I
born Dec. 6, 1421, Windsor, Berkshire, Eng.
died May 21/22, 1471, London
King of England (1422–61, 1470–71).
Son of Henry V , he became king as an infant, and grew up a pious and studious recluse, who suffered episodes of mental instability. England's political affairs were dominated by the rivalries of a series of overpowerful ministers of the houses of Lancaster and York, and Henry's incapacity for government became one of the causes of the Wars of the Edward IV . Henry fled, but he returned in 1464 in an unsuccessful Lancastrian rising and was eventually captured and imprisoned. After a quarrel in the York faction, he was restored to the throne in 1470. Edward fled but soon returned to defeat and kill the earl of Warwick and regain the throne. The death in battle of Prince Edward, Henry's heir, sealed Henry's fate, and he was murdered in the Tower of London soon afterward.
II
German Heinrich
born autumn 1165, Nijmegen, Neth.
died Sept. 28, 1197, Messina, Italy
German king (1169–97) and Holy Roman emperor (1191–97) of the Hohenstaufen dynasty who acquired the kingdom of Sicily by marriage.
Crowned king in 1169, Henry took over government of the Holy Roman Empire when his father, Frederick I Barbarossa, embarked on a Crusade to the Holy Land in 1189. Soon after his coronation he faced revolts by Henry the Lion in Germany and Tancred in Sicily, but he succeeded in making peace in 1194. His efforts to make the imperial crown hereditary were unsuccessful, but his son Frederick II would become emperor after the death of Henry's eventual successor, the Welf ruler, Otto IV .