 brought to you by Penguin Thomas Beckett warrior priest rebel victim a 900 year old story retold by John Guy read by Roy McMillan Prologue Shortly before midnight on the 25th of November 1120 less than a month before Thomas Beckett was born a Swift sleek newly refitted longship slipped out of the port of Barfleur in Normandy and Entered the English Channel with 50 or so crew and up to 300 passengers on board The vessels high pointed ends its single central mast and rectangular sail most of all its distinctive side rudder Echoed Normandy's debt to the Vikings who in the 9th and 10th centuries had overrun large areas of the British Isles and Flanders After sailing up the Sen occupied much of northwestern France In or about the year 911 King Charles the simple King of the West Franks had made terms with Hrolf a Viking Lord said to be so huge that no horse Could carry him Salvaging the rest of his dominions by ceding to him the lands about the lower Sen and the city of Ruand that the Norseman had Already settled turning poachers into gamekeepers and allowing them to carve out a thief that would evolve into the duchy of Normandy Hrolf in return was baptized a Christian and did homage and fealty to Charles Placing his hands on the Gospels or the relics of a saint and swearing to be his man and to preserve his life limbs and earthly honor Better known to his successors as Count Rollo Hrolf founded a powerful dynasty through intermarriage with the local inhabitants Shaping a people as famous for their courage Ingenuity sociability and piety as they were notorious for their wanderlust violence ambition and greed From the legacy of the Carolingians Count Rollo's successors gleaned lingering concepts of ducal sovereignty and from their Viking inheritance expertise in seafaring and trading Perhaps the greatest irony of the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is that within three weeks of annihilating the Viking invaders of Northumbria King Harold the last of the old English Kings Lost his throne at the Battle of Hastings to Hrolf's great great great grandson William the Conqueror The night of the 25th of November was bitterly cold a Hard frost covered the ground, but visibility was good The sky was cloudless and no mist or fog obscured the exit to the harbor and to the open sea Orderic Vitalis a monk from the Abbey of Saint Evroule in Normandy One of several contemporary chroniclers who did their best to uncover the true facts erroneously reports that there were nine hours of moonlight in Reality it was closer to the new moon so relatively dark the stars However shone brightly and since mariners set their course by the pole star Which they called Stella Maris the star of the sea there were no good grounds for the skipper to delay sailing a Modern expert has calculated that high water was at 10 43 p.m. That night by midnight continues Orderic the surface of the sea was relatively calm lapping against the shore and there was a southerly breeze But this was to be no ordinary channel crossing in fact another chronicler William of Marmsbury Scarcely exaggerates when he says no ship ever brought so much misery to England Thomas Fitz Steven whose father had been William the conqueror's master seersman in 1066 was the skipper Hearing that King Henry I the ablest and youngest of the late conqueror's sons Planned a voyage from Normandy to England with his whole court. This seasoned mariner had obtained an audience with him and Begged to have his father's old job He offered him his finest vessel the white ship and Henry decided that his sons William and Richard and his daughter Countess Matilda of La Perche should travel on it Prince William an ebullient spoiled fun-loving teenager just 17 and recently married was the king's only Legitimate son on whom he doted His elder siblings were bastards for Henry was one of the most promiscuous kings of England fathering at least 20 illegitimate Offspring by a parade of mistresses effortlessly beating Charles II who sired a mere 14 He gave way too easily to the sin of lust says Alderick dry Lee from boyhood to old age He was sinfully enslaved by this vice With his ship detailed to carry only passengers without horses or heavy cargo apart from the Royal Sample complete ready to continue