded life.  There are men on my course, as there were in my old one, but as you can tell from my single status nothing's ever come of it, they're colleagues, people I am forced to see 5 days a week and then I get a Masters in return.

The relationship between men and women is a long stretching, complicated, dangerous, sensitive, and at times rewarding one, but how long has it taken us all to get to this questionable truce?  Hundreds of thousand of years, folks!  I do not consider myself a die-hard feminist, I simply believe in human equality and the right to make independent choices.  Women have had a notoriously oppressive history, seen as nothing but objects, deemed as "imperfect versions of men" (thanks Christianity), and restrained from reaching their full potential.  The world isn't like that now, this is the 21st Century and the bickering and fights between the sexes should be over.

In an ideal world yes, and although in economy, jobs and family life, etc, we all are, but what about the contentious area of actual inter-sex relationships?  I'm making this post sound so serious when it's not.  This post is simply about wolf-whistling and inappropriate methods of flirting with the other sex.  Unfortunately due to my limited time spent out in the real world I've been sheltered from the true horrors of inter-flirting, at least I think that but I have been told differently by several of my friends who have seen me oblivious to the flirting of the opposite sex (yes, I am that girl).

Living a life as a semi-hermit has its perks, it also has its understandable disadvantages.  I went to the local supermarket for an extension to my weekly shopping usually done in Aldi (I love you Aldi but sometimes...you know....you just aren't enough).  Everything was good, I bought too many tins of soup, and smoothie's that just jumped miraculously into my hands of their own volition, I swear.  Walking back down the busy road to my flat I was changing my Ipod, innocent, in my own little cloud world when boom!  or rather Honk!

It came from right beside me where the road was, the lane closest to me.  Cars and trucks beep at each other all of the time, but this was a short sharp sound that made me look up instinctively.  What happened was the most disturbing and weirdest thing that has happened to me this year (to my reflective knowledge).  I looked up and made eye contact with a middle-aged man driving one of the trucks pictured left (but the British version) and he gave me a sort of nod.  How to explain this nod is difficult, it wasn't a chin-up "how you doin" nod; if I was to explain it I would say it was an encouraging nod, but I think we can safely say what it really was.

I don't know if it's common in other countries to be beeped by passing cars, lorries, trucks.  It comes in different forms in vehicles, the most frightening and obvious one is of course the ominous engine rev.  It's the vehicular form of a wolf-whistle.  Was it, or is it, appropriate for men to still do this to women walking on the street?  On this line of thought is the outdated wolf whistle still appropriate?

I think even women are divided on this issue; some see it as a compliment, which I suppose it is, whilst others see it as an insult of one kind or another, a kind of objectification.  All I can say is that I was utterly gobsmacked.  This has never happened to me in such an obvious form.  I was the only one on the pavement and he was looking directly at me.  The first thing I said was "did that just happen?".  I thought it was funny, don't get me wrong, slightly gross but funny.

It was more of the shock of it happening that inspired me to write this post than any other motive.  At least I haven't heard one of those awful pick-up lines dropped, I would burst into laughter right in front of the poor sod.  The fact that it was a middle-aged guy, the fact that in all of the older movies you see the guys wolf-whistling, is it an outdated thing, beeping horns and whistling?  Is it as common for women to do?  Men seem to be more under the influence of their impulses, they can't control them as well as women seem to, for the most part.  I've seen attractive men and I don't start making noises in their direction.  Where did this culture come from anyhow?

Although my story is mild, very very mild, do you have an embarrassing story like it?  Did you get dropped a pick-up line when he was being serious (you poor thing)?  Do you think it is outdated?

Review: Reign, Season 1

It might not be surprising to most that I chose to watch this drama about Scotland's most famous Queen, but in order to do so I had to let go of one of my principles.  It took me a year or self-refusal to finally watch this drama by CW.  I've mentioned before on this blog that I don't write historical

fiction because that particular group of fans are so harsh and at times very critical, but I will now confess my sin; I am kind of the same when it comes to costume dramas.  I'm not an expert, or a historian, but a self-taught fashion history enthusiast.  That being said I am not extreme, I do not really know that much about what materials were available when, but I do know style, shape and rough fashion changes from the eleventh century onward.

This is why Reign really, really annoyed me when I saw episode stills.

They did not have 21st Century designers in 16th Century France, they did not have silly little wire crowns and other headpieces, in fact they were still covering their hair!  So many things about the costumes in this drama annoyed me and that was before I began to watch it.  I was aware before I started that not only were the costumes inaccurate, but the plot was too; no surprise there then, there hasn't been a truly accurate historical drama in decades, perhaps ever, because history is relatively slow and sometimes uneventful and doesn't make for good watching material.  That being said, once I began to watch it I started feeling that self-loathing that many people do when they watch a drama like this.

First of all let's start with plot so I don't seem like a crazy, ignorant judgmental person.  It has your typical twists and turns, court intrigues, assassination plots and of course the poor sod who has visions of a dark and gloomy future.  I know Nostradamus was never associated with France in this way, nor did he play as big a part at court, but I love him, or rather the way the actor played him.  I won't put any spoilers in this review because that would be bad for anyone who hasn't watched it.  The drama is good, typical teen-angst filled drama with too much kissing and too-perfect men.  I didn't really like Mary's relationship with either Francis or Bash, there just didn't seem any spark in either of them.  I loved Catherine de Medici and I have a grudging respect for Mary.  I liked that Mary wasn't a naive sap that things just kept happening to; there are bad things happening to her because there has to be for character growth but I liked how she dished some back.  I would recommend this if you've ran out of dramas to watch.

Now, my biggest pet peeve.  Fashion!  The picture on the right, folks, was as close to historically accurate the show ever got.  Her hair isn't covered but at least she has the semblance of a French Hood on and slightly period correct clothing.

I think a part of the reason people watch historical dramas is because of the costumes.  The costume department of Reign really let the audience down.  It felt to me as though they just bought loads of dresses from designers as a form of product placement rather than designing anything themselves, which is a shame because there is so much opportunity in situations like these.

The men's costumes looked pretty accurate most of the time but I to admit to having a huge gap in my knowledge about men's fashion at any time in history.  It was weird that the men looked as though they were from the 16th Century but the women's clothing definitely wasn't; the whole thing seemed disjointed and really weird.

Another thing that irked me was that Mary, Queen of Scots, did not look even the slightest bit like the real Queen.

Mary Stewart, Queen of Scotland had red hair, couldn't they have at least gotten the actress to wear a wig, or die her hair a dark shade of auburn?  Adelaide Kane is gorgeous, and she would be a perfect actress to play one of my unpublished characters if it was ever made into a movie (I think about these things, I can't help it) and she is a good actress, save from the romance scenes, there was just no chemistry for me; but I was disappointed she didn't look more authentic.

I am not the Queen's biggest fan, in fact I think she was incompetent and aimed her ambition in the wrong direction rather than actually successfully ruling Scotland.  Her marriage choices were never popular and she was so disliked by the nobility she fled to England.  I don't know if beheading her was a wise decision, whoever's decision it really was, but she hadn't done any good for Scotland and was forced to abdicate!  I hate how Elizabeth I is so maligned in popular history because she beheaded Mary, Elizabeth was badass, she was competent and launched England into an era of stabiliy and plenty.  What did Mary Stuart do?  She married the wrong people, plunged Scotland into chaos and when things got tough she fled the country.  If the real Mary was as smart and as quick to adapt as her fictional counterpart, Scotland wouldn't have had a problem and she probably would have been famous for the right reason.

Rant over, I promise.  Back to the show; I will admit the costumes were nice, I was just disappointed they weren't accurate.

Mary's headpieces were lovely and I even thought about making my own version of one of them just for fun.  But again, they were no French Hoods.  I am aware that historical dramas these days don't have women covering their hair; The Tudors and The White Queen failed to give the females the correct period headdress, but I will give a nod to the costume designer of the movie "The Other Boleyn girl," for having not only French Hoods, but Gable Hoods as well!


One of the most irritating costumes that I could not forgive was Mary's riding dress, which I can't find a picture of.  It's when the Portuguese villain proposes to her.  What really irritated me was that it wasn't even of full length!  At least all of the dresses were floor length (well the ones they wore outside of their chambers anyway).

I loved Catherine de Medici, she was just so awesome.  I liked the fact she wasn't a Disney villain type character and although her reasons for doing harm were kind of pathetic I liked that she had heart as well.  She wasn't completely void of compassion or kindness but her protective mother streak was a bit extreme, as they always have to be with plots like this.  Although her costumes weren't historically accurate as well I found I was much more forgiving with her because she was so awesome.
So onto the other ladies of the show.  I think my favourite was Lola because her teen drama thing was over relatively quickly (*ahem* Colin), and she was by far the smartest and most down to earth.  My second was Greer who I respected throughout and genuinely felt for.  Poor Kenna, I just didn't warm to her, I didn't really understand why her character acted the way she did but I do firmly love the person she ended up with.

The men of the show.  King Henry II of France was.....alluring.  He had such charisma that it was fascinating to watch until they ruined it.  Bash is by far the finest one on the show, unfortunately his character was a bit bland for me, but at least he's pretty.  And Francis, poor, poor Francis.  I don't know why but I'm kind of sick of this "perfect king" thing that shows about royalty have.  I say that but the only other show I can think of with an arthurian type king is, ironically, Camelot.  I find I'm fed up of 100% honourable characters, I like them to have flaws, to not be so moral all the time.  Francis always put France first, and I suppose you could say that was a flaw, but it was a very short lived only in about two episodes.  Still, Francis always did the right thing, was always opposed to the shady plan concocted by everyone around him; the shadiest thing he did wasn't even that bad (he got someone pregnant but only when he was technically single so not adultery).

The last thing I will say is an honourable mention to Marie de Guise.  I don't know much about her but from what I do know she held Scotland up after the death of her husband and the departure of her daughter to France, yet the woman has been maligned twice in dramas about this period (The Tudors and Reign).  I've never heard horrible stories about her but no doubt there are some, but I think I'm joining the club "let's be fair to Marie de Guise".

Overall it is a good show, definitely a guilty pleasure like the Vampire Diaries was for me, but I had no problem getting through all 22 episodes which I count as a good drama.  Season 2 is currently airing but I wait until all of the episodes are aired before watching any drama because I lose track of what episode and what drama I'm on; easier to just marathon them in the summer when I have nothing better to do.

Currently I am watching New Girl with Zooey Deschanel and crew.  This is an amazing drama and I regret never watching it before!!  I think I have a girl crush on Jess, she's so awesome and I wish I could be more outwardly like her rather than trying to contain the quirkiness.

Any other opinions on Reign?  Am I being too obsessed with the costumes?  If you think I'm bad you should see the post that zoomed in on a zip on one of the costumes from the White Queen.  It's just a costume, why can't it be made with the ease of the 21st Century, just so long as it looks authentic?

Wren's recommendation: Worth a watch.