Thus the diocese of Lichfield preserves the memory of the by-gone kingdom of Mercia; and its cathedral is largely built of the offerings at St. Chad’s shrine. How big the ancient diocese was is seen from the fact that the present dioceses of Hereford and Worcester, as well as the suppressed ones of Sidnacester, Lindsey, and Leicester, were all carved out of it by Archbishop Theodore, the great organiser of the early English Church, A.D. 673. For a time even greater honour came to Lichfield. From 755 to 794 a great and mighty king reigned in Mercia: this was Offa. In one direction he defeated Kent; in the other he drove back the Welsh. It was Offa who settled once for all the Welsh frontier: Shrewsbury became an English town. Offa’s Dyke, which still exists, from the mouth of the Wye to the mouth of the Dee, became the effectual bulwark of England to the West. A king so mighty disdained to owe allegiance to an archbishop of defeated Kentishmen, and got from the Pope of the day an archbishop of his own, to be head-bishop of all Mercia and East Anglia. But Offa died, and the pope died; and this was the first and only archbishop that Lichfield ever had. Lichfield was never so important again. Indeed, she had a narrow escape of losing her bishop altogether, just after the Norman conquest. The new Norman prelates did not feel safe, and probably were not safe, in open towns amidst an alien and disaffected population. The Bishop of Dorchester set up his pastoral staff under the shadow of the new Norman castle at Lincoln; Exeter castle attracted the Bishop of Crediton; in similar fashion the Norman Bishop of Lichfield transferred himself to Chester, where also was a castle of strength. The next bishop migrated again—this time to Coventry, which possessed a famous monastery, founded by famous people, Earl Leofric and Lady Godiva, the church whereof was so wealthy that “its walls were all too strait for the treasures that were therein.” Finally the bishops returned once more to Lichfield, retaining, however, their hold on Coventry; and till the Reformation they styled themselves “Bishops of Lichfield and Coventry.” Lichfield, however, was and is a cathedral of the old foundation; it had no monks, but secular canons. It may well be imagined, therefore, that there was not much peace and good will between the canons of Lichfield and the monks of Coventry. They quarrelled scandalously; above all when they had to meet for joint election of a bishop. There was even a desperate free fight in Coventry cathedral in 1190, when Bishop Hugh ejected the monks. The holy bishop himself was wounded at the altar.