729AD. Ceolwulf, the brother of Coenred became king. He was selected by king Osric to be his successor.
731AD Bede completed the “Ecclesiastical History Of the English Nation” and dedicated it “To the most glorious King Ceolwulf ”.
In the first appended entry Bede wrote, “In the year 731 King Ceolwulf was taken prisoner and tonsured and sent back to his kingdom”. Details of his capture and subsequent release are not very clear, but in the aftermath Bishop Acca of Hexham was forced to vacate his see and Alric and Esc were killed..
737AD. After only eight years as king, Ceolwulf abdicated, passed the crown to his cousin Prince Eadberht. After cutting his beard and having his head shaved in form of a crown, he retired to the monastery on the Island of Lindisfarne and spent the next twenty years of his life as a monk.
764AD. Ceolwulf died on the 15th of January and was buried in Lindisfarne Priory, alongside St Cuthbert. In 830AD Ceolwulf's sanctified body followed that of Saint Cuthbert to the newly built church at Norham upon Tweed, where it stayed, a magnet for pilgrims, until the reformation, although his head was transfered to Durham Cathedral.
