th which it was
embroidered, and to have removed the gold plates from the shrine to
procure money to make a purchase of land--the rent of which, however,
went to the Abbey, not himself--while keeping the gold plate used at his
own table. He was allowed to nominate a successor, and then resigned,
dying shortly afterwards.

18. #Robert of Gorham# (1151-1166). He was a nephew of Geoffrey of
Gorham, sixteenth Abbot. He had been a monk abroad, but coming on a
visit to his uncle he obtained permission to "migrate" to St. Albans. In
time he became Prior. As Abbot he managed the affairs of the Abbey with
prudence. He repaired and releaded the church, whitened it within and
without, that is to say, renewed the plaster with which from the first
it had probably been covered. Matthew Paris tells us that one Nicholas
Breakspear, a clerk from Langley, applied to him for admission to the
Abbey, but was refused, as he failed to pass his entrance examination.
"Wait, my son," said the Abbot, "and go on with your schooling so as to
become more fit." Nicholas is spoken of as a youth, but he must have
been about fifty years of age when Robert became Abbot, and was
certainly Bishop of Albano within a year or two of that date, and became
Pope, under the name of Adrian IV., in 1154, the only Englishman that
has ever sat in St. Peter's chair. If there is any truth in the story of
his rejection at St. Albans, it must have happened earlier than the
abbacy of Robert. King Stephen visited the Abbey, and Robert obtained
his authority to level the remains of the camp, that is, the tower that
AElfric, the tenth Abbot, had allowed to remain standing at Kingsbury,
which had become a den of robbers.

Soon after Breakspear had become Pope, Robert and three bishops from the
foreign dominions of Henry II. went as envoys to him from the King; the
Abbot hoped that the Pope's connection with St. Albans, for his father
had become late in life a monk there, would induce him to enlarge its
privileges. Knowing that the dignitaries at Rome and the members of the
Pope's household were wellnigh insatiable, he distributed valuable gifts
among them to secure their good offices with the Pope. Robert complained
of the intolerable oppression of the Bishop of Lincoln, and the
insolence of his agents, and obtained from Adrian complete exemption
from episcopal supervision. The Abbey henceforth was to be subject to
Rome alone. When the Pope's letter granting this exemption w