Coenwulf of Mercia
Coenwulf was the King of Mercia from December 796 until his death in 821. He was a descendant of a sibling of King Penda, who had ruled Mercia in the middle of the 7th century. He succeeded Ecgfrith, the son of Offa, but only reigned for five months.
About Coenwulf of Mercia in brief
Coenwulf was the King of Mercia from December 796 until his death in 821. He was a descendant of a sibling of King Penda, who had ruled Mercia in the middle of the 7th century. He succeeded Ecgfrith, the son of Offa, but only reigned for five months. In the early years of Coenwulf’s reign he had to deal with a revolt in Kent, which had been under Offa’s control. He also appears to have lost control of the kingdom of East Anglia during the early part of his reign, as an independent coinage appears under King Eadwald. He came into conflict with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury over the issue of whether laypeople could control religious houses such as monasteries. Within a decade of his death, the rise of Wessex had begun under King Egbert, and Mercia never recovered its former position of power. A post-Conquest legend claims that his son Cynehelm was murdered to gain the succession. Within two years Ceolwulf had been deposed, and the kingship passed permanently out of the family. He is the last Mercia king to exercise substantial dominance over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The West Saxon Chronicle is sometimes thought to be biased in favour of the Wessex king Egbert. The Chronicle was a production of the WestSaxon churchmen, but it is also thought to have been a churchmen’s chronicle of the reigns of the kings of the Anglo- Saxons from the 8th century to the 10th.
It is a collection of annals in Old English narrating the history of the English-Saxons, and is a significant corpus of letters from the period, especially from Alcuin of York, who corresponded with kings, nobles, and ecclesiastics throughout England. Letters between CoenWulf and papacy date from the reign of Charlemagne, and were granting land to followers to the churchmen or followers of the church. Coen wulf was succeeded by his brother, Cwoenthryth, who was later deposed by his son, Ceol wulf, and died in 822. His reign was followed by a series of wars with Northumbria and Northumbrian king Eardwulf, which ended in 801. The last conflict between the two kings was over the control of religious houses by laypeople, and was not resolved until about 826, when the archbishop reached a settlement with Coenewulf’s daughter Cwo tenthryth. The king’s son, Ecg frith, succeeded him, but reigned less than five months before he was deposed. Offa intervened decisively in the 780s, and at some point became the overlord ofEast Anglia, whose king, Æthelred, was beheaded at Offa’s orders in 794. In 757, Offa ousted Beornred and took the throne for himself, and Beorhtric became an ally thereafter.
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