Mercia, Wessex and The Vikings
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle offers the following account of Ceolwulf:
This year went the army from Lindsey to Repton, and there took up their winter-quarters, drove the king, Burgred, over sea, when he had reigned about two and twenty winters, and subdued all that land. He then went to Rome, and there remained to the end of his life. And his body lies in the church of Sancta Maria, in the school of the English nation. And the same year they gave Ceolwulf, an unwise king's thane, the Mercian kingdom to hold; and he swore oaths to them, and gave hostages, that it should be ready for them on whatever day they would have it; and he would be ready with himself, and with all those that would remain with him, at the service of the army.
The Chronicle was compiled on the orders of Alfred the Great, brother-in-law of King Burgred. This account is considered to be biased, and politically motivated, written with a view of strengthening the claims of Alfred and Edward the Elder to the overlordship of Mercia.
Ceolwulf's kingdom is presumed to have been reduced to the northern and western parts of Mercia.
Read more about this topic: Ceolwulf II Of Mercia