Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Ecgberht's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s. The historian Richard Abels argues that the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably intentional, concealing Ecgberht's purge of Beorhtric's magnates and suppression of rival royal lines. Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attend the court of King Coenwulf, who quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805–832) over the control of Kentish monasteries; Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821–823) and Beornwulf (823–826) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub-king of Kent, Baldred.
Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Ecgberht's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s. The historian Richard Abels argues that the silence of ,the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably intentional concealing Ecgberht's purge of Beorhtric's magnates and suppression of rival royal lines. Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attend the court of King Coenwulf, who quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805–832) over the control of Kentish monasteries; Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821–823) and Beornwulf (823–826) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub-king of Kent, Baldred.