HENRY II. (1489-1568), duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, son of Duke Henry I., was born on Nov. 10, 1489. He began to reign in 1514, but his brother William objected to the indivisibility of the duchy which had been decreed by the elder Henry, and it was only in 1535, after an imprisonment of II years, that William recognized his brother's title. In 1525 he assisted Philip, land grave of Hesse, to crush the rising of the peasants in north Ger many, and in 1528 took help to Charles V. in Italy, where he nar rowly escaped capture. He joined the Catholic princes in con certing measures for opposing the Reformation. Henry was attacked by Luther with unmeasured violence in a writing Wider Hanns Worst. The duke soon came into collision with the Prot estant towns of Goslar and Brunswick, against the former of which a sentence of restitution had been pronounced by the impe rial court of justice (Reichskammergericht). Charles V. had sus pended the execution of this sentence, a proceeding which Henry declared was ultra vires. The league of Schmalkalden, led by Philip of Hesse and John Frederick, elector of Saxony, took up arms to defend the towns; and in 1542 Brunswick was overrun and the duke forced to flee. In September 1545 he tried to regain his duchy, but was taken prisoner by Philip, and only released in April 1547. After his return to Brunswick he quarrelled with his subjects on political and religious questions, while his duchy was ravaged by Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth. Henry joined the league of princes against Albert, and after the death of Maurice, elector of Saxony, at Sievershausen in July 1553, he commanded the allied troops and defeated Albert in two engage ments. In his later years he was reconciled with his Protestant subjects. He died at Wolfenbiittel on June 11, 1568. The duke was twice married, firstly in 1515 to Maria (d. 1541), sister of Ulrich of Wurttemberg, and secondly in 1556 to Sophia (d. daughter of Sigismund I., king of Poland. He had a romantic attachment to Eva von Trott, whom he represented as dead and afterwards kept concealed at Staufenburg. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, Julius (1528-1589).
See F. Koldewey, Heinz von Wolfenbiittel (Halle, 1883) ; and F. Bruns, Die Vertreibung Herzog Heinrichs von Braunschweig durch den Schmalkaldischen Bund (Marburg, 1889) .