Coenwulf of Mercia

Coenwulf (also spelled Cenwulf, Kenulf, or Kenwulph) is King of Mercia from December 796 until his death in 821.

He is a descendant of a brother of King Penda, who had ruled Mercia in the middle of the 7th century.

He succeeds Ecgfrith, the son of Offa; Ecgfrith only reigns for five months, and Coenwulf ascends to the throne in the same year that Offa dies.

In the early years of Coenwulf's reign, he has to deal with a revolt in Kent, which had been under Offa's control.

Eadberht Præn returns from exile in Francia to claim the Kentish throne, and Coenwulf is forced to wait for papal support before he can intervene.

When Pope Leo agrees to anathematize Eadberht, Coenwulf invades and retakes the kingdom; Eadberht is taken prisoner and is blinded and has his hands cut off.

Coenwulf 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.

Coenwulf's coinage reappears in 805, indicating that the kingdom was again under Mercian control.

Several campaigns of Coenwulf's against the Welsh are recorded, but only one conflict with Northumbria, in 801, though it is likely that Coenwulf continued to support the opponents of the Northumbrian king Eardwulf.

Coenwulf comes into conflict with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury over the issue of whether laypeople could control religious houses such as monasteries.

The breakdown in the relationship between the two eventually reaches the point where the archbishop is unable to exercise his duties for at least four years.

A partial resolution is reached in 822 with Coenwulf's successor, King Ceolwulf, but it is not until about 826 that a final settlement is reached between Wulfred and Coenwulf's daughter, Cwoenthryth, who has been the main beneficiary of Coenwulf's grants of religious property.

He is succeeded by his brother, Ceolwulf; 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 Coenwulf's family.

Coenwulf was the last king of Mercia to exercise substantial dominance over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Within a decade of his death, the rise of Wessex had begun under King Egbert, and Mercia never recovered its former position of power.

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