The quote in question "Total solar eclipses are not often recorded in the historical record, but they do tend to be recorded when they coincide with other historical events. For example in 763 B.C., early Assyrian records mention an eclipse in the same passage as an insurrection in the city of Ashur, now known as Qal'at Sherqat in Iraq, suggesting that the ancient people linked the two in their minds. Or when King Henry I of England, the son of William the Conqueror, died in A.D. 1133, the event coincided with a total solar eclipse. With a little work you can also find numerous cases when something good happened!"
I've been looking at a few sources and I am very confused.
Henry 1 is listed on Wikipedia as having died on Dec. 1st, 1135 in Normandy, France. According to the website Hermit Eclipse, which gets its data from NASA, there was no eclipse visible from Europe on that date, with the total eclipse that year occurring over the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
However, 2 years before there was a total solar eclipse that passed directly over England and Europe on August 2nd, 1133. This year is cited on NASA's 'Misconceptions about eclipses" page.
You can see the problem here. Either Henry 1 did not die on Dec. 1 1135, someone at NASA made a typo, or I'm just going crazy and have missed something totally obvious
http://moonblink.info/Eclipse/eclipse/1133_08_02 http://moonblink.info/Eclipse/eclipse/-1134_06_17 http://moonblink.info/Eclipse/lists/solcat/1121
You've got to look at the situation in 1133. Henry is about 64 years old and there has been worry about the succession ever since his only surviving legitimate son died in a shipwreck in 1120. Henry was working on setting up his daughter, Matilda, to rule as Queen, but the rules of succession had not been spelled out ahead of time. England had operated under different inheritance rules than Normandy, but after the Normans invasion it wasn't clear which ones would stick.
This was further cemented by what actually did happen after his death. Matilda and her cousin Stephen of Blois fought it out, neither gaining control leading to a twenty year civil war known as "the anarchy".
You've also got to consider that total eclipses are not common. It's a very irregular pattern as to which part of the world is going to see it, but the average works out to about every 375 years. The eclipse preceded the chaos by just two years, making it relatively coincidental.