"[8] A letter sent by Pope Paul I to Eadberht and Ecgberht, ordering them to return lands taken from Abbot Fothred, and given to his brother Moll, presumed to be the same person as the later king Æthelwald Moll, suggests that Eadberht's reign saw attempts at reclaiming some of the vast lands which had been granted to the church in earlier reigns.

[9] Kirby suggests that "a revival of seventh-century northern imperial ambitions had evidently occurred among the Northumbrians at the court of Eadberht".

A war between the Picts and the Northumbrians is reported, during which Æthelbald, King of Mercia, took advantage of the absence of Eadberht to ravage his lands.

Earnwine's father had been an exile in the north after his defeat in the civil war of 705–706, and it may be that the Pictish king Óengus, or Æthelbald, or both, had tried to place him on the Northumbrian throne.

[10] In 750, Eadberht conquered the plain of Kyle and in 756, he campaigned alongside King Óengus against the Britons of Alt Clut.

[8] Symeon's History of the Church of Durham records that Eadberht was buried in the porch of the cathedral, alongside his brother Ecgberht, who had died in 766.

Eadberht's last known descendant is Osgifu's son Saint Alhmund, murdered in 800 on the orders of King Eardwulf, and reputed a martyr.