Henry de Normandy King of England

Citations

1. [S1396] Henry I, King of England, Henry I, King of England - Henry died on 1 December 1135 at Saint-Denis-en-Lyons (now Lyons-la-Forêt) in Normandy. According to legend, he died of food poisoning, caused by his eating "a surfeit of lampreys", of which he was excessively fond.[15] His remains were sewn into the hide of a bull to preserve them on the journey, and then taken back to England and were buried at Reading Abbey, which he had founded fourteen years before.
   Although Henry's barons had sworn allegiance to his daughter Matilda as their queen, her gender and her remarriage into the House of Anjou, an enemy of the Normans, allowed Henry's nephew Stephen of Blois to come to England and claim the throne with baronial support. The struggle between the former Empress and Stephen resulted in a long civil war known as the Anarchy. The dispute was eventually settled by Stephen's naming of Matilda's son, Henry Plantagenet, as his heir in 1153.