Henry IV 1050-1106
King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor

Elected King of the Germans in 1053, he succeeded his father, Henry III, in 1056. In 1070, once free of his mother Agnes of Poitou's regency, he tried to break the power of the nobles, but his measures provoked a rising of the Saxons. He defeated them at Hohenburg (1075), and then took action against the rebel princes. Pope Gregory VII took part in the dispute, and Henry declared him deposed (1076). Gregory then excommunicated Henry. Henry lost support, so submitted and the ban of excommunication was removed (1077). With Lombard support, he renewed the conflict and, having been excommunicated a second time, appointed a new pope, Clement III (the antipope), who crowned him emperor (1084). Henry defeated three rival German kings, but when he had crossed the Alps for the third time (1090) to support Clement III, and learned that his son Conrad had betrayed him and been crowned king at Monza, he retired to Lombardy. In 1097 he returned to Germany, and his second son, Henry, was elected King of the Germans and heir to the empire. Pope Pascal II (1099-1118) encouraged Prince Henry to take the emperor prisoner (1105), and Henry IV was compelled to abdicate. He escaped and died in Li�ge. While his opponents considered him a tyrannical supporter of heresy, his friends saw him as pious and intelligent, a lover of justice and scholarship. He was succeeded by Prince Henry as Henry V.