823. Ceolwulf of Mercia deprived of Mercia
Beornwulf succeeds to Mercia
Bealdred succeeds to Kent, with Beornwulf's support (?)
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not state that Ceolwulf died in 823, but that he was deprived of the kingdom. The very different name of the following king, Beornwulf (as compared to the brothers Coenwulf, Cuthred, and Ceolwulf) leads to the suspicion that he might have been from a different family. It is tempting to associate him with the Beornred who tried to take power in Mercia after Æthelbald's death in 757 but was ousted by Offa, but since Coenwulf is the last Mercian king for whom we have a full genealogy, there is no way of verifying this. Beornwulf is best remembered for losing the battle of Ellendun against the West Saxons in 825 and being killed by the East Angles in 826.
The position of Kent in Beornwulf's reign is uncertain. Where the Kentish mints had produced coins in the names of the previous Mercian kings Coenwulf and Ceolwulf, in Beornwulf's reign they produced coins in the name of one Bealdred. No charters of Bealdred survive, and he appears in the documentary sources only in the Chronicle's account of the West Saxon take-over of 825, in which after the defeat of Beornwulf, the West Saxons send some forces to Kent and drive out King Bealdred. The alliterating names raise the possibility that this Bealdred is a kinsman of Beornwulf of Mercia's, placed in charge of Kent just as Coenwulf of Mercia had put his brother Cuthred earlier (798-807). The fact that a charter of Archbishop Wulfred of 826 (S 1267) is dated by Beornwulf's regnal year, with no reference to Bealdred's, supports the theory that Bealdred was a Mercian caretaker or dependent rather than an independent king.