Battle of Dun Nechtain - Aftermath

Aftermath

Ecgfrith's defeat at Dun Nechtain devastated Northumbria's power and influence in the North of Britain. Bede recounts that the Picts recovered their lands that had been held by the Northumbrians and Dál Riatan Scots. He goes on to tell how the Northumbrians who did not flee the Pictish territory were killed or enslaved.

The Roman diocese of the Picts was abandoned, with Trumwine and his monks fleeing to Whitby, stalling Roman Catholic expansion in Scotland. Reforms were made in the Scottish Church in the 8th century that removed some of the more contentious differences between the Ionan and Roman churches, but it remained outside of the Roman Catholic Communion until the 11th century.

While further battles between the Northumbrians and Picts are recorded, for example in 697 when Beornhæth's son Berhtred was killed, the Battle of Dunnichen marks the point in which Pictish independence from Northumbria was permanently secured.