Hadrian the Seventh -Fr. Rolfe - Hadrianus

Fr. Rolfe (Frederick Baron Corvo)- Hadrian the VII
Wordsword (Classics) 1993.
Hadrianus (Latijn: Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus) (Rome of Itálica, 24 januari 76 – Baiae, 10 juli 138), was Romeins keizer van 117 tot 138. Hij staat bekend om het bouwen van de Muur van Hadrianus, die de noordelijke grens van Britannia aangaf.

Rolfe's best-known work, this novel of extreme wish-fulfillment developed out of an article he wrote on the Papal Conclave to elect the successor to Pope Leo XIII. The prologue introduces us to George Arthur Rose (a transparent double for Rolfe himself): a failed candidate for the priesthood denied his vocation by the machinations and bungling of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical machinery, now living alone with his yellow cat.
Rose is visited by two prominent churchmen, one a Cardinal Archbishop. The two propose to right the wrongs done to him, ordain him a priest, and take him to Rome where the Conclave to elect the new Pope has reached deadlock. When he arrives in Rome he finds that the Cardinals have been inspired, divinely or otherwise, to offer him the Papacy. He accepts, and since the only previous English Pope was Adrian (or Hadrian) IV, he takes the name Hadrian VII.
The novel develops with this unconventional, chain-smoking Englishman peremptorily reforming the Church and the early 20th-century world, against inevitable opposition from the established Roman Catholic hierarchy, rewarding his friends and trouncing his enemies. Generally he gets his way by charm or doggedness, and of course by being much cleverer than all those round him; but his short reign is brought to an end when he is assassinated by a Pope-hating Scotsman, or possibly Ulsterman, and the world breathes a sigh of relief.