Review : The White Ship

A short review because this is not the sort of book which needs a lengthy ramblings.

Charles Spencer's The White Ship is a an excellent little history of the life and times of Henry I, one of England's more forgotten kings. Oddly, we remember William I pretty well - everyone grows up learning about the Battle of Hastings, the Harrowing of the North, the Domesday book, etc., but we aren't told anything at all about what happened next. Which is a shame, because it turns out the answer is "quite a lot, actually".

Spencer's book begins with a brief recap of the Conquest before diving headlong into its main topic. Despite the title, its real focus is very much on Henry. We see him grow from a high-ranking but unimportant teenage noble into the archetype of medieval kingship. There are plenty of interesting diversions along the way, but everything revolves around Henry.

This is very much your traditional sort of history book, concerned almost exclusively with the politics of the high nobility. Ordinary folk don't get much of a look in, at least not with any kind of agency (Diane Purkiss does this much better). Nor does Spencer offer anything of real insight as to why things happened in the way they did (as Dan Jones does excellently), or any analysis of the larger forces at work (e.g. Michael Scott). And he doesn't much mention how reliable the narrative is given limited evidence, something Marc Morris deftly made into an intriguing virtue when considering the Conquest itself in more detail. As for rhetoric, Spencer doesn't hold a candle to the magisterial Tom Holland.

And yet... crucially, Spencer doesn't try and do any of those things. He plays to his strengths, presenting a complex saga of innumerable characters in a clear, concise, yet lively and vivid way. What could have become enormously and tediously confusing is instead rendered as a lucid, page-turning adventure story, full of shock plot twists and complex, multi-dimensional characters. The result is an absolute gem of a little book - a brilliantly told tale that deserves to be better known. "Game of Thrones but in real life", says a cover quote. That it surely is, despite the War of the Roses being well-known as one of the inspirations for George R. R. Martin's tale. A screen adaptation would easily have all the elements needed for grand success : epic battles, struggles, villains, betrayal, blood... and sex all over the place.

I give the book an extra point because it does something elemental that most historians forget : bibliographic notes are at the back, additional points of interest are footnotes at the bottom of the page. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have these mixed at the back, so you have to keep flipping to see if there's anything interesting worth reading when 90% of the time there isn't. Big kudos to the author on that one.

I have to withdraw a point, however, because the book is too short. Unfortunately, this isn't because it's just so well written that I wanted it to be longer, but because it genuinely ends too early. Though concise, the life of Henry I is described in some detail. We get a wonderful picture of Henry as a complex man, a battle-hardened promiscuous warrior but who was also concerned with learning. He even created the Exchequer, so-called because the original accounting was done on a giant checkerboard-painted table as a mathematical counting aid (Spencer isn't afraid to have lengthy diversions where necessary, and handles these well). We see Henry's turbulent life in all its rich details as his fortunes waxed and waned, from his obscurity to gradual, grinding triumph as he beat his many enemies into submission with military force and genuinely clever diplomacy. All this is very well done.

After the sinking of the White Ship, a disaster which cost Henry dearly at the height of his power, the narrative continues as he struggled - successfully - to claw his way back to dominance. Most rulers simultaneously suffering the sudden loss of all their most important supporters and their only heir would be flattened, but not Henry. Sheer force of will seemed to see him avoid becoming yet another tragic failure, ending the last 15 years of his reign apparently secure that his daughter Matilda would become England's first sovereign Queen.

It's the bit after Henry's death I take issue with. While you couldn't quite say Spencer glosses over the Anarchy, his description is far too short. Though he doesn't offer any of the sort of general trends that other authors identify, in most of the book it's at least very clear why specific events happened the way they did. Not so in this final quarter or so. It feels a bit like he had a word or page limit, and really this section should have been at least twice as long. Quite honestly I'd have been happier if the whole book at been doubled in length, but even another 50 pages or so would have done wonders. In particular, Matilda's retreat from England is never explained, which seems a bit like saying that the Spanish Armada was defeated without bothering to mention why.

This oddity aside, the book is excellent. Interesting enough, the author's bio is incredibly short, mentioning only that he worked for NBC. In fact, he's Earl Spencer, younger brother of Princess Diana. Well, regardless of the shenanigans of his adopted family, he's an excellent writer, and I'll certainly look out for his other books. 

Overall I give this one 8/10. It's great, albeit too short, de facto sequel to Marc Morris' Conquest, which I would recommend reading first. But where Morris brings new life, important details and uncertainties to an often-told tale, Spencer unearths an undeservedly forgotten and under-rated king. Conquest was a much-needed retelling, but for me at least, The White Ship is a whole new story.