See Giesebrecht, Geschichte dcr Dcutschcn Kaiscrzcit (3d e<L, vol. iii., pt. 2, Brunswick, 1869); Gervais, GcscMchte Dcutschlands untcr dcr Rfyicruny Hcinrichs V. -mid Lothars (Leipsic, 1841-42); Kolbe, Erzbischqf Adalbert I. von Mainz und Hcinrich V. (Heidelberg, 1875).
HENRY VI. (1165–1197), Holy Roman emperor, the son of Frederick I, was born in 1165, and received the German crown in 1169. When his father started for Palestine at the head of the third crusade, Henry was made imperial vicar, and he succeeded to the throne after the news of his father s sudden death reached Germany in 1190. He shared the intellectual culture of his time, and was distinguished for the splendour of his political schemes ; but he was of a stern disposition, and in order to attain his ends was some times guilty of horrible cruelty. Henry the Lion, who had been banished to England by Frederick I., returned to Germany after the departure of the latter for the Holy Land. Henry resisted him, but on becoming the reigning sovereign he concluded peace, and hastened to Rome, where he was crowned emperor in 1191. Through his wife Constantia he hail a right to the throne of Sicily ; but the Sicilian nobles had made Count Tancred, an illegitimate son of Constantia s brother, king. After receiving the imperial crown Henry advanced against Tancred, and the whole of southern Italy except Naples was quickly in his possession. Before Naples his army was struck by pestilence, and he was forced to return to Germany. There he suppressed various private wars, and compelled Henry the Lion to acknowledge his supremacy. The great ransom which he received from Richard I. of England enabled him to fit out a fine army, and with this he descended upon Italy in 1194, and without much difficulty conquered the Sicilian kingdom. Tancred was dead, but he had left a number of relatives, who were so barbarously treated that the people were seized with terror, and not even a sentence of excom munication which the pope pronounced against Henry could induce any one to express dissatisfaction with his rule. On his return to Germany it was easy for him, with the prestige he had now acquired, to enforce submission ; and so great was his authority that, in 1196, he made attempts to secure that the crown should be declared here ditary in his family. He might have succeeded had he lived some years longer; but in 1197 he died at Messina. Before his death he was engaged in checking disorder which had arisen during his absence in Sicily ; and he even obliged the Byzantine emperor Alexius to pay him tribute.
See Toeclie, Jalirbucher dcs Dcutschcn Ecichs untcr Heinrich VI. (Leipsic, 1S67); Miicke, Kaiser Hcinrich VI. (Erfurt, 1876).
HENRY VII. (1282–1313), Holy Roman emperor, was born in 1282. He was the son of Henry II., count of Luxembourg, and was elected king in 1308, seven months after the murder of Albert I. He owed his election partly to the fact that ho was comparatively unimportant, which led the electors to suppose that under him the powers of the princes would be exposed to no great danger. When he came to the throne Bohemia was subject to Henry of Carinthifi, whom the people extremely disliked. The king at once displaced him, and enriched his own family by granting Bohemia, at the request of the Bohemians themselves, to his son John, whose claims were rendered secure by his marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter of Wenceslaus II. For some time no German king had sought the imperial crown ; but Henry, who was of an imaginative temperament, could not forget the splendid dignities to which the wearer of the crown of Germany was entitled. He therefore resolved to revive the traditions which had begun to die out, and with a view to this result did what he could to compose the differences of the nobles and to gain their allegiance. At this time there were signs of rapid progress among the cities, and had a strong king devoted himself to their interests, he might have established his throne on a solid basis. Unfortunately the easiest way in which Henry could obtain immediate power for his plans in Italy was to ally himself with the princes against the cities ; and this was in most instances the course which he adopted. His visit to Italy was looked forward to with eagerness by the Ghibellins, whose hopes were expressed in words of glowing eloquence by Dante. He held aloof at first from both the great parties in the state, and was in consequence liked by neither. In 1312 he was crowned emperor in Rome, having previously received the iron crown in Milan. But while he was in Rome, Robert of Naples was there also with a strong army, and in order to obtain adequate support it was necessary for Henry to declare himself on the side of the Ghibellins. He then resolved to conquer Naples, but while advancing on this expedition he died at Buonconvento, on the 24th of August 1313. It was generally believed at the time that he had been poisoned by a Dominican monk, but this is not proved by satisfactory evidence.
See Donniges, Ada Hcnrici VII. (Berlin, 1840-41); and Gc- schiclite dcs Dcutschcn Kaiscrrcichs im 14^ Jahrhundcrt (Berlin, 1841); Thomas, Zur Konigswahl dcs Gra/cn Jfcinrich von Luxem burg im Jahre 1308 (Strasburg, 1875); Pohlmann, Dcr Romerzug Kaiser Hcinrichs VII. (Nuremberg, 1875).
HENRY I. (1005–1060), king of France, son of King Robert and Constance of Aquitaine, and grandson of Hugh Capet, came to the throne in 1031. On his accession his mother, who favoured her youngest son Robert, allied her self with the chief feudal nobles, and drove Henry to take refuge at the court of Duke Robert II. of Normandy. With the duke s help he soon broke up her league. Con stance died in 1032, and Henry, by granting him the duchy of Burgundy, secured the goodwill of Robert his brother, who thus became head of the first house of Burgundy. After the death of Robert "the Devil," Henry, who had first supported William the Bastard, in 1053 and 1054, tried to weaken the power of the Normans. Leaguing himself with the count of Anjon, and calling his brother Eudes into the field, he invaded Normandy from Evreux. When, however, Eudes had been defeated at Mortemer, Henry drew back in haste, and left the Normans to themselves. In 1059 he had his eldest son Philip crowned as joint-king, and died in 1060. He was an active prince, with his sword rarely in the scabbard, being little more than a great feudal chief, who enjoyed the feudal pastime of petty war. Henry s acts and character did little to strengthen the monarchy in its relations with its feudal neighbours. His political horizon was very narrow. The Normans were independent of him, with their frontier barely twenty-five miles west of Paris ; to the south his authority was really bounded by the Loire ; in the east the count of Champagne was little more than nominally his subject. Henry s first wife (if indeed she was more than affianced to him) Maud, daughter (or niece) of Conrad the Salic, died childless ; his second, Anne, daughter of Jaroslav, grand-duke of Russia, bore him two sons, Philip his successor, and Hugh, count of Vermandois.
See Eodolf Glaber s Chronicle; Citron. Andcrjavc-nsc ; Historia de Henrico I.; Ep!st. Dcoduini ; Dom Bouquet, liccucil, torn. xi.
