House of Welf - Bavaria and Saxony

Bavaria and Saxony

Henry the Black, duke of Bavaria from 1120–1126, was the first of the three dukes of the Welf dynasty carrying the same name. His son, Henry the Proud was the son-in-law and heir of Emperor Lothair of Supplinburg and became also Saxon duke after Lothair's death. Henry the Proud was then the favoured candidate in the imperial election against Conrad III of the Hohenstaufen. But Henry lost the election, as the other princes feared his power and temperament, and was dispossessed of his duchies by Conrad III.

Henry the Lion recovered his father's two duchies, Saxony in 1142, Bavaria in 1156. In 1168 he married Matilda (1156–1189), the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and sister of Richard Lionheart. Dispossessed of his duchies after the Battle of Legnano in 1176 by Emperor Frederick I and the other princes of the German Empire eager to claim parts of his vast territories, he was exiled to the court of his father-in-law Henry II in Normandy in 1180, but returned to Germany three years later. Henry made his peace with the Hohenstaufen Emperor in 1194, and returned to his much diminished lands around Brunswick. He died there in 1195.