The Historia de Sancto Cuthberto states that Eadwulf had been a favourite (dilectus) of King Alfred the Great.
Clare Downham notes that the death of Eadwulf "is so widely reported in 913 that it seems hard to envisage that his fame derived from a three-year reign".
David Rollason described Eadwulf as an earl who flourished between about 890 and 912, and ruled an area north of the River Tyne and extending into what is now southern Scotland from the old Northumbrian royal centre at Bamburgh.
[5] According to Benjamin Hudson, in 913 Eadred son of Rixinc invaded Eadwulf's territory and killed him, then seized his wife and went to the sanctuary of the lands of St Cuthbert south of the River Tyne.
Another two sons are attested elsewhere: Adulf (which McGuigan suggests represents ′Æthelwulf′) is the ′King of the Northern Saxons′ whose obit was recorded in the Annals of Clonmacnoise for a year representing 934; another, Oswulf, is named in a genealogy reproduced by De Northumbria post Britannos (this is probably the later 'high reeve' Oswulf, fl.