About Kenneth I Mac Alpine, king of the Picts

It is possible that Cináed mac Alpín is himself fictitious, but there are arguments to be made for his historicity. His supposed father, however -- [Alpín mac Echdach, Rí na Dál Riata] --does not appear in documents before the 10th century, where he appears in a pediegree constructed in order to give the kings of Scotland an ancient history.

http://www.friesian.com/perifran.htm#england

Kenneth I (a.k.a.Cináed mac Ailpín, Kenneth Mac Alpin, and Kenneth the Hardy) lived from 810 to 859 and was arguably the first King of the Kingdom of Scotland, which he ruled from 843 to 859. At the time he was referred to as King of the Picts. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline

He was son of King Alpin II of Dalriada and succeeded his father to the crown of Dalriada in 839. This effectively made him King of the Scots, whose territory roughly covered modern-day Argyll. Meanwhile, also in 839, the Picts, who until then had controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll, suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Vikings. Most of the Pictish nobility was wiped out in the defeat, including King Bridei VI.

Kenneth Mac Alpin had a claim to the Pictish crown through his mother. But his claim was disputed by surviving members of the seven royal houses of the Picts, and Drust X succeeded to the Pictish Crown. Kenneth defeated the Picts in battle in 841: and squeezed between the Scots on one side and the rampaging Vikings on the other, the Picts agreed to a meeting with Mac Alpin at Scone, attended by all claimants to the Pictish Crown. SOURCE.

The alcohol flowed freely at the meeting. Then, in what has since been referred to as Mac Alpin's treason, Drust and the Pictish nobles were all killed by the Scots: allegedly (and improbably) by having their booby-trapped benches collapsed so Kenneth's rivals plunged into pits in the floor and impaled themselves on spikes set there for the purpose.

Suddenly there was only one claimant for the Pictish Crown, and Kenneth was crowned King of the Picts and the Scots in 843. He was the first King of the House of Alpin, the dynasty named after his father. Kenneth made his capital at Forteviot, a small village 5 miles south west of today's Perth. He also moved the religious focus of his kingdom from Iona to Dunkeld, and had St Columba's remains moved there in 849, perhaps for safe keeping from the continuing Vikings raids.

Mac Alpin continued to fight against Picts who challenged his right to hold their crown, but by 855 his grip on those parts of modern Scotland north of the Clyde and Forth not under the control of the Vikings was relatively secure. He had also created some sort of stability in his relations with the Britons and the Angles who held the lands to the south.

Over time his combined Kingdom of the Picts and Scots came to be referred to as Alba: later know by medieval scholars (rather confusingly) as Albania.

Kenneth I died at Forteviot in 858. apparently of natural causes. He was then buried on the Isle of Iona. He was succeeded by his brother, Donald I.

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 and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period.

Contents [hide]

1 King of Scots?

2 Background

3 Reign

4 See also

5 Notes

6 References

7 Further reading

8 External links

[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."[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.

[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 Rawlinson B 502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but many historians still accept Kenneth's descent from the established Cenél nGabráin, or at the very least from some unknown minor sept of the 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, [citation needed]

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]

That Kenneth was a Gael is not widely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture and/or in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus 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-Ghàidheal, 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, but 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, Orkney, 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.

[edit] See also

Scotland in the Early Middle Ages

Scotland in the High Middle Ages

[edit] 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.^ Genealogies from 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.

[edit] 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

Michael A. O'Brien (ed.) with intr. by John V. Kelleher, Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae. DIAS. 1976. / partial digital edition: Donnchadh Ó Corráin (ed.), Genealogies from Rawlinson B 502. University College, Cork: Corpus of Electronic Texts. 1997.

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.

[edit] Further reading

Sally Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots (revised edition, 2005) - a broad and accessible introduction

Leslie Alcock, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland monograph Kings and Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests in Northern Britain AD 550–750 (2003) - more detail

Alex Woolf, Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789–1070, in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series, published in 2007.

The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (2001) - articles by expert contributors

Kenneth by Nigel Tranter - fictional interpretation of Kenneth's life

[edit] External links

Annals of Ulster, part 1, at CELT (translated)

Annals of Tigernach, at CELT (no translation presently available)

Annals of the Four Masters, part 1, at CELT (translated)

Duan Albanach, at CELT (translated)

Genealogies from Rawlinson B.502, at CELT (no translation presently available)

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba

The Pictish Chronicle[dead link]

Scotland Royalty[dead link]

Kenneth MacAlpin

House of Alpin

Born: after 800 Died: 13 February 858

Regnal titles

Preceded by

Drest X King of Picts

(traditionally King of Scots)

848-858 Succeeded by

Donald (Domnall) I

[hide]v • d • ePictish and Scottish Monarchs

Monarchs of the Picts

(traditional) Drest I · Talorc I · Nechtan I · Drest II · Galan · Drest III · Drest IV · Gartnait I · Cailtram · Talorc II · Drest V · Galam Cennalath · Bridei I · Gartnait II · Nechtan II · Cinioch · Gartnait III · Bridei II · Talorc III · Talorgan I · Gartnait IV · Drest VI · Bridei III · Taran · Bridei IV · Nechtan III · Drest VII · Alpín I · Óengus I · Bridei V · Ciniod I · Alpín II · Talorgan II · Drest VIII · Conall · Constantine (I) · Óengus II · Drest IX · Uuen · Uurad · Bridei VI · Ciniod II · Bridei VII · Drest X

Monarchs of the Scots

(traditional) Kenneth I MacAlpin · Donald I · Constantine I (II) · Áed · Giric · Eochaid (doubtful) · Donald II · Constantine II (III) · Malcolm I · Indulf · Dub · Cuilén · Amlaíb · Kenneth II · Constantine III (IV) · Kenneth III · Malcolm II · Duncan I · Macbeth · Lulach · Malcolm III Canmore · Donald III · Duncan II · Donald III · Edgar · Alexander I · David I · Malcolm IV · William I · Alexander II · Alexander III · Margaret (disputed) · First Interregnum · John · Second Interregnum · Robert I · David II · Robert II · Robert III · James I · James II · James III · James IV · James V · Mary I · James VI* · Charles I* · Charles II* · James VII* · Mary II* · William II* · Anne*

also monarch of England and Ireland.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_MacAlpin"

Categories: 858 deaths | 9th-century births | 9th-century monarchs in Europe | 9th-century Scottish people | Burials in Scotland | Founding monarchs | House of Alpin | Medieval Gaels | Scottish Gaelic-speaking people | Scottish monarchs

Widely viewed as the first King of the majority of the people in Scotland, rather than king of just one of a few tribesKenneth MacAlpin From Wikipedia King of the Picts Reign 843â858 House Alpin Father AlpÃ­n mac Echdach Died 13 February 858 Burial Iona

CinÃ¡ed mac AilpÃ­n (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein), 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." Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland 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 (CinÃ¡ed mac MaÃ­l Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled. 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 DÃ¡l Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as CaustantÃ­n and Ãengus, 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.

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, 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 DÃ¡l Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Rawlinson B 502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but many historians still accept Kenneth's descent from the established CenÃ©l nGabrÃ¡in, or at the very least from some unknown minor sept of the DÃ¡l Riata.

The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:

... CinÃ¡ed mac AilpÃ­n son of Eochaid son of Ãed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of ÃedÃ¡n son of GabrÃ¡n son of Domangart son of Fergus MÃ³r .

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 Ãengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Ãed 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, but 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 DÃ¡l 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. 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 AirgÃ­alla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.

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.

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 CausantÃ­n) and Constantine II (ConstantÃ­n mac Ãeda).

Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Ãed, 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 MÃ¡el Muire married two important Irish kings of the UÃ­ NÃ©ill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the CenÃ©l nEÃ³gain. Niall GlÃºndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann CholmÃ¡in. As the wife and mother of kings, when MÃ¡el Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.

Kenneth I 'the Hardy', King of Alba was born in 810 at Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.2 He was the son of Ailpín mac Eochaid. He died in 859 at Forteviot, Perthshire, Scotland.3 He was buried at Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.3 He was also known as Cináed mac Ailpín.1 He succeeded to the title of King Kenneth I of Galloway on 20 July 834.3 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of Dalriada in 841.3 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of the Picts between 843 and 844.3 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of Alba in 846.3 He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.4

Kenneth I 'the Hardy', King of Alba1

Children of Kenneth I 'the Hardy', King of Alba 1.unknown daughter (?)+ 2.Eochaid (?) 3.Constantine I, King of Alba+ b. 836, d. 877 4.Ædh 'Swiftfoot', King of Alba+ b. 840, d. 878 5.Máel Muire mi Cináed+5 b. 842, d. 912

Citations 1.[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia. 2.[S2299] John Warburg, "re: Kings of Scotland," e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 28 May 2007. Hereinafter cited as "re: Kings of Scotland." 3.[S11] Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 166. Hereinafter cited as Britain's Royal Families. 4.[S18] Matthew H.C.G., editor, Dictionary of National Biography on CD-ROM (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995), reference "Kenneth I, -860". Hereinafter cited as Dictionary of National Biography. 5.[S37] See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]

http://thepeerage.com/p10291.htm#i102901

Without Kenneth MacAlpine, a united Scotland probably would not have happened. Before his intervention, Scotland was divided into Dalriada, which was controlled by the Scots who had originally come from Ireland, and the Picts, who were the native occupants of the land.

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/how-kenneth-macalpine-united-the-scots-and-picts-in-843-8034/ Kenneth MacAlpine was the son of Alpin, the King of Kintyre. MacAlpine, it is believed, was married to the Queen of the Picts. It may have been through this marriage that he ascended the throne and received the crown of Alba and became Rex Pictorum. There is another theory that MacAlpine’s mother was a Pictish princess. Which ever way he claimed the throne, his succession was challenged by Pictish nobles.

Cinead mac Ailpin (generally anglicized as Kenneth MacAlpin and rendered in modern Gaelic as Coinneach mac Ailpein) is generally thought to have been born in 810, though some sources are content to date his birth "about 800." [1] He is generally believed to have born on Iona Island in the west of present-day Scotland. He was the son of Alpin mac Echdach, king of Kintyre ad Dalriada. The identity of his mother is unknown. [2] A few modern sources, though, have advanced the idea that his mother was a Pictish noble and that he inherited the throne of Pictland from his mother, infra. Cinaed died on February 13, 858, in Cinnbelachoir in modern-day Scotland. He was buried on Iona Island. He was crowned King of the Picts in either 841 or 843 and served as King until his death. As with many figures of this period, it is difficult to separate myth from reality and the sources are often confusing, occasionally, for example, associating events during the reign of the later Cinaed II with Cinaed I, infra.

Most modern regnal lists, however, generally refer to Cinaed as Kenneth I and, according to national myth, was the first king of the Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of "An Ferbasach" (the Conqueror"). His undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him and was the founder of the dynasty that ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period.

[1] Magnusson, Magnus. Scotland -- The Story of a Nation. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.

[2] Guido, Michael Anne. "Nes Fitz William and the Earls of Fife: The Origin of the House of Fife, 962-1129."

''Foundations,'' vol. 2., no. 2 (July 2006)

Notes ◦1 - Kenneth Mac Alpine (died 859 AD) who was King of the Scots and united most of Scotland into one country.

2 - Regarded as the founder of the monarchy. He succeded his father in 834 and after defeating the Picts in 843, united virtually all of Scotland north of the Forth in his kingdom of Alba.

3 - Kenneth Mac Alpine succeded about 840-50 AD to the Pictish throne, in virtue of succession through his mother - succession in the Pictish system being in the female line, that is, a man succeeded to the throne, because his mother was the previous King's sister or daughter. Kenneth thus became lord of the territory between Caithness and Edinburgh. Under him, the Dalriad Capital was removed from Dun-Add to Scone in Perthshire, the previous Pictish Capital, and the name of the central portion of the country, that north of the Forth and the Clyde, was changed from Pictavia to Albania. Later on, or about the year 1000 AD, this was in turn changed into Scotia, thus perpetuating the name of the Irish warriors, who won it from the Picts. Kenneth died at Forteviot and is buried at Iona.

4 - In AD 843 the King of the Scots, Kenneth MacAlpin, the 36th King of Dalriada, became King of the Scots and the Picts. This gave him greater power than the Britons and the Angles combined. He became determined to defeat the Angles totally, but died after six abortive attempts. It was another 175 years before the Angles were finally conquered. [1, 3]

Sources 1.[S327] Lakey - Genealogy, Gilbert Marlow Lakey, (http://members.cox.net/benchrest/Genealogy.html)

2.[S410] Pedigrees of the Scottish Clans, John D McLaughlin, (http://members.aol.com/lochlan4/pedigree.htm), Genelaig Albanensium - (Pedigree of the Kings of Scotland) (Reliability: 3)

3.[S370] Kings & Queens, Neil Grant, (pub 2003 by HarperCollinsPublishers Hammersmith London W6 8JB), p7 (Reliability: 3

Cináed mac Ailpín commonly Anglicized as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I 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 and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period. Kenneth also indirectly created the current day British monarchy; the current representation being Queen Elizabeth II.

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, but 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 than 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. 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.

The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland, Orkney, 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.

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.

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 male-centred chronicles of the age.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 13, 859 - Kenneth I of Scotland, Kenneth MacAlpin died. Cináed mac Ailpín commonly Anglicized as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (810 – 13 February 859) 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 and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period.

He succeeded his father as King of Galloway and other parts of Scotland July or Aug 834 after the death of his father. In 841 he became King of Dalriada. In 843/4, he became King of the Picts, thus uniting the old Gaelic kingdoms of Alba for the first time, and by 846 he was firmly established as King of Scotland. There is no record of his coronation. He died in 859 at Forteviot, Perthshire, and was buried on the Isle of Iona.

Kenneth I (a.k.a.Cináed mac Ailpín, Kenneth Mac Alpin, and Kenneth the Hardy) lived from 810 to 858 and was arguably the first King of the Kingdom of Scotland, which he ruled from 843 to 858. At the time he was referred to as King of the Picts. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline

He was son of King Alpin II of Dalriada and succeeded his father to the crown of Dalriada in 839. This effectively made him King of the Scots, whose territory roughly covered modern-day Argyll. Meanwhile, also in 839, the Picts, who until then had controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll, suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Vikings. Most of the Pictish nobility was wiped out in the defeat, including King Bridei VI.

Kenneth Mac Alpin had a claim to the Pictish crown through his mother. But his claim was disputed by surviving members of the seven royal houses of the Picts, and Drust X succeeded to the Pictish Crown. Kenneth defeated the Picts in battle in 841: and squeezed between the Scots on one side and the rampaging Vikings on the other, the Picts agreed to a meeting with Mac Alpin at Scone, attended by all claimants to the Pictish Crown. SOURCE.

UNDISCOVERED SCOTLAND, http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/monarchs/kennethi.html. The alcohol flowed freely at the meeting. Then, in what has since been referred to as Mac Alpin's treason, Drust and the Pictish nobles were all killed by the Scots: allegedly (and improbably) by having their booby-trapped benches collapsed so Kenneth's rivals plunged into pits in the floor and impaled themselves on spikes set there for the purpose.

Suddenly there was only one claimant for the Pictish Crown, and Kenneth was crowned King of the Picts and the Scots in 843. He was the first King of the House of Alpin, the dynasty named after his father. Kenneth made his capital at Forteviot, a small village 5 miles south west of today's Perth. He also moved the religious focus of his kingdom from Iona to Dunkeld, and had St Columba's remains moved there in 849, perhaps for safe keeping from the continuing Vikings raids.

Mac Alpin continued to fight against Picts who challenged his right to hold their crown, but by 855 his grip on those parts of modern Scotland north of the Clyde and Forth not under the control of the Vikings was relatively secure. He had also created some sort of stability in his relations with the Britons and the Angles who held the lands to the south.

Over time his combined Kingdom of the Picts and Scots came to be referred to as Alba: later know by medieval scholars (rather confusingly) as Albania.

Kenneth I died at Forteviot in 858. apparently of natural causes. He was then buried on the Isle of Iona. He was succeeded by his brother, Donald I. -------------------- 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 and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period.

Contents [hide]

1 King of Scots?

2 Background

3 Reign

4 See also

5 Notes

6 References

7 Further reading

8 External links

[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."[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.

[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 Rawlinson B 502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but many historians still accept Kenneth's descent from the established Cenél nGabráin, or at the very least from some unknown minor sept of the 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, [citation needed]

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]

That Kenneth was a Gael is not widely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture and/or in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus 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-Ghàidheal, 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, but 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, Orkney, 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.

[edit] See also

Scotland in the Early Middle Ages

Scotland in the High Middle Ages

[edit] 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.^ Genealogies from 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.

[edit] 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

Michael A. O'Brien (ed.) with intr. by John V. Kelleher, Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae. DIAS. 1976. / partial digital edition: Donnchadh Ó Corráin (ed.), Genealogies from Rawlinson B 502. University College, Cork: Corpus of Electronic Texts. 1997.

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.

[edit] Further reading

Sally Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots (revised edition, 2005) - a broad and accessible introduction

Leslie Alcock, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland monograph Kings and Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests in Northern Britain AD 550–750 (2003) - more detail

Alex Woolf, Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789–1070, in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series, published in 2007.

The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (2001) - articles by expert contributors

Kenneth by Nigel Tranter - fictional interpretation of Kenneth's life

[edit] External links

Annals of Ulster, part 1, at CELT (translated)

Annals of Tigernach, at CELT (no translation presently available)

Annals of the Four Masters, part 1, at CELT (translated)

Duan Albanach, at CELT (translated)

Genealogies from Rawlinson B.502, at CELT (no translation presently available)

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba

The Pictish Chronicle[dead link]

Scotland Royalty[dead link]

Kenneth MacAlpin

House of Alpin

Born: after 800 Died: 13 February 858

Regnal titles

Preceded by

Drest X King of Picts

(traditionally King of Scots)

848-858 Succeeded by

Donald (Domnall) I

[hide]v • d • ePictish and Scottish Monarchs

Monarchs of the Picts

(traditional) Drest I · Talorc I · Nechtan I · Drest II · Galan · Drest III · Drest IV · Gartnait I · Cailtram · Talorc II · Drest V · Galam Cennalath · Bridei I · Gartnait II · Nechtan II · Cinioch · Gartnait III · Bridei II · Talorc III · Talorgan I · Gartnait IV · Drest VI · Bridei III · Taran · Bridei IV · Nechtan III · Drest VII · Alpín I · Óengus I · Bridei V · Ciniod I · Alpín II · Talorgan II · Drest VIII · Conall · Constantine (I) · Óengus II · Drest IX · Uuen · Uurad · Bridei VI · Ciniod II · Bridei VII · Drest X

Monarchs of the Scots

(traditional) Kenneth I MacAlpin · Donald I · Constantine I (II) · Áed · Giric · Eochaid (doubtful) · Donald II · Constantine II (III) · Malcolm I · Indulf · Dub · Cuilén · Amlaíb · Kenneth II · Constantine III (IV) · Kenneth III · Malcolm II · Duncan I · Macbeth · Lulach · Malcolm III Canmore · Donald III · Duncan II · Donald III · Edgar · Alexander I · David I · Malcolm IV · William I · Alexander II · Alexander III · Margaret (disputed) · First Interregnum · John · Second Interregnum · Robert I · David II · Robert II · Robert III · James I · James II · James III · James IV · James V · Mary I · James VI* · Charles I* · Charles II* · James VII* · Mary II* · William II* · Anne*

also monarch of England and Ireland. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_MacAlpin"

Categories: 858 deaths | 9th-century births | 9th-century monarchs in Europe | 9th-century Scottish people | Burials in Scotland | Founding monarchs | House of Alpin | Medieval Gaels | Scottish Gaelic-speaking people | Scottish monarchs -------------------- Widely viewed as the first King of the majority of the people in Scotland, rather than king of just one of a few tribes -------------------- Kenneth MacAlpin From Wikipedia King of the Picts Reign 843â€“858 House Alpin Father AlpÃ­n mac Echdach Died 13 February 858 Burial Iona

CinÃ¡ed mac AilpÃ­n (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein), 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." Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland 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 (CinÃ¡ed mac MaÃ­l Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled. 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 DÃ¡l Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as CaustantÃ­n and Ã“engus, 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.

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, 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 DÃ¡l Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Rawlinson B 502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but many historians still accept Kenneth's descent from the established CenÃ©l nGabrÃ¡in, or at the very least from some unknown minor sept of the DÃ¡l Riata.

The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:

... CinÃ¡ed mac AilpÃ­n son of Eochaid son of Ãed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of ÃedÃ¡n son of GabrÃ¡n son of Domangart son of Fergus MÃ³r . 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 Ã“engus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Ãed 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, but 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 DÃ¡l 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. 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 AirgÃ­alla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin. 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.

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 CausantÃ­n) and Constantine II (ConstantÃ­n mac Ãeda).

Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Ãed, 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 MÃ¡el Muire married two important Irish kings of the UÃ­ NÃ©ill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the CenÃ©l nEÃ³gain. Niall GlÃºndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann CholmÃ¡in. As the wife and mother of kings, when MÃ¡el Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age. -------------------- Kenneth I 'the Hardy', King of Alba1

Kenneth I 'the Hardy', King of Alba was born in 810 at Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.2 He was the son of Ailpín mac Eochaid. He died in 859 at Forteviot, Perthshire, Scotland.3 He was buried at Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.3 He was also known as Cináed mac Ailpín.1 He succeeded to the title of King Kenneth I of Galloway on 20 July 834.3 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of Dalriada in 841.3 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of the Picts between 843 and 844.3 He gained the title of King Kenneth I of Alba in 846.3 He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.4 Children of Kenneth I 'the Hardy', King of Alba 1.unknown daughter (?)+ 2.Eochaid (?) 3.Constantine I, King of Alba+ b. 836, d. 877 4.Ædh 'Swiftfoot', King of Alba+ b. 840, d. 878 5.Máel Muire mi Cináed+5 b. 842, d. 912

Citations 1.[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia. 2.[S2299] John Warburg, "re: Kings of Scotland," e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 28 May 2007. Hereinafter cited as "re: Kings of Scotland." 3.[S11] Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 166. Hereinafter cited as Britain's Royal Families. 4.[S18] Matthew H.C.G., editor, Dictionary of National Biography on CD-ROM (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995), reference "Kenneth I, -860". Hereinafter cited as Dictionary of National Biography. 5.[S37] See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]

http://thepeerage.com/p10291.htm#i102901

Without Kenneth MacAlpine, a united Scotland probably would not have happened. Before his intervention, Scotland was divided into Dalriada, which was controlled by the Scots who had originally come from Ireland, and the Picts, who were the native occupants of the land.

http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/how-kenneth-macalpine-united-the-scots-and-picts-in-843-8034/ Kenneth MacAlpine was the son of Alpin, the King of Kintyre. MacAlpine, it is believed, was married to the Queen of the Picts. It may have been through this marriage that he ascended the throne and received the crown of Alba and became Rex Pictorum. There is another theory that MacAlpine’s mother was a Pictish princess. Which ever way he claimed the throne, his succession was challenged by Pictish nobles. -------------------- Cinead mac Ailpin (generally anglicized as Kenneth MacAlpin and rendered in modern Gaelic as Coinneach mac Ailpein) is generally thought to have been born in 810, though some sources are content to date his birth "about 800." [1] He is generally believed to have born on Iona Island in the west of present-day Scotland. He was the son of Alpin mac Echdach, king of Kintyre ad Dalriada. The identity of his mother is unknown. [2] A few modern sources, though, have advanced the idea that his mother was a Pictish noble and that he inherited the throne of Pictland from his mother, infra. Cinaed died on February 13, 858, in Cinnbelachoir in modern-day Scotland. He was buried on Iona Island. He was crowned King of the Picts in either 841 or 843 and served as King until his death. As with many figures of this period, it is difficult to separate myth from reality and the sources are often confusing, occasionally, for example, associating events during the reign of the later Cinaed II with Cinaed I, infra.

Most modern regnal lists, however, generally refer to Cinaed as Kenneth I and, according to national myth, was the first king of the Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of "An Ferbasach" (the Conqueror"). His undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him and was the founder of the dynasty that ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period.

[1] Magnusson, Magnus. Scotland -- The Story of a Nation. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.

[2] Guido, Michael Anne. "Nes Fitz William and the Earls of Fife: The Origin of the House of Fife, 962-1129."

Foundations, vol. 2., no. 2 (July 2006)

Notes ◦1 - Kenneth Mac Alpine (died 859 AD) who was King of the Scots and united most of Scotland into one country.

2 - Regarded as the founder of the monarchy. He succeded his father in 834 and after defeating the Picts in 843, united virtually all of Scotland north of the Forth in his kingdom of Alba. 3 - Kenneth Mac Alpine succeded about 840-50 AD to the Pictish throne, in virtue of succession through his mother - succession in the Pictish system being in the female line, that is, a man succeeded to the throne, because his mother was the previous King's sister or daughter. Kenneth thus became lord of the territory between Caithness and Edinburgh. Under him, the Dalriad Capital was removed from Dun-Add to Scone in Perthshire, the previous Pictish Capital, and the name of the central portion of the country, that north of the Forth and the Clyde, was changed from Pictavia to Albania. Later on, or about the year 1000 AD, this was in turn changed into Scotia, thus perpetuating the name of the Irish warriors, who won it from the Picts. Kenneth died at Forteviot and is buried at Iona. 4 - In AD 843 the King of the Scots, Kenneth MacAlpin, the 36th King of Dalriada, became King of the Scots and the Picts. This gave him greater power than the Britons and the Angles combined. He became determined to defeat the Angles totally, but died after six abortive attempts. It was another 175 years before the Angles were finally conquered. [1, 3] Sources 1.[S327] Lakey - Genealogy, Gilbert Marlow Lakey, (http://members.cox.net/benchrest/Genealogy.html)

2.[S410] Pedigrees of the Scottish Clans, John D McLaughlin, (http://members.aol.com/lochlan4/pedigree.htm), Genelaig Albanensium - (Pedigree of the Kings of Scotland) (Reliability: 3)

3.[S370] Kings & Queens, Neil Grant, (pub 2003 by HarperCollinsPublishers Hammersmith London W6 8JB), p7 (Reliability: 3

Cináed mac Ailpín commonly Anglicized as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I 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 and was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Scotland for much of the medieval period. Kenneth also indirectly created the current day British monarchy; the current representation being Queen Elizabeth II.

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, but 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 than 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. 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.

The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. Shetland, Orkney, 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.

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.

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 male-centred chronicles of the age. -------------------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causant%C3%ADn_mac_Cináeda

Name: King Kenneth MacAlpin Father: King Alpin Mother: sister of Constantine King of the Picts Relation to Elizabeth II: 33rd great-grandfather House of: MacAlpin Ascended to the throne: 834 Married: unknown Children: Constantine, Aedh and 3 daughters Died: 859, at Forteviot, Perthshire Buried at: Isle of Iona Succeeded by: his brother Donald

Kenneth Mac Alpin was the son of Alpin and generally regarded as the founder of medieval Scotland. Battling against Norse (Viking) raids, he brought some unification between the Gaels and the Picts to found a united kingdom of Alba or Scotia. The Picts had been weakened by incursions from the Vikings and Irish tribes who under Fergus Mor (AD498-501) had settled in the area of Argyll. The term Scots came from the Latin Scotti which was Latin for Irish.

The map of ancient Scotland comprised Scotia (known as Alba in Gaelic) covering the Pictish Fortriu region and the Dal Riada kingdom of Irish king Fergus Mor, the Norse settlements from Viking incursions around the coastal regions and islands, the Men of Moray in the Northern highlands, Strathclyde in the West and the northern Anglo-Saxon realm of Northumbria (Bernica).

Kenneth transferred of some of St. Columba’s relics from Iona and made Dunkeld the new ecclesiastical capital. Iona was regularly attacked by Viking raiders. He is also credited with setting the ancient Stone of Destiny at Scone. According to legend the Stone of Destiny was brought to Scotland by Fergus Mor from Ireland, which it had reached by way of Spain and Egypt from the Holy Land.

Kenneth MacAlpin is considered by some as the founding father of Scotland and often compared to Alfred the Great in England. Kenneth is believed to have died from a tumour at Forteviot near Perth and was succeeded by his brother Donald. Find A Grave Memorial# 8614854