Excerpt from Nicholas Breakspear (Adrian IV.): Englishman and Pope This life of the only Englishman who ever occupied the Papal chair is the outcome of, at least, a conscientious study of the subject. Some years ago I was interested in trying to ascertain the grounds on which one of the traditions current concerning Nicholas Breakspear rested, and, by degrees, I accumulated such a number of notes about him as to make me think it worth while to throw them into the form of a memoir of his life, and of the times in which he lived, so far as they influenced or were influenced by him. It is strange that notwithstanding the unique character of Breakspear's career it is still very little known. Every schoolboy can give the outlines of the life of Thomas a Beket, who was made Archdeacon of Canterbury in the year Adrian IV. died; while it is not everyone who can even fix the century in which the English Pope lived. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.