The location was also known as Cogwy in Welsh, with Welshmen from Pengwern participating in the battle (according to the probably ninth-century Canu Heledd), probably as allies of the Mercians.

Bede reports the commonly accepted date given above; the Welsh Annales Cambriae is generally considered incorrect in giving the year of the battle as 644.

He says only that Oswald died fighting for his country at Maserfield, giving the impression that the battle was part of a "just war".

Oswald's body was cut into pieces, and his head and arms mounted on poles; the parts were retrieved in the next year by his brother and successor Oswiu.

The 20th-century historian, D. P. Kirby, wrote that the battle left Penda as "without question the most powerful Mercian ruler so far to have emerged in the midlands".

[9] According to the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae, Penda's brother Eowa, also said to have been a king of the Mercians, was killed in the battle along with Oswald.

Following the battle, Deira, in the southern part of Northumbria, chose a king of its own, Oswine, while Bernicia in the north (which had been dominant, with Oswald, a member of the Bernician royal line, ruling both Bernicia and Deira prior to Maserfield) was ruled by Oswald's brother Oswiu.