Haakon III of Norway

Born around 1183 as Haakon Sverresson, he inherited a kingdom still raw from his father's wars. He became King of Norway in 1202, assuming the crown while the country remained fractured by the civil conflicts that had defined the previous generation. His reign proved brief—he died on 1 January 1204, not yet twenty-one. What he might have done with time remains one of the quieter questions of medieval Scandinavia.