Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's

best selling history magazine.

I'm Ellie Corporn.

For today's episode, we've got a talk from Charles Spencer on England's early Norman

Monarchs and the White Ship Disaster.

A maritime tragedy from 1120 that threw England's royal line into disarray.

Charles has written a new book on the subject called The White Ship and delivered this talk

on it as part of our virtual lecture series.

Actually, I want to start really by explaining this book and how it came to me and I'm not

a medievalist.

My last four books have been on the Stuart's.

My last three have been on the English Civil War.

But for me, history is about the story and the people and the drama.

What I tend to try and do is to tell the story of a reine of a monarch through a flashpoint.

I don't think there's ever been a bigger flashpoint in anyone's reign than the White Ship.

It came to me as a story for me to bring back to the public as it were.

Because I'm of an age, I'm 56.

I'm of an age where I was still taught a fairly rigorous and wide-ranging part of English

history, really from the beginning all the way through.

That's no longer the case because all the English people joining in this broadcast will

know that most of history taught in England today is Hitler and Henry VIII.

And it's no longer a compulsory subject.

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