As for Oswiu, Bede is equivocal. Oswiu ruled for 28 years, which was an exceptionally long reign for the time. However, unlike his elder brother, Oswiu had to scrabble for legitimacy and to secure his throne, and he was not above employing murder to do that.

His reign was also troubled by strife with his nephew, Œthelwold, and his son, Ahlfrith. It was, in sum, a reign disturbed by the usual problems of dynastic politics and the short-term solutions that men employ to deal with these. But it was a reign that ended with Oswiu dying of natural causes in his bed, in his late 50s, rather than on the battle field as had been the case with all his predecessors.

As such, it was the reign of a flawed but shrewd king in difficult times, a reign threaded with all the political compromises and betrayals that were necessary to ensure such a long reign. Hard to present such a man as the ideal of Christian kingship, although there might be a case for saying Oswiu came close to an ideal of practical kingship.