A Surfeit of Lampreys

On this day in 1135 King Henry I died at the ripe old age of 66 (good innings for a medieval monarch). The youngest son of William the Conqueror, Henry had succeeded his elder brother William Rufus in 1100. A contemporary chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, describes how the king met his end:

‘He had been hunting, and when he came back to Saint-Denis in the Forest of Lyons [Lyons-la-Foret, Normandy], he ate the flesh of lampreys, which always made him ill, though he always loved them. When a doctor forbade him to eat the dish, the king did not take this salutary advice. As it is said, ‘We always strive for what is forbidden and long for what is refused.’ So this meal brought on a most destructive humour, and violently stimulated similar symptoms, producing a deadly chill in his aged body, and a sudden and extreme convulsion. Against this, nature reacted by stirring up an acute fever to dissolve the inflammation with very heavy sweating. But when all power of resistance failed, the great king departed on the first day of December [1135], when he had reigned for thirty-five years and three months.

Henry of Huntingdon, The History of the English People, 1000-1154 (OUP, 2002), p. 64.

The trouble is they taste too good.