Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 25, 2011

Coenred was king of Mercia from 704 to 709. He was a son of the Mercian king Wulfhere, whose brother Æthelred succeeded to the throne in 675 on Wulfhere's death. In 704 Æthelred abdicated in favour of Coenred to become a monk. Coenred's reign is poorly documented, but a contemporary source records that he faced attacks from the Welsh. The same threat may later have led Æthelbald to build Wat's Dyke, a defensive earthwork on the northern Welsh frontier. Coenred is not known to have married or had children, although later chronicles describe him as an ancestor of Wigstan, a 9th-century Mercian king. In 709 Coenred abdicated and went on pilgrimage to Rome, where he later died. Æthelred's son Ceolred succeeded Coenred as king of Mercia. (more...)

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