Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry IV inherited the German throne at five in 1056, his mother granting away royal lands to buy support while the papacy slipped from imperial control. Coming of age in 1065, he tried clawing back lost estates using lower-born officials, igniting revolts in Saxony he crushed twice by 1075. His insistence on appointing bishops collided with Gregory VII's reforms; excommunicated in 1076 and abandoned by his nobles, Henry crossed the Alps in winter for the humiliation at Canossa, kneeling three days for absolution. Restored to communion but not to power, he faced a rival king, suffered a second excommunication in 1080, installed his own antipope Clement III, and finally claimed the imperial crown in Rome in 1084. He spent his last decade campaigning in Italy against his own son Conrad and Matilda of Tuscany, proclaimed Germany's first empire-wide peace in 1103, then was deposed by his second son in 1105. He died the next year chasing a comeback, still unabsolved.