Henry II
1133 – 1189 · 56 years · London · Europe
Reign: 1154 – 1189 (England and Britain)
First Plantagenet king and husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine, ruling England and half of France. He laid the foundations of English common law and jury trial; his quarrel with Thomas Becket ended in the archbishop's murder in 1170.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 12th century
Portrait: Adam Bishop · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Averroes (Ibn Rushd) — philosopher, commentator on Aristotle, 7 years older
- Hildegard of Bingen — abbess, mystic and composer, 35 years older
- Philip II Augustus — king who took Normandy from the Plantagenets, 32 years younger
- John Lackland — King of England who sealed Magna Carta, 33 years younger
- Frederick Barbarossa — Holy Roman Emperor, 11 years older
- Eleanor of Aquitaine — Queen of France and of England, 9 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Andrey Bogolyubsky — prince who moved the centre of Rus to Vladimir, 22 years older
- Vsevolod the Big Nest — grand prince under whom Vladimir became the strongest power in Rus, 21 years younger
- Yuri Dolgoruky — prince of Rostov-Suzdal, founder of Moscow, 34 years older
Middle East
- Richard the Lionheart — King of England, crusader, 24 years younger
- Tamar of Georgia — Queen of Georgia, 33 years younger
- Anna Komnene — Byzantine princess and historian, 50 years older
Africa
- Saladin — Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 4 years younger
- Maimonides — philosopher, rabbi and physician, 5 years younger
Asia
- Genghis Khan — founder of the Mongol Empire, 29 years younger
- Minamoto no Yoritomo — first shogun of Japan, 14 years younger
- Jayavarman VII — King of the Khmer Empire, 11 years older
- Li Qingzhao — Song dynasty poet, 49 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1136 The Novgorod Republic — aged 3, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1163–1345 Notre-Dame de Paris begun — aged 30, Europe
- 1185 Prince Igor's campaign — aged 52, Eastern Europe & Russia