=St. Chad= or =Ceadda= (669-672) made his seat at Lichfield, and in so doing founded the diocese of Lichfield.
St. Chad, as has been stated before, was the patron saint of Lichfield. What is known of him is principally derived from Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation." From this we learn that when not on his missionary travels over the diocese he spent most of his time in prayer, and in meditation on death and supernatural things. His method was to proceed from place to place in his diocese on foot; and there is a story of Theodore taking St. Chad in his arms and lifting him on to a horse which he presented to him. He founded the abbey of Barrow-on-Humber, which King Wulphere endowed with fifty hides of land. His headquarters, as we have said, were at Lichfield, and he built, or finished building, a small church near what is still known as St. Chad's Well, at the eastern end of Stowe Pool.
Like his predecessors' his time was short; only for two years was he allowed to labour at Lichfield. There is a beautiful legend of his death which has been well told by Dean Bickersteth. "A week before his death a sound of angelic melody was heard coming from the south-east, until it reached and filled the little oratory where he was praying. This the good bishop interpreted to be his summons to heaven. The voices, he privately told Ovin, were those of angels. The messenger of death, that 'lovable guest,' was with them. They would come again in seven days and take him with them. About the same time, Egbert, a Northumbrian who had been a fellow-student with St. Chad in an Irish monastery, dreamt that he saw the soul of Cedda, Chad's brother, descending from heaven with a company of angels to take the soul of Chad with him into the heavenly kingdom." As he had foretold, so he died; but he was not forgotten, and many were the miracles said to have been performed at his shrine. His bones were removed from their first resting-place near Stowe Church into a beautiful shrine in the cathedral, where they remained until the Reformation, when they were taken away, and are now said to be in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Birmingham.
There is another legend concerning St. Chad which has become more closely attached to Peterborough than to Lichfield, but it must be briefly stated here, as the story appears in some of the decorations of the cathedral. Bede does not mention it, and it has been given in varying forms by different writers. Briefly, the essence of the legend is that Wulphere, the king of Mercia, had killed two of his sons, Wulfade and Rufin, on account of their having been baptised by St. Chad. Each of these young princes had been hunting in the forest when he came across a hart with a rope round its neck. The prince gave chase, and the hart led him to St. Chad, who, having prayed with him, baptised him. This happened to both Wulfade and Rufin separately. Then Wulphere in his anger slew them. Afterwards he repented, and setting out to St. Chad, was led there by the same hart, and found the saint at prayer, with his cloak hanging on a sunbeam. Wulphere was absolved on condition that he should expiate his crime by founding churches and monasteries all over his kingdom. Lichfield is said to have been one of these churches, and Peterborough one of these monasteries. Many churches have been dedicated to St. Chad, especially in the Midlands, and in the east of London there was a well known as St. Chad's Well, where miracles were performed; and it was noted for its medicinal waters up to quite recent times. A large district in east London is still called after St. Chad's Well in the corrupted form of Shadwell.