THE first and only English pope was elected in December 1154. From humble beginnings in a small village in Hertfordshire, he ascended to the head of the Catholic Church.

Nicholas Breakspear was born in Bedmond in Abbots Langley around the year 1100. His father, Robert, was an educated but poor man, a clerk in the service of the Abbot of St Albans. On his wife’s death, he entered the monastery, leaving young Nicholas to fend for himself.

Nicholas sought admission to the abbey but was refused because of his lack of education.

Instead, he went to Paris and became a canon regular at the cloister of St Rufus monastery near Arles.

Nicholas rose quickly through the ranks, first to prior and then to abbot, a post to which he was unanimously elected.

As abbot, Nicholas infuriated the local rulers by his insistence of the church’s authority over secular matters. This attracted him to the attention of Pope Eugene III, who was determined that the church should exert a measure of political control. Nicholas was subsequently appointed Cardinal Bishop of Albano in 1149.

Nicholas was given many important jobs, including travelling to Scandinavia as a papal legate. He formed cathedral schools in Norway which had a lasting effect on education and Catholic spirituality. His mission was such a success that he received generous praise from the Pope and the College of Cardinals on his return.

Following the death of Pope Anastasius, Nicholas was elected Pope on December 3, 1154, taking the name Adrian IV. He remains the only Englishman to ever become pope.

The Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals through a process called Papal Conclave, during which the Cardinals reside within the Vatican and are allowed no contact with the outside world until a new Pope is elected. A two-thirds majority is needed to elect a new Pope. If no one receives the required number of votes or if the nominee declines the nomination, wet straw is mixed with the paper ballots and burned in the chimney, creating black smoke which alerts those outside that a new Pope is yet to be decided. When someone receives two-thirds of the vote and accepts the papacy, the ballots are burned alone, which creates white smoke.

Popes are elected for life unless they voluntarily resign from office. Since 1415, only one pope has done so: Pope Benedict XVI in 2013. No one can remove a Pope from office, even if he becomes insane, sick or corrupt.

Nicholas’s first endeavour as Pope was to bring down Arnold of Brescia, the leader of the anti-papal faction in Rome. Arnold came to Rome and found that rebels had taken control of the city from papal forces and founded a republic, the Commune of Rome. Arnold rose to the intellectual leadership of the Commune.

Nicholas took steps to regain control of Rome. He allied with Holy Roman Emperor Frederik Barbarossa, who took Rome by force in 1155 after Nicholas took the previously unheard-of step of putting Rome under interdict. Arnold was arrested and tried as a rebel. He refused to recant his teachings, and was hanged and his body burnt. Because he remained a hero to large sections of Roman people, his ashes were cast into the Tiber so that his burial place could not become venerated as the shrine of a martyr.

One of Nicholas’s most important achievements for Catholics was establishing the principle that serfs (agricultural labourers) could freely and lawfully marry without the consent of their lords.

His most controversial act was a papal bull that allowed Henry II of England to annex Ireland to his kingdom. He urged Henry to invade Ireland to bring its church under the Roman system and to conduct a general reform of Irish governance and society. The authenticity of this document is one of the great questions of history. Some historians now claim that the document was forged by Henry.

Nicholas died in Anagni, Italy, of quinsy, a complication of tonsillitis.

There is a small plaque marking his birthplace in Bedmond. Abbots Langley has several streets named after him, including Popes Road, Adrian Road and Breakspear Road.