3. King Henry I Was Embalmed With Bull Skin And Buried In Reading Abbey... Before King Henry VIII Had The Monastery Destroyed
Another former monarch who fell victim to King Henry VIII's butchering of all-things-Catholic around England, King Henry I ruled on the throne between August 2, 1100 and December 1, 1135. While hunting in the Lyons-la-Forêt region of France in 1135, Henry fell violently ill - with one scholar claiming he ate an excessive number of lamprey eels against his physician's advice - and he died little over a week later. King Henry I's corpse was taken to Rouen and was embalmed and had bull skin sewn on to it (for unknown reasons...), with his entrails buried at Port-du-Salut Abbey and the body itself taken across to England to be interred at Reading Abbey. However, despite being buried in front of the High Altar that he had founded at Reading Abbey in 1121, Henry I's body was lost when the monastery was destroyed at the behest of King Henry VIII during the 16th Century - although a plaque does remain commemorating the rough spot of the former monarch's resting place.
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
