Henry I of France

Henry I became King of the Franks in 1031 and ruled until his death in 1060. Under his watch, the royal demesne contracted to its smallest territorial extent in Capetian history, a fact that has long painted him as the embodiment of early royal impotence. But the verdict splits: some historians see instead a king who understood exactly how little power he actually had and governed accordingly, conducting policy with his eyes open to the hard borders of what a French monarch could do in the eleventh century. He died on 4 August 1060, leaving a kingdom diminished in size but still standing.