Nicholas Breakspear. Pope Adrian IV. The only English pope
What    happened on this day in history.
SEPTEMBER 1st
On    this day in history in 1159, died Pope Adrian IV.
Nicholas Breakspear, as was his original name, was the only Englishman to    become pope.
Breakspear was the son of a priest, an unusual but not bizarre parentage in    the days of an unmarried clergy. His father had joined the priesthood as soon    as he had been widowed.   Nicholas applied to join his fatherï¿½s monastery but    was turned down on the grounds of insufficient learning. Unperturbed by this    refusal, Breakspear left for France where he became a monk in the cloister of    St Rufus, near Arles, and progressed through the ranks of the friary being    elected abbot in 1137.
As abbot, Breakspear infuriated the local rulers by his insistence of the    churchï¿½s authority over temporal matters. The pope received a series of    complaints and, being conscious of the need for the church to exert a measure    of political control, appointed Breakspear a Cardinal. Breakspearï¿½s assignment    was to reorganise the hierarchy of Scandinavia, ensuring that there were    sufficient bishops in place at important political centres. He was so    successful in this mission that he received the plaudits of the pope and the    College of Cardinals and when Pope Eugenius III died, Breakspear was elected    pope as Adrian IV.
One of the factors, which influenced Adrianï¿½s election, was the disorder    within Rome and its dependencies.  Rome was subjugated by the    anticlerical Arnold of Brescia and Southern Italy was dominated by a ruler    known as ï¿½William the Badï¿½. Adrianï¿½s solution was to make an alliance with    Barbarossa, whom he crowned as Emperor Frederick I, in return for military    favours against the papal enemies. Adrian infuriated the Romans and the Senate    with his alliance to a Teutonic emperor. He was obliged to leave the city for    his own safety, and take the extraordinary step of placing Rome under an    interdict.
Adrian is said to have signed the Papal Bull Laudabiliter, granting the    Lordship of Ireland to Henry II, although it is widely believed that the    document was forged by Henryï¿½s secretary. Adrian used his political skills to attempt a settlement between the Western and Eastern churches but died before any agreement could be reached.
There is a long-standing anecdote about another British occupant of the papal    chair, the alleged Pope John VIII. It is said that John was in fact a woman,    Joan, and that she disguised herself as a monk in order to meet her paramour,    a genuine monk, and that she contrived her way to becoming a Cardinal and was    elected Pope. This account has the subject matter for speculation and romantic    literature. Pope Joanï¿½s existence has been denied vehemently by legitimate    raconteurs, denied more vehemently still by historians and denied more    vehemently yet by the Catholic Church.