When William the Conqueror died in 1087 following a riding accident in France, his kingdom was split among his sons, leading to a period of familial strife. His eldest son, Robert Curthose, inherited the Duchy of Normandy, while his second (and favorite) son, William Rufus, became King William II of England. The third son, Henry, received a large sum of money but no land, which he later used to buy territory and eventually seize the English throne after William Rufus died in a suspicious hunting accident in 1100. William's death was notoriously chaotic; his body was reportedly abandoned by his nobles who rushed to secure their own lands, and during his funeral at the Abbey of St. Stephen in Caen, his corpse had become so bloated that it burst when attendants tried to squeeze it into a stone sarcophagus that was too small. This grizzly end marked the start of the Norman Dynasty's internal power struggles, which fundamentally shaped the future of both English and French medieval politics.