 Archbishop Æthelheard died in 805 and was succeeded by Wulfred. Wulfred was given freedom to mint coins that did not name Coenwulf on the reverse, probably indicating that Wulfred was on good terms with the Mercian king. In 808 there was evidently a rift of some kind: a letter from Pope Leo to Charlemagne mentioned that Coenwulf had not yet made peace with Wulfred. After this no further discord is mentioned until 816, when Wulfred presided over a council which attacked lay control of religious houses. The council, held at Chelsea, asserted that Coenwulf did not have the right to make appointments to nunneries and monasteries, although both Leo and his predecessor, Pope Hadrian I, had granted Offa and Coenwulf the right to do so. Coenwulf had recently appointed his daughter, Cwoenthryth, to the position of abbess of Minster-in-Thanet. Leo died in 816, and his successor, Stephen IV, died the following January; the new pope, Paschal I confirmed Coenwulf's privileges but this did not end the dispute. In 817 Wulfred witnessed two charters in which Coenwulf granted land to Deneberht, bishop of Worcester, but there is no further record of Wulfred acting as archbishop for the rest of Coenwulf's reign. One account records that the quarrel between Wulfred and Coenwulf led to Wulfred being deprived of his office for six years, with no baptisms taking place during that time, but this may have been an exaggeration, with four years being the more likely term of the suspension.
