If you're a fan, like me, of Sellar and Yeatman's masterly 1066 And All That, you'll know that Henry I of England died of a surfeit of lampreys. A what? I hear you cry, dear reader. Well, a lamprey is an eel and a surfeit is too many. All this happened today in 1135 which is long before they had sell-by dates etc. I can't help thinking that as the bloke was 66 (which was ancient in the 12th century) it was probably time he shuffled off this mortal coil anyway.
What did he leave behind? A squabble between potential rulers Matilda and Stephen and a series of excellent novels by Ellis Peters.
In other news ...
The Cross Channel diggers met in the middle today in 1990, nearly completing a multi-million pound project linking Britain to France. There was a great deal more earth movement when everybody from Harold Godwinson (d 1066) on turned in their graves.
