Cuthwine, then twenty-seven, was a commander in the fateful battle; but upon defeat, as the rightful heir to the throne, he fled the place along with his young sons.
After this, he appears infrequently as a shadowy figure, apparently already passing into legend among the common people as a result of his long-held position against the (at times) brutal role of Ceol and his family.
In about the year 620 it appears that the upper Thames valley where the household of Cuthwulf was based became too small to comfortably hold the three brothers.
As the youngest, Cuthwulf was the one who was forced to move - at any rate this is a sensible deduction given that he later turns up in what is now east Devon, on the western marches of Wessex and in constant conflict with Dumnonia.
Furthermore, there is little economic, military, social, cultural or archaeological evidence that Wessex established control over Cornwall, certainly not in those early days.
The Britons in Dumnonia were cut off from their allies in Wales by Ceawlin of Wessex's victory at Dyrham in 577, but since sea travel was easier than land, the blow may not have been severe.
Clemen ap Bledric is thought to have been king when the Britons fought the Battle of Beandun (possibly Bindon near Axmouth in east Devon) in 614.
The battle site suggests that the Dumnonian army was invading Wessex using the Roman road eastward from Exeter to Dorchester and was intercepted by a West Saxon garrison marching south.
The Flores Historiarum, attributed incorrectly to Matthew of Westminster, states that the Britons were still in possession of Exeter in 632, when it was bravely defended against Penda of Mercia until relieved by Cadwallon, who engaged and defeated the Mercians with "great slaughter to their troops".
Geoffrey of Monmouth also details an account of the siege in his pseudo-historic Historia Brittonum, stating that Cadwallon made an alliance with the British nobility.