Tensions between Æthelstan and Winchester seem to have continued for some years.

The Bishop of Winchester, Frithestan, did not attend the coronation or witness any of Æthelstan's known charters until 928.

After that he had witnessed fairly regularly until his resignation in 931, but was listed in a lower position than entitled by his seniority.

Edwin is drowned in 933 in a shipwreck in the North Sea.

His cousin, Adelolf, Count of Boulogne, took his body for burial at St Bertin Abbey in Saint-Omer.

According to the abbey's annalist, Folcuin, who wrongly believed that Edwin had been king, he had fled England "driven by some disturbance in his kingdom".

Folcuin stated that Æthelstan sent alms to the abbey for his dead brother and received monks from the abbey graciously when they came to England, although Folcuin did not realize that Æthelstan died before the monks made the journey in 944.

The twelfth century chronicler Symeon of Durham said that Æthelstan ordered Edwin to be drowned, but this is generally dismissed by historians.

Edwin may have fled England after an unsuccessful rebellion against his brother's rule, and his death probably helped put an end to Winchester's opposition.