MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
175 
Some of the Saxons settled at Campus Martins of the Eomans 
near to the Watling Street, and called it Arden’s Hill, now Hartshill; 
another Saxon town was formed near the Castra ^Estiva or summer 
camp, Ealdburie, now Oldbury, whilst a little to the north they founded 
Arden’s town, now Atherstone. 
During the reign of Ethelbald, which extended from 716 to 756, 
Mercia obtained great power, the most important events being the 
constant battles for supremacy with the West Saxons, and this brings 
us to the great battle of Seckington, near Tamworth, between 
Ethelbald and Cuthbert, King of the West Saxons, during which 
Ethelbald was slain by the traitor Beornred, who in turn was put to 
death by Offa, the succeeding King of Mercia, and he victorious over 
all enemies within his own island, corresponded on equal terms with 
the great Charles, the mightiest potentate of the east. 
Soon after his accession to the throne Offa came to Tamworth, 
where he caused a palace to be built of greater dimensions than was 
usual in those times, which was the admiration and wonder of the age. 
He also strongly fortified the town by surrounding it with a vast 
entrenchment and bank, which we still call Offa’s Dyke or the King’s 
Ditch, and the town became one of great celebrity, a favourite resort 
of Offa and his successors, from which they dated charters to the 
bishops and religious bodies of the realm. 
Tamworth enjoyed with other great places the privilege of 
coining from the time of Offa until the reign of Henry I. 
Offa died on the 18th of August, 794. From this point we find 
Tamworth mentioned in charters of various Mercian Kings until we 
reach the year 852, when Burgred the twentieth King of Mercia, and 
last recorded as being at Tamworth, succeeded and enjoyed a period of 
profound peace for fourteen years. 
After this the Danes invaded the kingdom, two years later having 
established themselves in the north they descended on Mercia and 
took Nottingham, where Burgred beset them; but unable to maintain 
the siege had to allow them to march back to Northumbria. They 
poured into the country again in 874, and destroyed the Mausoleum 
of the Mercian Kings at Repton, in Derbyshire. Burgred, worn out, 
fled, and Mercia, as a kingdom, after 292 years ceased to exist. The 
Danes spreading through the land destroyed the principal towns and 
fortresses, amongst them Tamworth, which, completely razed to the 
ground, lay a mass of blackened ruins for nearly forty years. 
In 880 Nemesis (in the person of King Alfred) overtook the 
marauders, their raven banner was struck down, and after a bloody 
engagement the survivors were spared only on the condition that they 
embraced Christianity and helped to repel a further invasion by their 
countrymen. 
King Alfred not only overcame the Danes but legislated wisely for 
the country, dividing it into counties and hundreds, the Tamworth 
district being within the counties of Warwick and Stafford, and 
comprising the hundreds of Hemlingford,—named from the ford at 
