176 
MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
Kingsbury, five miles south of the town,—and Oifiow from the tumulus 
of that name near to Lichfield. 
Alfred died in 901, leaving behind him a daughter “ Ethelflaeda,” 
who was known as the “Lady of the Marches,” and inherited qualities 
that fitted her to take part either in state councils or in war; she made 
it her greatest care to restore the principal towns and fortresses which 
had been destroyed by the Danes, and marched to Tamworth with her 
whole army in the early part of the summer of 913, caused it to be 
rebuilt, restored the castle and all the fortifications, and raised a 
strong keep or dungeon upon a partly artificial mound on which the 
present edifice has been built in later times, and Tamworth once 
more regained its former celebrity and importance. 
Ethelflaeda died in 920, and was succeeded by her daughter Alfwin, 
who was deposed in about six months by Edward the elder. On this, 
Tamworth, with Nottingham, Derby, and some other towns, rose 
in Alfwin’s favour, Edward was forced to take arms against the 
insurrection, and first marching upon Tamworth subjugated it. He 
died in 924, and was succeeded by Athelstan, who gave his sister 
Editha to the Danish King Sihtric on the condition that he embraced 
Christianity, and their marriage was celebrated at Tamworth, on the 
30th of January, 925. Sihtric died soon after, and Editha, retiring 
from the world, became Abbess of a Nunnery which she founded at 
Tamworth, the Castle of Tamworth in the county of Warwick being 
given to her by her brother. 
In 941 Anlaf, a son of Sihtric, anxious to regain Northumbria 
conquered York, and advancing rapidly to Tamworth stormed and 
took it with great slaughter, and carried away much plunder. From 
this time Tamworth ceased to be a Koyal residence and sank into 
comparative obscurity, and at this point we cannot do better than 
glance for a moment at the ecclesiastical history of the district. As 
already stated, St. Chad, fifth Bishop of Mercia, fixed his See in 667 
at Lichfield, that field of the dead where unnumbered martyrs had 
shed their blood for Christ in the Diocletian persecution. Within a 
hundred years, i.e. by 770, Palmer states there must have been a 
Church at Tamworth. 
About 820 Egbert (so the legend recorded of him says) had a son, a 
leper, who, by advice, was sent to Ireland and cured by a Nun named 
Modwenna, a daughter of the King of Connaught, and so grateful was 
the King that he offered to found a religious house for her and her 
nuns in England. This offer was accepted, and Modwenna established 
at Trensale, a village opposite Polesworth. 
A few years later Egbert, whose daughter Editha had been placed 
under Modwenna’s care for religious instiuction, built the nunnery at 
Polesworth and made Editha the first abbess, Modwenna retiring to 
the chapel of Andressy, near Burton-on-Trent, in whose abbey she 
was subsequently buried. 
Following on in chronological order we find the church at 
Tamworth entirely destroyed in 874 by the Danes, and we hear of it 
