The Good Henry

Henry and Eleanor

Probably one of the most difficult things to do when studying history is keeping names, events, and dates coordinated. Like a novel with many plot lines and characters, it can be a challenge to follow the story. When I looked at the calendar and saw “Henry II” as the saint whose feast is commemorated today, I had a first confused thought of  Thomas a Becket’s Henry II. Such a man as that Henry could not have been made a saint. Even though he did penance for his part in Thomas’ martyrdom, he did not lead an exemplary life of heroic virtue. No, the name on the calendar was that of a Henry II who lived 150 years earlier in Germany and was not merely a king, but a Holy Roman emperor. Naturally, it would be easier to keep the two Henrys clear if Emperor Henry’s name was not anglicized in history books, but remained the original, very German “Heinrich.” 

Heinrich and Kunigunde

Unlike the English Henry II’s queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Emperor Henry II’s queen, Kunigunde, is a canonized saint. Whereas Emperor Heinrich worked in the 11th century to strengthen the Church in his empire and promote reform, King Henry a century later tried to weaken the Church’s authority in his English realm. As is often the case, though, the English Henry has more notoriety because of the trouble he caused. As Shakespeare’s Marc Antony noted, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

In Butler’s Lives of the Saints the entry for today’s royal saint ends with this profound thought: 

Those who by honors, position, wealth, or talents are raised by God above the level of their fellow creatures in the world have a great stewardship and a rigorous account to give at the bar of divine justice; for their very example has a most powerful influence over others. This St. Fulgentius observed, writing to Theodore, a Roman senator. “Though,” said he, “Christ died for all men, yet the perfect conversion of the great ones of the world brings great acquisition to the kingdom of Christ. Those in high places must necessarily be to many an occasion either of eternal perdition or of salvation. And as they cannot go alone, so either a high degree of glory or an extraordinary punishment will be their everlasting portion.”

May we remember and follow the Good Henry.

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