Cináed (Kenneth I "The Conqueror" ) mac Ailpín, Rí na h'Alba (810-858)
810--858 (man)
Begravningsort:
Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland
Född:
810
Scotland
Död:
February 13, 858 (48)
Perthshire, UK
Kenneth I "The Conqueror", King of The Picts
Son of Alpín mac Eochaid, Rí na Dál Riata och sister of Constantine King of the Picts Queen of Scotland
Husband of Princess Pictish och Queen of the Kingdom of Alba.
Father of Wife of Run MacAlpin; Constantine I, King of the Picts; Ćdh mac Cináeda, Rí na h'Alba och Máel Muire ni Cináeda
Brother of Gregor MACALPINE, Regent; Domnall mac Ailpín, Rí na Dál Riata; Wife of Godfrey mac Fergus Ingen Ailpín; Donald I MacEochaid; Wife of Fergus Mac Eoganan Ingen Ailpín; och Achaius mac Ailpín
Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein), Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of Scotland, crowned 843. King of the Picts and the Gaels.
Son of a Gael king of Dalriada (Argyll, Kintyre) and a Pict princess, he was an heir to both kingdoms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_MacAlpin
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#_Toc209085738
KENNETH MacAlpin, son of ALPIN & his wife --- (-Forteviot, Perthshire 13 Feb [858], bur [Isle of Iona]).
The 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum records that "Kinadius…filius Alpini, primus Scottorum" ruled "Pictaviam" for 16 years[30]. The 12th century Cronica Regum Scottorum lists "Alpin filius Eochal venenosi iii, Kynedus filius Alpini primus rex Scottorum xvi…" as kings, dated to the 9th century[31]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that "Kenneth son of Alpin" succeeded his father in 834, and became king of the Picts in 839 "when they had been overcome", and reigned "nearly sixteen years as sole monarch of these kingdoms"[32]. Thereafter he is considered to have succeeded as KENNETH I King of Scotland.
The 11th century Synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach name (in order) "Cinaet mac Ailpin…Domnall mac Ailpin, Custantin mac Cinaeta, (Aedh mac Cinaedha), Girg mac Dungaile, Domnall Dasachtach (mac Custantin)" as Scottish kings, dated to the 9th and 10th centuries, adding that "Kenneth son of Alpin…was the first king who possessed the kingdom of Scone, of the Gael"[33].
The Annals of Ulster record the death in 858 of "Cinaed son of Ailpín king of the Picts"[34]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 records that "Kynat mac Alpin" reigned for 16 years, died "in Fethertauethn" and was buried "in Yona insula"[35].
The Chronicle of the Picts and Scots dated 1251 includes the same information but records his place of death as "Forteviet", and adds that "tres filii…Fergus, Loern, Tenegus" were also buried at Iona[36].
m ---. The name of Kenneth's wife is not known.
Kenneth I & his wife had [four] children:
1. CONSTANTINE [Causantin] (-killed in battle Inverdorat, the Black Cove, Angus [876], bur [Isle of Iona]). The 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum records that "Constantinus filius Cinadi" ruled for 16 years[37]. He succeeded his uncle as CONSTANTINE I King of Scotland. The 11th century Synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach name (in order) "Cinaet mac Ailpin…Domnall mac Ailpin, Custantin mac Cinaeta, (Aedh mac Cinaedha), Girg mac Dungaile, Domnall Dasachtach (mac Custantin)" as Scottish kings, dated to the 9th and 10th centuries[38]. The 12th century Cronica Regum Scottorum lists "…Constantinus filius Kinet xx…" as king, dated to the 9th century[39].
The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that "his nephew Constantine, son of his brother Kenneth the Great" succeeded in 858 on the death of Donald, and reigned for sixteen years[40]. The Annals of Ulster record that in 872 "Artgal king of the Britons of Strathclyde was killed at the instigation of Constantine son of Cinaed"[41].
The Annals of Ulster record the death in 876 of "Constantine son of Cinaed king of the Picts"[42]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 records that "Constantinus mac Kynat" reigned for 15 years, was killed "a Noruagiensibus in bello de Merdo fatha" and was buried "in Iona insula"[43].
The Chronicle of the Picts and Scots dated 1251 records that "Constantinus mac Kinet" reigned for 16 years, was killed "a Norvagensibus in bello Inuerdofacta" and was buried at Iona[44]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that King Constantine was killed in battle "at a spot named the Black Den" by the Danes[45].
m ---. The name of Constantine's wife is not known. Constantine & his wife had one child:
a) DONALD (-killed Dun-fother [900], bur [Isle of Iona]). The 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum records that "Donivaldus filius Constantini" reigned for eleven years, after the expulsion of Eochlaid[46].
The 11th century Synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach name (in order) "Cinaet mac Ailpin…Domnall mac Ailpin, Custantin mac Cinaeta, (Aedh mac Cinaedha), Girg mac Dungaile, Domnall Dasachtach (mac Custantin)" as Scottish kings, dated to the 9th and 10th centuries[47]. The 12th century Cronica Regum Scottorum lists "…Duneval filius Constantini xi…" as king[48].
The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that "Donald…the son of…Constantine, son of Kenneth the Great" succeeded in 892 after the death of Gregory and reigned for eleven years[49]. He succeeded his cousin as DONALD II "Dasachtach" King of Scotland. The 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum records that the Scots defeated the Danes during Donald´s reign, and that he was killed "opidum Fother"[50]. The Annals of Ulster record the death in 900 of "Domnall son of Constantine king of Scotland"[51]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 records that "Donald mac Constantine" reigned for 11 years, died "in Fores" and was buried "in Iona insula"[52]. The Chronicle of the Picts and Scots dated 1251 includes the same information[53].
m ---. The name of Donald's wife is not known. Donald & his wife had [two] children:
i) [EUGENE . The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that "Constantine son of Heth the Wing-footed" granted "the lordship of the region of Cumbria" to "Eugenius the son of Donald his expected next heir" in "the sixteenth year of his reign" ([916/20][54]. No reference to hime as been found in any other primary source. His name is not typical of the period.]
ii) MALCOLM [Maelcoluim] (-killed Vlurn [954], bur [Isle of Iona]). His parentage is confirmed by the Annals of Ulster which record the death in 954 of "Mael Coluim son of Domnall king of Scotland…killed"[55]. He succeeded in 942 as MALCOLM I King of Scotland.
2. [AEDH (-killed in battle Strathallan [878], bur [Isle of Iona] or [Maiden Stone, Aberdeenshire]). The 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum records that "Edus" succeeded King Constantine I and for 1 year and was killed "in civitate Nrurim", but does not state the family relationship between the two kings[56].
As noted in the Introduction to this document, the relationship between Aedh and his predecessors is only mentioned from the 11th century Synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach which name (in order) "Cinaet mac Ailpin…Domnall mac Ailpin, Custantin mac Cinaeta, (Aedh mac Cinaedha), Girg mac Dungaile, Domnall Dasachtach (mac Custantin)" as Scottish kings, dated to the 9th and 10th centuries[57]. The suspicion is that his family relationship may have been fabricated by later chroniclers who were concerned with reinforcing the continuity in the male line of the Scottish succession. He succeeded as AEDH King of Scotland.
3. daughter . Her parentage and marriage are confirmed by the 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum which records that "Eochodius…filius Run regis Britannorum, nepos Cinadei ex filia" succeeded King Aedh and ruled for 11 years[58].
m RUN Macarthagail King of Strathclyde. Run & his wife had one child:
a) EOCHAID (-[889]). The 10th century Pictish Chronicle Cronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum records that "Eochodius…filius Run regis Britannorum, nepos Cinadei ex filia" succeeded King Aedh and ruled for 11 years before being expelled[59]. The 12th century Cronica Regum Scottorum does not name Eochlaid in its king-list[60]. He succeeded his uncle as EOCHAID King of Scotland. His succession appears to have been challenged by Greg (see above). Deposed [889].
4. MAEL MUIRE (-913). The Annals of Ulster record the death in 913 of "Mael Muire daughter of Cinaed son of Ailpin”[61].
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Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (born 810 died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
King of Scots?
The Kenneth of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Kenneth died. In the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:
“ So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata. ”
In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:
“ Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre! ”
When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.
Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]
Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:
“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[4] ”
Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]
A feasible synopsis of the emerging consensus, may be put forward, namely, that the kingships of Gaels and Picts underwent a process of gradual fusion[6], starting with Kenneth, and rounded off in the reign of Constantine II. The Pictish institution of kingship provided the basis for merger with the Gaelic Alpin dynasty. The meeting of King Constantine and Bishop Cellach at the Hill of Belief near the (formerly Pictish) royal city of Scone in 906 cemented the rights and duties of Picts on an equal basis with those of Gaels (pariter cum Scottis). Hence the change in styling from King of the Picts to King of Alba. The legacy of Gaelic as the first national language of Scotland does not obscure the foundational process in the establishment of the Scottish kingdom of Alba.
Background
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:
... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[7]
Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.
Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth:
Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,
It is supposed that these kings are the Constantine son of Fergus and his brother Óengus II (Angus II), who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Uen (Eóganán), as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Kenneth were king there.[8]
The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus I (Angus I) son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[9] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[10]
Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through western Pictland in the centuries before Kenneth. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland", and Argyll derives from Oir-Ghŕidheal, the land of the "eastern Gaels".
[edit] Reign
Compared with the many questions on his origins, Kenneth's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Kenneth's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Uen son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.
Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[11] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Kenneth, although what should be made of the report is unclear:
Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.[12]
The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland,the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called kings neither of the Gaels or the Scots but of Alba.[13]
Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons, Donald II (Domnall mac Causantín) and Constantine II (Constantín mac Áeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death:
Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[14]
Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.
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Mac Alpin's Treason: The End of the Picts
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The Gael warrior king whose bloody sword enthroned a Scottish line of kings which eventually created modern Scotland is perhaps one of the most mysterious figures of ancient history. His is a life surrounded by treacherous myths, dark stories and unproved allegations of shameful deeds and sinful accomplishments. That the first true Scottish king of the various peoples of Scotland is smeared with the stain of treason and backstabbing is as much a product from lack of knowledge as it is from the terrible bits and pieces from a story of treason which has survived for over a thousand years.
There is very little fact upon which to base a story; indeed there is a lot of falsified or embellished documents from later Scottish Churchmen and Church historians, eager to create a Church approved version of how the Gael line of kings (and its Church) came to conquer Alba, completely erase Pictish culture and destroy the Pictish Church.
That the Scots' aim was to free Dalriada from Pictish domination and establish Scottish rule over the Picts is clearly evident by the actions of Kenneth MacAlpin's father, known as Alpin, who in 834 AD, as the Picts faced the new Viking threat in the north, rebelled against his Pictish King of Scots and Picts. This ruler of both Pictland and Dalriada was Oengus II, and according to the Chronicles of Huntingdon, the subject of Alpin's rebellion.
The rebellion by his Scottish subjects in the south forced the Pictish king to forego his total preoccupation with the Vikings in the north; Oengus II split his land army in two and faced the Scottish rebel (and southern threat) on Easter day, 834 AD. The Picts suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Alpin and the Scots and the Irish Annals record that Oengus, King of the Picts and Scots died that year. Overwhelmed with victory, Alpin marched north to attack the rear of the main Pictish army in the north. The Scots and Picts met in battle on August of that same year, and the Scots suffered a brutal defeat in which Alpin was captured and beheaded.
Five years later, the Picts still faced the northern threat of the nearly invincible Vikings. The Picts had suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Vikings in 839 AD. The Norsemen had by that year conquered and settled Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and as far south as the mouth of the Clyde. Additionally, Caithness, Sutherland and even Dalriada were being attacked and harassed by the long boats. The brutalizing defeat at the hands of the Vikings in 839 not only killed most of the Pictish nobility, including the King of Picts and Scots Uven Mac Angus II, his brother Bran and "numberless others", but also opened Mac Alpin's claim to the vacant Pictish throne, via his mother, who was a Pictish princess.
Recalling the peculiarity of a matrilineal succession which governed Pictish crowns, it is evident that Kenneth Mac Alpin (the Hardy) grounded his claims to the Pictish crown from his mother's bloodlines. His claim to the crown of Dalriada came from his father, who was a member of clan Gabhran, which had produced most Scottish kings, such as his ancestors King Eachaidh, King Alpin Mac Eachaidh, King Aed and King Fergus. His Pictish mother was descended from the royal house of Fortrenn, and his great-grand uncle, Alpin Mac Eachaidh had actually reigned as King of Picts until deposed by Oengus I. It is thus that Kenneth Mac Alpin was one of several nobles with a claim to the crown of Picts and Scots.
Mac Alpin, the King
The sources for facts of how Kenneth Mac Alpin, the avenging son of the slain Alpin, became King of Picts and Scots are few and suspect. Two such sources, The Prophecy of St. Berchan, and De Instructione Principus note that in 841 AD Mac Alpin attacked the remnants of the Pictish army and defeated them (he is lauded as "the raven feeder").
Mac Alpin then invites the Pictish king Drust IX and the remaining Pictish nobles to Scone to perhaps settle the issue of Dalriada's freedom or MacAlpin's claim to the Dalriadic crown. Faced with a recently victorious MacAlpin in the south, and a devastated army in the north, Drust, as well as all claimants to the Pictish throne from the seven royal houses attend this meeting at Scone. Legend has it that the Scots came secretly armed to Scone, where Drust and the Pictish nobles were killed.
It is Giraldus Cambresis in De Instructione Principus who recounts how a great banquet was held at Scone, and the Pictish King and his nobles were plied with drinks and became quite drunk. Once the Picts were drunk, the Scots allegedly pulled bolts from the benches, trapping the Picts in concealed earthen hollows under the benches; additionally, the traps were set with sharp blades, such that the falling Picts impaled themselves (the The Prophecy of St. Berchan tells that "...[Mac Alpin] plunged them in the pitted earth, sown with deadly blades...") . Trapped and unable to defend themselves, the surviving Picts were then murdered from above and their bodies, clothes and ornaments "plundered."
Although their king and royal houses had been murdered, and their armies wiped out in the north by the Vikings and decimated in the south by the Scots, the Picts nonetheless resist Scottish domination and as late as the 12th year of MacAlpin's reign the The Chronicle of Huntington tells us that Mac Alpin "fought successfully against the Picts seven times in one day" (perhaps wiping out the last remnants of an independent Pictish armed force).
Pictish resistance of a sort resurfaces after the end of the short reign by MacAlpin's second son, Aedh, when an attempt is tried to revive the Pictish matrilineal form of succession in the form of bringing to the throne Eochaidh Mac Run, son of Kenneth's daughter by a King of the Britons, which was in turn a joint ruler with a Pict named Giric, son of Dungal. They were expelled within ten years and Donald, who was the grandson of Kenneth via Kenneth's eldest son, assumed the throne.
The Scottish kings' dominion was essentially limited to Fortrenn, the Mearns and Dalriada, as the rest of the Pictish lands were under the yoke of the Vikings. Nonetheless, within a few generations, the Pictish language is forgotten, the Pictish Church taken over by the Scottish Columban Church and most vestiges of Pictish culture erased.
Furthermore, the seat of Kings is moved to Scone, sacred heart of the Pictish land and the sons of Mac Alpin accept the crown over the land of Picts and Scots seated on a slab of stone which Scottish myth tells us was carried by the Celtic tribes since their origins in Spain, brought to Tara in Ireland, built into the wall of Dunstaffnage Castle and then brought to Scone.
The Scots move north, ally themselves with the Vikings; in the south they lose and then defeat the Angles and with their borders relatively safe, forever suffocate Pictish culture.
http://halfmoon.tripod.com/pict2.html
Dark Age Scotland
Dark age Scotland was occupied by a number of races. The Picts, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, occupied the north-east of Scotland, they were a short race of Celtic stock and were reported to have arrived in Britain from Europe during the Celtic migrations in the first millennium B.C. The Scots, who were Gaelic Celts, arrived later, they crossed the sea from Northern Ireland in the third and Fourth centuries A.D. taking over the area of the West Highlands, which they termed Dalraida.
The Britons of Strathclyde, another Celtic race, known as Brythonic Celts, controlled the south-west from the Clyde to the Solway and into Cumbria. To this melting pot was added the Vikings, of Norway and Denmark, originally raiders who became settlers, who largely occupied the islands of Shetland and Orkney and lastly the Angles, who came north across the border from England to inhabit the Scottish lowlands.
The MacAlpin dynasty, which ruled Scotland throughout the Dark Ages, united the warring races of Picts and Scots as one nation. Early Scottish Kings were appointed by the Celtic system of tanistry, a 'tanist' or tanaise (literally 'the expected one') the successor to the King, was not neccesarily his eldest son, but was designated from among a group of his kindred, chosen during the life of the reigning King. This pattern of succession can be previously discerned amongst the ancient Kings of Dalraida. The House of MacAlpin continued to occupy the Scottish throne for the next two hundred years, which was marked by bitter dynastic conflict over tanist successors between rival branches of the dynasty.
Kenneth MacAlpin
Cinaeth, known to history as Kenneth MacAlpin or Kenneth the Hardy, was born around 810 on the Island of Iona. He was the son of the Scots chieftain Alpin, who had lead his countrymen in the struggle against the Picts and the invading Vikings. Alpin, the son of Eochaid the Venomous, was an obscure character but tradition states that he won a victory over the Picts, who later killed him, displaying his severed head in their camp.
Following the death of his father, Kenneth took up his standard and occupied the Pictish strongholds of Fortriu and Forteviot in Perthshire.
The Picts, reputed to be fierce warriors, were engaged in fighting the invading Vikings, who had previously killed the Pictish king, Eagan. Following victory in battle Kenneth became accepted as King of the Picts also. He was made King on the Moot Hill at Scone, ( pronounced skoon) seated upon the famous Stone of Scone. The stone's origins are obscured by the mists of time, but it was probably brought to Argyll from Antrim by Fergus MacErc of the Dal Riata Gaels. It's Gaelic name was Lia Fail meaning the 'speaking stone'. Scone itself was seen as the sacred centre of Pictavia.
At a banquet at Scone, Kenneth murdered the seven Earls of the Scot's kingdom of Dalriada, who might have lead opposition to his claim to be King of Scots and Picts, marking what was hoped to be the end of the conflict. The murder is popularly known as 'MacAlpin's treason'.
Although his father Alpin had been a Dalraid Scot, Kenneth had a Pictish mother and since the Pictish law of inheritance passed through the Matrilineal line, he also claimed to be the rightful representative of the Pictish line of Kings. Kenneth married the daughter of his second cousin, Constantine.
Kenneth itself was a Pictish name. The name Picts had been coined by the Romans, who referred to the inhabitants of Scotland as 'Picti' or painted men, due to their practice of dying their bodies with woad before going into battle. The Pictish language and culture was gradually taken over by that of the Scots.
Kenneth I sought repeatedly to conquer the Angles of Lothian, but did not meet with success in this area. He engaged in a long war against the Bernicans, who themselves were struggling against the Viking threat, crossing the Forth, then the boundary between the two countries, burning and looting Saxon villages, but made no significant territorial gains. The first King of Scots placed his capital at Dunkeld in Perthshire.
After a seventeen year reign Kenneth I died at Forteviot, Perthshire, possibly of cancer, he was buried on the island of Iona. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Donald I, in accordance with the tanist system of inheritance, then practised in Scotland.
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Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[10] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Kenneth, although what should be made of the report is unclear:
Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.[11]
The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland,the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called kings neither of the Gaels or the Scots but of Alba.[12]
Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons, Donald II (Domnall mac Causantín) and Constantine II (Constantín mac Áeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death:
Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[13]
Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.
Circa 810 AD a man named Ciniod Mac Alpin was born in Dalriada. His father was Alpin Mac Eochaid, the rightful King of Scots, and his mother was either a daughter of Achalas, King of Argyllshire or a princess of the royal lines of the Picts. Through his parents, he was a strong contender for the thrones of both the Scots and Picts. At that time, the Scots' kingdom of Dalriada was under the rule of the Pictish king, Oengus II. Alpin Mac Eochaid, in 834 AD, rebelled against the Pictish King of Scots and Picts. Both the Scottish Alpin and the Pictish Oengus died in battle in 834 AD.
However there was another factor at that time. The Vikings had been raiding the coasts of Scotland, destroying, pillaging and plundering the peoples regardless of race. They were the enemy of both Scots and Picts. By 839AD the Norsemen had conquered and settled Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and as far south as the mouth of the Clyde. Dalriada was being harassed by the long boats of the Vikings.
In 839 Ad, the Vikings killed the Pictish king, Eogan (or Uen), his successor and much of the ruling class of the Picts, leaving them seriously weakened. Ciniod was then able to reclaim Dalriada from the Picts. About 841 AD he was crowned King of Scots, taking the first name of Kenneth.
Kenneth now pressed his claim to the throne of the Picts but a Pict named Drust became King of Caledonia. He was to be the last Pictish king. Kenneth was desperate and resorted to what is known to this day as MacAlpin's Treason. He invited the noble families of the Picts to a banquet. King Drust and the remaining Earls of Caledonia attended the feast, where they were murdered. In 'De Instructione Principus', Giraldus Cambresis recounts how the Pictish King and his nobles were plied with drinks and became inebriated. The Scots then pulled bolts from the benches, trapping the Picts in concealed pits which they had previously constructed under the benches. The trenches were set with spears so that the Picts were impaled. Any survivors were soon finished off
Kenneth now became King of both Scots and Picts, although much of the territory of Caledonia was occupied by Vikings. Kenneth called the new kingdom Alba, and ruled until 859 Ad. He transferred his capital from Dunndald to Scone, in the heart of Pictish land. The Stone of Destiny, which had been brought from Ireland, was also moved to Scone. This stone was used in the coronation ceremony of the Kings of Dalriada and for hundreds of years the Kings of Scots would sit on it to be crowned. While not the first monarch to rule both Picts and Scots, Kenneth founded a kingdom that remained united. There was undoubtedly much Pictish resistance to his usurping of the throne, but, weakened and harassed by the Vikings and with their nobility dead, the Picts were unable to reclaim their kingdom.
--------------------
Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (born 810 died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
The Kenneth of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Kenneth died. In the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:
“ So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata. ”
In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:
“ Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre! ”
When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.
Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]
Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:
“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[4] ”
Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]
A feasible synopsis of the emerging consensus, may be put forward, namely, that the kingships of Gaels and Picts underwent a process of gradual fusion[6], starting with Kenneth, and rounded off in the reign of Constantine II. The Pictish institution of kingship provided the basis for merger with the Gaelic Alpin dynasty. The meeting of King Constantine and Bishop Cellach at the Hill of Belief near the (formerly Pictish) royal city of Scone in 906 cemented the rights and duties of Picts on an equal basis with those of Gaels (pariter cum Scottis). Hence the change in styling from King of the Picts to King of Alba. The legacy of Gaelic as the first national language of Scotland does not obscure the foundational process in the establishment of the Scottish kingdom of Alba.
When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.
Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]
Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:
“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[4] ”
Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]
A feasible synopsis of the emerging consensus, may be put forward, namely, that the kingships of Gaels and Picts underwent a process of gradual fusion[6], starting with Kenneth, and rounded off in the reign of Constantine II. The Pictish institution of kingship provided the basis for merger with the Gaelic Alpin dynasty. The meeting of King Constantine and Bishop Cellach at the Hill of Belief near the (formerly Pictish) royal city of Scone in 906 cemented the rights and duties of Picts on an equal basis with those of Gaels (pariter cum Scottis). Hence the change in styling from King of the Picts to King of Alba. The legacy of Gaelic as the first national language of Scotland does not obscure the foundational process in the establishment of the Scottish kingdom of Alba.
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:
... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[7]
Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.
Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth:
Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,
It is supposed that these kings are the Constantine son of Fergus and his brother Óengus II (Angus II), who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Uen (Eóganán), as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Kenneth were king there.[8]
The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus I (Angus I) son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[9] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[10]
Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through western Pictland in the centuries before Kenneth. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland", and Argyll derives from Oir-Ghŕidheal, the land of the "eastern Gaels".
Compared with the many questions on his origins, Kenneth's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Kenneth's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Uen son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.
Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[11] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Kenneth, although what should be made of the report is unclear:
Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.[12]
The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland,the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called kings neither of the Gaels or the Scots but of Alba.[13]
Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons, Donald II (Domnall mac Causantín) and Constantine II (Constantín mac Áeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death:
Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[14]
Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.
--------------------
Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein), commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (born 810 died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror". Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A1ed_mac_Ailp%C3%ADn
--------------------
Kenneth MacAlpin:
843-858
Cinaeth, known to history as Kenneth MacAlpin or Kenneth the Hardy, was born around 810 on the Island of Iona. He was the son of the Scots chieftain Alpin, who had lead his countrymen in the struggle against the Picts and the invading Vikings. Alpin, the son of Eochaid the Venomous, was an obscure character but tradition states that he won a victory over the Picts, who later killed him, displaying his severed head in their camp.
Following the death of his father, Kenneth took up his standard and occupied the Pictish strongholds of Fortriu and Forteviot in Perthshire.
The Picts, reputed to be fierce warriors, were engaged in fighting the invading Vikings, who had previously killed the Pictish king, Eagan. Following victory in battle Kenneth became accepted as King of the Picts also. He was made King on the Moot Hill at Scone, (pronounced skoon) seated upon the famous Stone of Scone. The stone's origins are obscured by the mists of time, but it was probably brought to Argyll from Antrim by Fergus MacErc of the Dal Riata Gaels. It's Gaelic name was Lia Fail meaning the speaking stone. Scone itself was seen as the sacred centre of Pictavia.
At a banquet at Scone, Kenneth murdered the seven Earls of the Scot's kingdom of Dalriada, who might have lead opposition to his claim to be King of Scots and Picts, marking what was hoped to be the end of the conflict. The murder is popularly known as MacAlpin's treason.
Although his father Alpin had been a Dalraid Scot, Kenneth had a Pictish mother and since the Pictish law of inheritance passed through the Matrilineal line, he also claimed to be the rightful representative of the Pictish line of Kings. Kenneth married the daughter of his second cousin, Constantine.
Kenneth itself was a Pictish name. The name Picts had been coined by the Romans, who referred to the inhabitants of Scotland as Picti or painted men, due to their practice of dying their bodies with woad before going into battle. The Pictish language and culture was gradually taken over by that of the Scots.
Kenneth I sought repeatedly to conquer the Angles of Lothian, but did not meet with success in this area. He engaged in a long war against the Bernicans, who themselves were struggling against the Viking threat, crossing the Forth, then the boundary between the two countries, burning and looting Saxon villages, but made no significant territorial gains. The first King of Scots placed his capital at Dunkeld in Perthshire.
After a seventeen year reign Kenneth I died at Forteviot, Perthshire, possibly of cancer, he was buried on the island of Iona. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Donald I, in accordance with the tanist system of inheritance.
Dark age Scotland was occupied by a number of races. The Picts, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, occupied the north-east of Scotland, they were a short race of Celtic stock and were reported to have arrived in Britain from Europe during the Celtic migrations in the first millennium B.C. The Scots, who were Gaelic Celts, arrived later, they crossed the sea from Northern Ireland in the third and fourth centuries A.D. taking over the area of the West Highlands, which they termed Dalraida.
The Britons of Strathclyde, another Celtic race, known as Brythonic Celts, controlled the south-west from the Clyde to the Solway and into Cumbria. To this melting pot was added the Vikings, of Norway and Denmark, originally raiders who became settlers, who largely occupied the islands of Shetland and Orkney and lastly the Angles, who came north across the border from England to inhabit the Scottish lowlands.
The MacAlpin dynasty, which ruled Scotland throughout the Dark Ages, united the warring races of Picts and Scots as one nation. Early Scottish Kings were appointed by the Celtic system of tanistry, a tanist or tanaise (literally the expected one) the successor to the King, was not neccesarily his eldest son, but was designated from among a group of his kindred, chosen during the life of the reigning King. This pattern of succession can be previously discerned amongst the ancient Kings of Dalraida. The House of MacAlpin continued to occupy the Scottish throne for the next two hundred years, which was marked by bitter dynastic conflict over tanist successors between rival branches of the dynasty.
--------------------
Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Picts.
Reign 843–858
Born 843
Died 13 February 858
Place of death Cinnbelachoir
Buried Iona
Father Alpín mac Echdach
Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regal lists as Kenneth I (died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror". Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata.
Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth.
Cinaeth, known to history as Kenneth MacAlpin or Kenneth the Hardy, was born around 810 on the Island of Iona. He was the son of the Scots chieftain Alpin, who had lead his countrymen in the struggle against the Picts and the invading Vikings. Alpin, the son of Eochaid the Venomous, was an obscure character but tradition states that he won a victory over the Picts, who later killed him, displaying his severed head in their camp.
Following the death of his father, Kenneth took up his standard and occupied the Pictish strongholds of Fortriu and Forteviot in Perthshire.
The Picts, reputed to be fierce warriors, were engaged in fighting the invading Vikings, who had previously killed the Pictish king, Eagan. Following victory in battle Kenneth became accepted as King of the Picts also. He was made King on the Moot Hill at Scone, (pronounced skoon) seated upon the famous Stone of Scone. The stone's origins are obscured by the mists of time, but it was probably brought to Argyll from Antrim by Fergus MacErc of the Dal Riata Gaels. It's Gaelic name was Lia Fail meaning the speaking stone. Scone itself was seen as the sacred centre of Pictavia.
At a banquet at Scone, Kenneth murdered the seven Earls of the Scot's kingdom of Dalriada, who might have lead opposition to his claim to be King of Scots and Picts, marking what was hoped to be the end of the conflict. The murder is popularly known as MacAlpin's treason.
Although his father Alpin had been a Dalraid Scot, Kenneth had a Pictish mother and since the Pictish law of inheritance passed through the Matrilineal line, he also claimed to be the rightful representative of the Pictish line of Kings. Kenneth married the daughter of his second cousin, Constantine.
Kenneth itself was a Pictish name. The name Picts had been coined by the Romans, who referred to the inhabitants of Scotland as Picti or painted men, due to their practice of dying their bodies with woad before going into battle. The Pictish language and culture was gradually taken over by that of the Scots.
Kenneth I sought repeatedly to conquer the Angles of Lothian, but did not meet with success in this area. He engaged in a long war against the Bernicans, who themselves were struggling against the Viking threat, crossing the Forth, then the boundary between the two countries, burning and looting Saxon villages, but made no significant territorial gains. The first King of Scots placed his capital at Dunkeld in Perthshire.
After a seventeen year reign Kenneth I died at Forteviot, Perthshire, possibly of cancer, he was buried on the island of Iona. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Donald I, in accordance with the tanist system of inheritance.
Dark age Scotland was occupied by a number of races. The Picts, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, occupied the north-east of Scotland, they were a short race of Celtic stock and were reported to have arrived in Britain from Europe during the Celtic migrations in the first millennium B.C. The Scots, who were Gaelic Celts, arrived later, they crossed the sea from Northern Ireland in the third and fourth centuries A.D. taking over the area of the West Highlands, which they termed Dalraida.
The Britons of Strathclyde, another Celtic race, known as Brythonic Celts, controlled the south-west from the Clyde to the Solway and into Cumbria. To this melting pot was added the Vikings, of Norway and Denmark, originally raiders who became settlers, who largely occupied the islands of Shetland and Orkney and lastly the Angles, who came north across the border from England to inhabit the Scottish lowlands.
The MacAlpin dynasty, which ruled Scotland throughout the Dark Ages, united the warring races of Picts and Scots as one nation. Early Scottish Kings were appointed by the Celtic system of tanistry, a tanist or tanaise (literally the expected one) the successor to the King, was not neccesarily his eldest son, but was designated from among a group of his kindred, chosen during the life of the reigning King. This pattern of succession can be previously discerned amongst the ancient Kings of Dalraida. The House of MacAlpin continued to occupy the Scottish throne for the next two hundred years, which was marked by bitter dynastic conflict over tanist successors between rival branches of the dynasty.
--------------------
Kenneth MacAlpin
King of the Picts
Reign 843–858
Successor Domnall mac Ailpín
among possible others Issue
Constantín mac Cináeda, King of the Picts
Áed mac Cináeda, King of the Picts
Máel Muire ingen Cináeda
House Alpin
Father Alpín mac Echdach
Born 810
Island of Iona
Died 13 February 858
Cinnbelachoir
Burial Iona
Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (810 – 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland,[citation needed] he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
The Kenneth of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Kenneth died. In the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:
“ So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata. ”
In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:
“ Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre! ”
When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.
Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]
Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:
“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[4] ”
Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]
A feasible synopsis of the emerging consensus, may be put forward, namely, that the kingships of Gaels and Picts underwent a process of gradual fusion[6], starting with Kenneth, and rounded off in the reign of Constantine II. The Pictish institution of kingship provided the basis for merger with the Gaelic Alpin dynasty. The meeting of King Constantine and Bishop Cellach at the Hill of Belief near the (formerly Pictish) royal city of Scone in 906 cemented the rights and duties of Picts on an equal basis with those of Gaels (pariter cum Scottis). Hence the change in styling from King of the Picts to King of Alba. The legacy of Gaelic as the first national language of Scotland does not obscure the foundational process in the establishment of the Scottish kingdom of Alba.
[edit]Background
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:
... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[7]
Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.
Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth:
Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,
It is supposed that these kings are the Constantine son of Fergus and his brother Óengus II (Angus II), who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Uen (Eóganán), as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Kenneth were king there.[8]
The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus I (Angus I) son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[9] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[10]
Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through western Pictland in the centuries before Kenneth. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland", and Argyll derives from Oir-Ghŕidheal, the land of the "eastern Gaels".
[edit]Reign
Compared with the many questions on his origins, Kenneth's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Kenneth's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Uen son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.
Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[11] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Kenneth, although what should be made of the report is unclear:
Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.[12]
The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland,the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called kings neither of the Gaels or the Scots but of Alba.[13]
Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons, Donald II (Domnall mac Causantín) and Constantine II (Constantín mac Áeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death:
Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[14]
Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.
--------------------
Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (810 – 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
King of Scots?
Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
The Kenneth of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Kenneth died. In the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:
“ So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata. ”
In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:
“ Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre! ”
When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.
Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]
Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:
“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[dead link][4] ”
Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]
A feasible synopsis of the emerging consensus, may be put forward, namely, that the kingships of Gaels and Picts underwent a process of gradual fusion[6], starting with Kenneth, and rounded off in the reign of Constantine II. The Pictish institution of kingship provided the basis for merger with the Gaelic Alpin dynasty. The meeting of King Constantine and Bishop Cellach at the Hill of Belief near the (formerly Pictish) royal city of Scone in 906 cemented the rights and duties of Picts on an equal basis with those of Gaels (pariter cum Scottis). Hence the change in styling from King of the Picts to King of Alba. The legacy of Gaelic as the first national language of Scotland does not obscure the foundational process in the establishment of the Scottish kingdom of Alba.
Background
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:
... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[7]
Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.
Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth:
Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,
It is supposed that these kings are the Constantine son of Fergus and his brother Óengus II (Angus II), who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Uen (Eóganán), as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Kenneth were king there.[8]
The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus I (Angus I) son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[9] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[10]
Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through western Pictland in the centuries before Kenneth. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland", and Argyll derives from Oir-Ghŕidheal, the land of the "eastern Gaels".
Reign
Compared with the many questions on his origins, Kenneth's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Kenneth's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Uen son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.
Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[11] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Kenneth, although what should be made of the report is unclear:
Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.[12]
The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland,the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called kings neither of the Gaels or the Scots but of Alba.[13]
Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons, Donald II (Domnall mac Causantín) and Constantine II (Constantín mac Áeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death:
Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[14]
Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.
Notes
1. ^ Cináed mac Ailpín is the Mediaeval Gaelic form. A more accurate rendering in modern Gaelic would be Cionaodh mac Ailpein, since Coinneach is historically a separate name. However, in the modern language, both names have converged.
2. ^ Skene, Chronicles, p. 83.
3. ^ That the Pictish succession was matrilineal is doubted. Bede in the Ecclesiastical History, I, i, writes: "when any question should arise, they should choose a king from the female royal race, rather than the male: which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this day." Bridei and Nechtan, the sons of Der-Ilei, were the Pictish kings in Bede's time, and are presumed to have claimed the throne through maternal descent. Maternal descent, "when any question should arise" brought several kings of Alba and the Scots to the throne, including John Balliol, Robert Bruce and Robert II, the first of the Stewart kings.
4. ^ Johnston, Ian. "First king of the Scots? Actually he was a Pict".The Scotsman, October 2, 2004.
5. ^ For example, Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 107–108; Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin"; Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100", pp. 28–32; Duncan, Kingship of the Scots, pp. 8–10. Woolf was selected to write the relevant volume of the new Edinburgh History of Scotland, to replace that written by Duncan in 1975.
6. ^ After Herbert, Rí Éirenn, Rí Alban, kingship and identity in the ninth and tenth centuries, p. 71.
7. ^ Rawlinson B.502 ¶1696 Genelach Ríg n-Alban.
8. ^ See Broun, Pictish Kings, for a discussion of this question.
9. ^ For the descendants of the first Óengus son of Fergus, again see Broun, Pictish Kings.
10. ^ Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp.95–96; Fergus would appear as Uurgu(i)st in a Pictish form.
11. ^ Regarding Dál Riata, see Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin"; Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 111–112.
12. ^ Annals of the Four Master, for the year 835 (probably c. 839). The history of Dál Riata in this period is simply not known, or even if there was any sort of Dál Riata to have a history. Ó Corráin's "Vikings in Ireland and Scotland", available as etext, and Woolf, "Kingdom of the Isles", may be helpful.
13. ^ Lynch, Michael, A New History of Scotland
14. ^ Fragmentary Annals, FA 285.
References
For primary sources see under External links below.
* John Bannerman, "The Scottish Takeover of Pictland" in Dauvit Broun & Thomas Owen Clancy (eds.) Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots. Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland. T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1999. ISBN 0-567-08682-8
* Dauvit Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin" in Michael Lynch (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford: Oxford UP, ISBN 0-19-211696-7
* Dauvit Broun, "Pictish Kings 761-839: Integration with Dál Riata or Separate Development" in Sally Foster (ed.) The St Andrews Sarcophagus Dublin: Four Courts Press, ISBN 1-85182-414-6
* Dauvit Broun, "Dunkeld and the origins of Scottish Identity" in Dauvit Broun and Thomas Owen Clancy (eds), op. cit.
* Thomas Owen Clancy, "Caustantín son of Fergus" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
* A.A.M. Duncan,The Kingship of the Scots 842–1292: Succession and Independence. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-7486-1626-8
* Katherine Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100" in Jenny Wormald (ed.) Scotland: A History. Oxford: Oxford UP, ISBN 0-19-820615-1
* Sally Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland. London: Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-8874-3
* Máire Herbert, "Ri Éirenn, Ri Alban: kingship and identity in the ninth and tenth centuries" in Simon Taylor (ed.), Kings, clerics and chronicles in Scotland 500–1297. Dublin: Fourt Courts Press, ISBN 1-85182-516-9
* Donnchadh Ó Corráin, "Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the ninth century" in Peritia 12 (1998), pp. 296–339. Etext (pdf)
* Alex Woolf, "Constantine II" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
* Alex Woolf, "Kingdom of the Isles" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A1ed_mac_Ailp%C3%ADn
--------------------
Kenneth I MacAlpin, King of Scotland
M, #102901, b. 810, d. 859
Kenneth I MacAlpin, King of Scotland:b. 810
d. 859:p10291.htm#i102901:Alpin of Kintyre, King of Scotland:d. 20 Jul 834:p10291.htm#i102905::::Eochaid IV 'the Poisonous', King of Dalraida::p10209.htm#i102086:Fergusa (?)::p880.htm#i8793:::::::
Last Edited=28 May 2007
Kenneth I MacAlpin, King of Scotland was born in 810 at Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.1 He was the son of Alpin of Kintyre, King of Scotland. He died in 859 at Forteviot, Perthshire, Scotland.2 He was buried at Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.2
Kenneth I MacAlpin, King of Scotland succeeded to the title of King Kenneth I of Galloway on 20 July 834.2 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of Dalriada in 841.2 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of the Picts between 843 and 844.2 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of Scotland in 846.2 He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.3
Children of Kenneth I MacAlpin, King of Scotland
1.unknown daughter (?)+
2.Eochaid MacAlpin
3.Constantine I, King of Scotland+ b. 836, d. 877
4.Ćdh 'Swiftfoot', King of Scotland+ b. 840, d. 878
--------------------------
Kenneth I, MacAlpin (d. 858)
Kenneth MacAlpin earns his place in Scottish history as the first king of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts, making him virtual king of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and the Clyde. By the year 843, he had created a semblance of unity among the warring societies of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglos after he had defeated the Picts in battle. MacAlpin created his capital at Forteviot, in Pictish territory; he then moved his religious center to Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, to where he transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.
At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's Dyke, MacAlpin was creating a kingdom of Scotland. MacAlpin's successes in part were due to the threat coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harald Fairhair caused many of the previously independent Jarls to look for new lands to establish themselves.
One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command of the sea, was that the kingdom of Scotland became surrounded and isolated; the old link with Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England and the Continent; thus the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was thrown in upon itself and united against a common foe. According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, he "was the first of the Scots to obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called Scotia."
--------------------
Kenneth I, MacAlpin (d. 858)
Kenneth MacAlpin earns his place in Scottish history as the first king of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts, making him virtual king of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and the Clyde. By the year 843, he had created a semblance of unity among the warring societies of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglos after he had defeated the Picts in battle. MacAlpin created his capital at Forteviot, in Pictish territory; he then moved his religious center to Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, to where he transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.
At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's Dyke, MacAlpin was creating a kingdom of Scotland. MacAlpin's successes in part were due to the threat coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harald Fairhair caused many of the previously independent Jarls to look for new lands to establish themselves.
One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command of the sea, was that the kingdom of Scotland became surrounded and isolated; the old link with Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England and the Continent; thus the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was thrown in upon itself and united against a common foe. According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, he "was the first of the Scots to obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called Scotia."
--------------------
Alpin, Kenneth I's father, of whom nothing is known, was the first in the line of Scottish Monarchs. Kenneth, although never truly crowned a king of Scotland, was more reponsible for the creation of Scotland by uniting the Scots and the Picts--which was often known simply SCOTIA but more commonly as ALBA. What happened to the Pictish Kingdom is still a mystery, but legend would have it that Kenneth spent many an evening inviting the Pictish Royals to huge feasts of wine and meat, and then killing them off as they ate. Historians may argue, though, that the Picts actually demised due to the warring nature of the Scots and that the Gaelic language from the Scots took over and the Picts slowly became part of what is now Scotland. Kenneth I died of cancer in 859, leaving his new Scottish Kingdom to his brother Donald I. (Source: http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/monarch1.htm)
First King of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts and of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and Clyde Ribers. Kennedth succeeded his father Alpin and ruled for 16 years. The gradual union of the two kingdoms in 843, doubtless owes much to intermarriage. By Pictish custom, inheritance passed through the females. Kenneth is believed to have brought the Stone of Scone "Stone of Destiny", on which all the Scottish Kings were crowned from Dunstaffnage Castle to Scone in the 9th Century. Scone remained the site at which all Scottish Kings were crowned until the 15th century. Kenneth was the first Scot to become King of the Picts after killing Drust IX. His claim to the crown of Dalraida came from his father, who was a member of the clan Gabhran, which had produced most Scottish King. His claim to the Pictish crown from his mother a descendant from the royal house of Fortrenn. (Source: feanadorf.ged)
Kenneth MacAlpin earns his place in Scottish history as the first king of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts, making him virtual king of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and the Clyde. By the year 843, he had created a semblance of unity among the warring societies of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglos after he had defeated the Picts in battle. MacAlpin created his capital at Forteviot, in Pictish territory; he then moved his religious center to Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, to where he transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.
At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's Dyke, MacAlpin was creating a kingdom of Scotland. MacAlpin's successes in part were due to the threat coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harald Fairhair caused many of the previously independent Jarls to look for new lands to establish themselves.
One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command of the sea, was that the kingdom of Scotland became surrounded and isolated; the old link with Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England and the Continent; thus the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was thrown in upon itself and united against a common foe. According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, he "was the first of the Scots to obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called Scotia."
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Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (born 810 died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
Contents
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* 1 King of Scots?
* 2 Background
* 3 Reign
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links
* 7 Further reading
* 8 See also
[edit] King of Scots?
Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
The Kenneth of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Kenneth died. In the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:
“ So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata. ”
In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:
“ Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre! ”
When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.
Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]
Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:
“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[4] ”
Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]
A feasible synopsis of the emerging consensus, may be put forward, namely, that the kingships of Gaels and Picts underwent a process of gradual fusion[6], starting with Kenneth, and rounded off in the reign of Constantine II. The Pictish institution of kingship provided the basis for merger with the Gaelic Alpin dynasty. The meeting of King Constantine and Bishop Cellach at the Hill of Belief near the (formerly Pictish) royal city of Scone in 906 cemented the rights and duties of Picts on an equal basis with those of Gaels (pariter cum Scottis). Hence the change in styling from King of the Picts to King of Alba. The legacy of Gaelic as the first national language of Scotland does not obscure the foundational process in the establishment of the Scottish kingdom of Alba.
[edit] Background
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:
... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[7]
Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.
Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth:
Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,
It is supposed that these kings are the Constantine son of Fergus and his brother Óengus II (Angus II), who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Uen (Eóganán), as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Kenneth were king there.[8]
The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus I (Angus I) son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at leas | |
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