  THE information, which has come down to us respecting the early life of the only Englishman, who ever sat on the papal throne, is so defective and scanty, as easily to be comprised in a few paragraphs. Nicholas Breakspere was born near St. Albans, most probably about the close of the 11th century. His father was a clergyman, who became a monk in the monastery of that city, while his son was yet a boy. Owing to extreme poverty, Nicholas could not pay for his education, and was obliged to attend the school of the monks on charity. [1] This circumstance would seem to have put his father so painfully to the blush, that he took an unnatural dislike to his son; whom he shortly compelled by his threats and reproaches to flee the neighbourhood in a state of utter destitution. Thus cruelly cast on the world, Nicholas to settle the church in those remote countries, where it had been planted about 150 years. The circumstances which led to this legation were as follows: [2] —originally the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were spiritually subject to the archbishop of Hamburg, whose province was then the most extensive in Christendom. In the year 1102, Denmark succeeded, after much protracted agitation of the question, in obtaining from Pope Paschal II., a metropolitan see of its own, which was founded at Lund; and to whose authority Sweden and Norway were transferred. The same feeling of national independence, which had procured this boon for Denmark, was not long before it began to work in those kingdoms also; and the more so as the Danish supremacy was asserted over them with much greater rigour than had formerly been that of Hamburg, and was otherwise repugnant to them, as emanating from a power with which they stood in far closer political relations, and more constant rivalry than with Germany. After some indirect preliminary steps in the business,—which do not seem to have forwarded it,—the kings of Sweden and Norway sent ambassadors to Pope Eugenius III., to request for their states the same privilege which his predecessor had granted to Denmark; and which he himself had just extended to Ireland, in the erection of the four archbishoprics of that country. The arrival of these ambassadors at Rome happened a year before the elevation of the abbot of St. Rufus to the see of Albano. The pope promised to accede to their request. It was in fulfilment of this promise that Nicholas Breakspere was sent into the north. Doubtless, the circumstance of his being an Englishman had weight in his selection; as, in consequence of that circumstance, he would be viewed as far more likely to possess a correct knowledge of the character and government peculiar to northern nations than an Italian. Taking England in his way, the Cardinal legate passed thence into Norway; where he landed in June of the year above-mentioned. The country was then governed by three brothers, named Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein, sons of the late King Harrold Gille. Between the first two, a serious quarrel happened to rage. For a Norwegian nobleman having murdered the brother of Sigurd's favourite concubine, and then entered the service of Inge, the latter shielded his client against the punishment which Sigurd sought to inflict. Before entering on the affairs of the Church, the Cardinal Legate saw that this quarrel must first be settled. Of the three brothers, Inge seems to have stood the highest in the esteem of all classes in the state, by reason of his benevolence, and other virtues. With him the cardinal took part, and compelled Sigurd, together with Eystein,—who seems also to have meddled in the dispute against Inge,—to agree to a reconciliation. At the same time, he visited with ecclesiastical censures the former two, for various crimes, of which they had been guilty in other respects. On the settlement of this quarrel, he proceeded at once to the special business of his legation,—the erection of an archbishopric for the kingdom. This he decided to fix at Nidrosia, or Nidaros, the capital of the province, over which Sigurd in those days ruled, and corresponding to the city and district of Drontheim now. The selection of Nidrosia was made chiefly out of honor to St. Olaff, whose relics reposed in its church. Here, he invested John, Bishop of Stavanger, with the Pallium; and subjected to his jurisdiction the sees of Apsloe, Bergen, and Stavanger, those of the small Norwegian colonies, of the Orcades, Hebrides, and Furo Isles, and that of Gaard in Greenland. The Shetland and western isles of Scotland, with the Isle of Man, and a new bishopric which the cardinal founded at Hammer in Norway,—and in which he installed Arnold, at that time expelled the see of Gaard,—were also included in the province of Nidrosia. The bishop of Sodor and Man, as well as the bishops of the Shetland and western isles, had till this time been suffragans of the see of York, but obeyed the authority of Nidrosia for the next 200 years; after which, the Norwegian primate lost his rights over those islands, which returned under their first jurisdiction. The greater part of the other sees had already, directly, or indirectly, acknowledged the authority of the bishops of Nidrosia, while the rest had bowed to the supremacy of Hamburg. [3] The possession of a metropolitan see of their own spread such satisfaction among the people of Norway, that no mark of respect seemed too great for the immediate dispenser of the boon; and under this feeling, they allowed the Cardinal Legate to introduce various regulations into the country beyond what his powers entitled him to do, and even to reform their civil institutions. Thus there is every reason to assume,—though positive historical evidence is wanting,—that he bound the Norwegian Church to the payment of Peter's pence to the Holy See. He also effected extensive reforms as regards the celibacy of the clergy; but, in spite of his great influence, does not seem to have been able to carry them so far as he could have wished. Various rites and ceremonies of religion, into which abuses had crept, were purged by him. Moreover, he placed the public peace on a surer footing than it was before, by means of a law which he procured to be passed, forbidding all private persons to appear armed in the streets; while to the king alone was reserved the right of a body guard of twelve men. [4] Snorrow relates, that no foreigner ever came to Norway, who gained so much public honor and deference among the people as Nicholas Breakspere. On his departure he was loaded with presents, and promised perpetual friendship to the country. When he became pope, he kept his promise, and invariably treated all Norwegians who visited Rome during his reign with extraordinary attention. He also sent into Norway, architects and other artists from England, to build the cathedral and convent of the new see of Hammer. On his death the nation honored his memory as that of a saint. Having finished the business of his legation to Norway, Nicholas Breakspere next passed into Sweden. His first proceeding in this kingdom was to hold a synod at Lingkopin; to fix on a see for the new archbishopric about to be created. But the members, consisting of the heads of the clergy of Sweden and Gothland, could not agree on the point, as, out of a spirit of provincial rivalry, the one party claimed the honor for Upsala, and the other for Skara. Finding that the dispute was too hot to be soon settled, the Cardinal Legate consecrated St. Henry of Upsala bishop of that city, introduced various new regulations respecting the celibacy of the clergy and the payment of Peter's pence to the pope; and then took his departure for Denmark on his way to Rome. The pallium which was destined for the new primate of Sweden, he deposited, until the difficulties in the way of the election of that dignitary should be removed, with Eskill, Archbishop of Lund, who received him in the most honorable and cordial manner, notwithstanding that by his agency the authority of the Danish Church was so seriously curtailed. The Cardinal Legate would seem to have sought by this act of confidence to soothe the soreness, which Eskill must naturally have felt at seeing his honors so shorn. The primate of Lund was also informed that he should still continue to preserve the title of Primate of Sweden, with the right of consecrating and investing with the pallium the future archbishops of that kingdom. Farther, he was promised, as some compensation for what he had lost, the grant of a right from the Holy See of annexing to his archiepiscopal dignity the style of "Legati nati Apostolicis Sedis" in the three kingdoms. [5] During the stay of Nicholas Breakspere in Denmark, it happened that John, a younger son of Swercus, King of Sweden and Gothland, and a prince whose radically bad character had been totally ruined by a neglected education, carried off by violence, and dishonored the wife of his eldest brother Charles, together with her widowed sister,—princesses of unsullied fame, and nearly related to Sweno III., at that time, king of Denmark. This atrocity naturally excited a deep resentment against its author, at home and abroad: and roused Sweno to resolve on invading Sweden and Gothland with all his forces, in revenge of so insulting an outrage; a resolution in which he grew all the more fixed, by the recollection that Swercus himself had formerly injured Nicholas, a predecessor of Sweno on the throne, by perfidiously seducing, and marrying his intended bride—an injury all the bitterer, as Nicholas never could retaliate it, by reason of domestic broils with his own people. The Cardinal Legate no sooner became aware of this gathering storm, than he sought to avert its outbreak; and repaired to King Sweno, with whom he remonstrated against the projected war, not only on religious, but prudential grounds; depicting to him the many serious obstacles by sea and land which must be surmounted before any advantage could be won; and reminding him, "that if the spider, by disembowelling herself, as least, caught the flies she gave chace to, yet the Danes could only expect to run the certain peril of their lives in their proposed campaign." [6] The cardinal's interference in this instance in behalf of peace, seems not to have been crowned with the same success, as in Norway. King Sweno, a proud and obstinate man, lent a respectful, but callous ear to his arguments; and was equally impervious to the efforts of the ambassadors, whom Swercus also sent to prevent hostilities. The events of the war which followed brought condign punishment to each party: for Prince John, on being directed by his father to levy troops for the defence of the state, was massacred in a popular riot as the odious cause of the public dangers; and Sweno, on his invasion of Sweden, having been inveigled by the wily tactics of Swercus—who feigned to retire before him—to push his expedition beyond its original destination as far as Finland, was there surprised by a rising of the natives, who destroyed the flower of his army; while he himself escaped with difficulty into Denmark, covered with shame, at so ignoble and fatal a defeat. Not long afterwards, Sweno was murdered in his bed by two of his chief nobles, who had long cherished disloyal feelings towards their king; and, at last, entered into a treasonable correspondence with Swercus. The end of the latter proved eventually not less tragical. In the mean time, Nicholas Breakspere had quitted the country, and returned to Rome. On his arrival he found Pope Eugenius dead, and succeeded by Anastasius IV., an old man of ninety. Anastasius, who reigned little more than a year, among other acts, confirmed, by a bull addressed to John, Archbishop of Nidrosia, all that the English legate had done in Norway, with the exception, however, of that concession to the primate of Lund, by which the latter was to enjoy the right of investing the new archbishops of Norway and Sweden with the pallium. This right, Anastasius reserved to the Holy See. The venerable pontiff died shortly afterwards, December 2nd, 1154. On the following day the conclave met in St. Peter's church, and elected the cardinal bishop of Albano to the vacant throne; in which he was solemnly installed on the morrow, and took the name of Adrian IV.—thus giving not the least striking among many examples in the dynasty of the popes, of an exaltation from the meanest station in society to one the sublimest in dignity, and most awful in responsibility that exists under heaven. |
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