A total solar eclipse darkened the skies over London and Normandy, causing immense distress across the realm. King Henry I of England boarded a ship for Normandy on the exact day of the eclipse, never to return alive, as he died there two years later. The populace and contemporary chroniclers universally linked the hideous darkness of the sun with the literal 'passing' of the monarch, viewing the sky's behavior as an explicit prophecy of the chaotic civil war known as The Anarchy that followed.

William of Malmesbury famously described the eclipse in his Historia Novella, using poetic prose to express how the 'elements manifested their sorrow' for the king's departure. This account deeply influenced medieval literary attitudes regarding cosmic alignment with royal mortality.