ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS Towers, near the road from the station, but the association does not inspire confidence, and need only be mentioned. On the same sheet is marked ' the site of a battle between the West Saxons and Mercians A.D. 716,' at Slain Hollow, just over a quarter mile east of the mansion. The statement appears arbitrary, but it is possible that burials of some kind on the site have given rise to the name, and the tendency formerly was to regard such a discovery as proof of a battle in the neighbourhood. The foregoing survey of Anglo-Saxon remains in Staffordshire may now be brought into touch with historical records, though these refer mostly to a period subsequent to that treated above. The early history of Mercia is even more obscure than that of the other kingdoms that disputed the hegemony of Britain in the seventh and eighth centuries ; but the date of one important event can be decided within narrow limits. Penda, who came to the throne in 626, was apparently about eighty years of age at his death in 655. 85 He fell at the battle of the Winwaed as the stubborn antagonist of Christianity, and Oswiu the victor came into temporary pos- session of the great dominion built up by Penda, installing the latter's Christian son Peada as sub-king of the South Mercians in what is now Leicestershire. From that date Mercia officially professed the new faith, and in 673 the seal was set to its conversion by Archbishop Theodore, who consecrated St. Chad the first bishop of Lichfield. The see chosen, about nine miles from the royal seat at Tamworth, shows the political centre of gravity at that time, and marks the revival of Mercia under Penda's son Wulfhere, who acceded to the throne in 659 and reigned for sixteen eventful years. For a century and a half Mercia was the dominant power in England, under a succession of great kings ; but its fortunes as a Christian power will be followed elsewhere, and a few words may now be added as to the part played by those early settlers whose remains are here under discussion. The name Mercia is generally held to mean the march or border- kingdom ; and though Offa's Dyke shows the position of the frontier against the Welsh or Britons in the latter part of the eighth century, it is certain that two hundred years earlier the natives, who were slowly driven west by the English advance, retained a broad belt of country to the east of that north-and-south line. In this connexion mention must be made of the view that the battle of Fethan-Leag, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 584, was fought at Faddiley in Cheshire, five miles west of Nantwich. This location is supported by the tradition that Pengwyrn (Shrewsbury) was fired and Bassa's churches (perhaps Baschurch) wrecked, both sites being on the road north from Gloucestershire ; but on archaeo- logical grounds the site of the battle should rather be looked for somewhere on the Warwickshire Avon ; there was, in fact, a place called Faehhaleah not far from Stratford. 86 In any case the West Saxons under Ceawlin at once retreated southward, and it may be assumed that beyond Staffordshire, if not along the western half of the county itself, the Britons were in possession when the Trent and Dove valleys were being colonized by Teutonic strangers. The evident 33 Green has a note on these dates : Making of Engl. (1897), i, 97 ; see also Chadwick, Origin of the Engl. Nation, 1 6. 36 Trans. Bristol ana" Glouc. Anb. Soc. (1896-7), 254 ; V.C.H. Warm, i, 252. 213
