After 13 years of choosing discretion, Oswiu had decided that the time had come for valour. Quite why Oswiu made the decision when he did, we don’t know. He may have simply been following Penda’s army to ensure that they really were leaving his realm but then, seeing an opportunity, he decided to take it.

Or he may have decided that his own rule would be fatally weakened if he did not finally confront Penda. A weak king could no longer attract warriors to his warband, and Oswiu’s supporters, fleeced again to pay for their king’s survival, might have indicated that they would give no more to save his skin.

Whatever the reason, Oswiu decided to place his life and future into the scale of battle. The old gods had sustained Penda through his reign as he threw down the newly Christian kings around him. Although the monks of Lindisfarne had translated Oswald’s death into martyrdom, for the battle warriors of the time the gods, or the God, had to deliver where it mattered most: on the battlefield.

Now it was time to put them to the test.