Page:VCH Staffordshire 1.djvu/262

 A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE His death was of great importance to Mercia, for it removed the great obstacle to the spread of Christianity in the kingdom, which had already begun in the marriage of Penda's son Paeda to Oswy's daughter. After the victory of the Winwaed Oswy was virtually master of Mercia. His son-in-law Paeda was under-king of the portion of the kingdom south of the Trent, but he apparently kept Northern Mercia in his own hands. 9 Paeda did not enjoy even this limited authority for long, as next year he was murdered, and in 658 Oswy was expelled and Wulfhere reigned once more over an independent Mercia. From the time of Wulfhere dates the bishopric of Lichfield. The first three Mercian bishops had no cathedral, no 'sedes,' they were missionaries; but St. Chad, the great bishop, whom Wilfrid recommended to Wulfhere, fixed his head quarters, and built a small church and monastery near the junction of Ryknield and Wading Streets in 669, 10 a centre which would give him easy access in every direction into his province. The Mercian kings of the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth century are not of great importance, and do not concern our county history except that Ceolred, who died in 716, was buried at Lichfield, 11 but from his death dates the period of the greatest glory of the kingdom under the two long reigns of Ethelbald and Offa, when it seemed as if the consoli- dation of England was to be worked out by Mercia instead of Wessex, and as if Lichfield rather than Winchester or London would be the capital of England. But Mercia at the end of Ethelbald's reign sustained a grievous defeat at Burford at the hands of Wessex, and her supremacy over that kingdom then apparently passed away for ever. His successor Offa, who reigned from 757 to 796, loomed more largely in the eyes of his European contemporaries than any previous king in Britain. Hadrian I, writing to Charles the Great, calls Offa ' rex Anglorum,' and Charles himself, in his famous letter, writes as ' the king of the Eastern Christians,' to the ' mightiest king of the Western Christians.' Offa, like many of the Mercian kings, was fond of the fertile valleys of the Dove and the Trent ; indeed, it was in such districts that nearly all the ancient towns that attained greatness were built, provided they also afforded means of defence and commanded the country around. Tamworth enjoyed all these advantages, and is called by Offa in a grant of land to Worcester Cathedral, dated 781,' his royal palace.' 12 Cenwulf, the successor of Offa, maintained the greatness of Mercia for a time, but in 827 the kingdom had to submit to Egbert, and though retaining her own kings, they were only under-kings who received their crowns from their West Saxon overlords. 13 The kings of Mercia, under the overlordship of Wessex, continued to hold their Witans, and there is a record of one held at Tamworth in 840 by Berhtwulf on Easter Day, but the business transacted there did not concern Staffordshire. 1 * Between 872 and 875 the Vikings marched through Mercia, dethroned Burhred, who retired to Rome, and set up a puppet Ceolwulf in his stead. Hodgkin, Political Hist, of Engl. i, 173. 10 Bede, Hist. Eccl. iv, 3. 11 Henry of Huntingdon, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), in. " Birch, Cart. Sax. i, 334. 11 Freeman, Norman Conq. (ed. 2), i, 40. " Birch, Cart. Sax. ii, 4-5. 2l8