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At a time when the English name was a reproach, and when all the civil and military dignities of the kingdom were supposed to belong exclusively to the countrymen of the Conqueror, the despised race learned, with transports of delight, that one of themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had been elevated to the papal throne, and had held out his foot to be kissed by ambassadors sprung from the noblest houses of Normandy.

A few days before Henry landed in England to be crowned, Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman who ever became pope, had been elected Bishop of Rome and had taken the name of Hadrian IV. He was the son of an English clerk, who was later a monk at St.

It made, in the darkest hour of Norman rule, the son of a Saxon pedlar Primate of England, and placed Nicholas Breakspear, a Hertfordshire peasant, on the throne of the Caesars. It would do as great things now, if it were divorced from the degrading and tyrannical connection that enchains it.

In 1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope Adrian IV.—the English monk, Nicholas Breakspear, the only Briton who ever succeeded in gaining the papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to Henry Plantagenetand during his stay the Pontiff was entertained as the guest of the all-powerful Rufoli.

Born of humble parents in the village of Bensington, near Oxford, Nicholas Breakspear became a monk at St Alban’s, and having once entered the religious life, he rose by sheer force of intellect and an iron strength of will to the attainment of the highest honour the Church could bestow.

Moreover, in the investiture struggle he was loyal to Henry IV; and since Eric of Denmark declared for the Pope, Urban II made the Danish prelate of Lund the Metropolitan of the North . This arrangement caused discontent in the two other Scandinavian kingdoms, and ultimately Eugenius III sent Cardinal Breakspear, the future Hadrian IV, on a mission which resulted in the establishment of Nidaros or Drontheim as the see of a primate for Norway, and of Upsala in a similar capacity for Sweden.