Henry II was the eighth and last Margrave of Austria and the first Duke of Austria. He ruled in that capacity for 15 years and then served as Duke of Austria for 21 years after that.

He was born in 1107, the son of the sixth Margrave of Austria, Leopold III and Agnes of Germany. His oldest brother, Leopold, succeeded their father as margrave in 1136 and reigned just five years before he died, without marrying and without producing an heir. At that point, Henry, 29, took over as Margrave of Austria.

In 1139, the German king Conrad III had given Leopold IV control of the Duchy of Bavaria. When Henry took over, he made his residence in Regensburg, capital of Bavaria.

Henry married Gertrude of Süpplingenburg, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III, in 1142. They had one daughter, Richenza, in 1143; Gertrude died in that same year.

In 1148, Henry married again, to Theodora Komnene, whose uncle was the Byzantine emperor Manuel I. Henry and Theodora had three children: Agnes, Leopold, and Henry.

Margrave Henry had met his second wife at the court of Manuel I, which he visited on his way home from fighting in the Second Crusade. Henry barely survived defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Dorylaeum, in 1147, and then was part of the unsuccessful Siege of Damascus, in 1148.

One of the few who also survived the defeat at Dorylaeum was Frederick Barbarossa, who was elected King of the Romans in 1152. As a measure designed to settle the ongoing feud between the German Welf and Hofenstaufens, Barbarossa gave the Duchy of Bavaria to the Saxon prince known as Henry the Lion. Barbarossa then elevated the margraviate to duchy status and gave it complete independence from Bavaria. Thus was Henry II the first Duke of Austria, in 1156.

Henry had moved his official residence to Vienna in 1145. From that point onward, the city was the capital of Austria. Once the margraviate had become a duchy, Henry enhanced it, including the building of churches and the founding of monasteries.

Sobeslaus II had become Duke of Bohemia in 1173. He and Henry were at loggerheads over border issues, and Henry was riding on a horse near Melk when the horse fell off a rotten bridge. The fall occurred in November 1176. Henry sustained major injuries and never recovered. He died on Jan. 13, 1177, in Vienna. His son Leopold succeeded him as Duke of Austria.