William Bigod (died 25 November 1120), the heir to the Norfolk earldom, drowned in the disaster of the ''

White Ship 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 Channel during a trip from France to England near the Normandy ...

'' as she set sail from Normandy in 1120. The ship also carried the son of the King of England Henry I,

William Adelin William Ætheling (, ; 5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120), commonly called Adelin (sometimes ''Adelinus'', ''Adelingus'', ''A(u)delin'' or other Latinised Norman-French variants of '' Ætheling'') was the son of Henry I of England by his wife M ...

, who also died. The succession of Henry I to the throne of England was secured not only by the mysterious death of his brother King William II Rufus but by the defeat of his eldest brother

Robert Curthose Robert Curthose, or Robert II of Normandy ( 1051 – 3 February 1134, french: Robert Courteheuse / Robert II de Normandie), was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and succeeded his father as Duke of Normandy in 1087, reigning until 1106. ...

, Duke of Normandy. The death of Henry's heir to the throne set in motion a succession crisis that lasted many years. It was said that the crew and passengers had been drinking, whether by perfidy or incompetence, and thus the vessel and all those shining dreams of the English Romanesque were lost. Duke William of Normandy, in becoming King of England, introduced with great vigour the architecture of European society. Probably William was the name given to the Bigod heir to honour his family's relationship to

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

. Norman ties were broken on the ascendancy of Anjou to the English throne. William Bigod's father, Roger Bigod of Norfolk, the 1st Bigod Earl, Ralph de Breuilon (de Breton) was the 1st Earl of the Conquest. Ralph de Breton had made a marriage contract between Norfolk and Hereford, without the King's consent. A civil war ensued which resulted in the Earldom of Norfolk being given to Roger, William Bigod's father. Roger had been an unknown hearth-knight to the Bishop of Bayeux. We do not see Roger mentioned at the Conquest. He was Sheriff of Suffolk from 1116. William commissioned the church at

South Lopham South Lopham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 371 in 157 households at the 2001 census. For the purposes of local government, it falls within the district of Brecklan ...

, considered one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Norfolk. William's younger brother Hugh succeeded to the Earldom.

Arthur Mee Arthur Henry Mee (21 July 187527 May 1943) was an English writer, journalist and educator. He is best known for ''The Harmsworth Self-Educator'', ''The Children's Encyclopædia'', ''The Children's Newspaper'', and ''The King's England''. The ...

states that Earl Hugh is stained with blood of the subsequent civil war,

The Anarchy The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin, the only legiti ...

, which occurred between King Stephen and the

Empress Matilda Empress Matilda ( 7 February 110210 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude, was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as ...

(or rather the Countess of Anjou and Normandy and daughter of Henry I). This arose as Earl Hugh was present at death of King Henry, and it was he who declared the King's change of will. There are many factors to question the accuracy of this, but certainly Earl Hugh was the scapegoat for a situation, in truth, engineered by the thoughtless ambitions of King Henry I in so marrying his daughter to

Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou Geoffrey V (24 August 1113 – 7 September 1151), called the Handsome, the Fair (french: link=no, le Bel) or Plantagenet, was the count of Anjou, Count of Tours, Touraine and Count of Maine, Maine by inheritance from 1129, and also Duke of Nor ...

, the natural enemy of the Norman aristocracy.

References

Sources

Mee, Arthur, ''Norfolk (King's England),'' Hodder and Stoughton, 1940
Medieval Lands Project, Earls of Norfolk (Bigod)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bigod, William 1120 deaths 12th-century English people Bigod family Deaths on the White Ship