Henry II of England

Henry the Second was the first of the Plantagenets and ruled an empire that ran from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. He reformed the English common law into something recognisable today, quarrelled with Thomas Becket to the point of murder, and spent his last years at war with his own sons. He was the son of the Empress Matilda, and it was her long refusal to give up that put him on the throne.