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Pilot Accidentally Lands in Enemy Airfield and Other Historic Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan October 5, 2020 31 min

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger - Focke-Wulf — Fw 190 dogfighting a Spitfire over the English Channel. Pintrest

17. The Spoiled Prince

William the Aetheling (1103 – 1120) was the heir and only legitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was also the Duke of Normandy in his own right. William was spoiled rotten, and according to a contemporary chronicler, he was pampered so much that it was clear he was “destined to be food for the fire“. That indulgence would have fatal consequences when the young prince got himself killed in a silly accident.

In November, 1120, after a diplomatic visit to France, a fleet was assembled to transport King Henry and his court across the English Channel back to England. The 17-year-old prince William made plans to cross in a vessel known as the White Ship, the English navy’s proudest and fastest ship. William and his companions turned the affair into a wild party, and delayed the crossing while they got rip-roaring drunk on shore with the ship’s crew. Then, in a state of high intoxication, the prince and his entourage, numbering about 300 people, boarded the White Ship to make a nighttime crossing. The spoiled prince was about to have a tragic oops moment.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.