Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

Henry VI, son of Frederick Barbarossa, became King of Germany at four and Holy Roman Emperor in 1191. Educated in Latin and law, he was also a skilled poet, though that refinement didn't soften his methods. His 1186 marriage to Constance of Sicily brought inheritance claims he spent years enforcing: an epidemic broke his 1191 siege of Naples and his wife was captured, but an enormous ransom extracted from Richard I of England bankrolled a second attempt. He took Sicily in 1194, then ruled it with such ruthless suppression he earned the epithet "il crudele." He threatened Byzantium into paying…