CHAPTER VII.

THE KINGDOM OF ALBAN.

[Sidenote: A.D. 889-900.

Donald, son of Constantin, king of Alban.]

The Scots having now placed Donald, the son of Constantin, and the heir,

according to the law of Tanistry, on the throne,[481] the succession

became firmly established in the male line of the Scottish descendants

of Kenneth mac Alpin, and assumed the not unusual form of an alternate

succession between the houses descended from his two sons. The kingdom

ceased to be called that of Scone and its territory Cruithentuath, or

Pictavia its Latin equivalent, and now became known as the kingdom of

Alban or Albania, and we find its kings no longer called kings of the

Picts but kings of Alban.

About the time of Donald’s accession the islands of the Orkneys had

become colonised by the Norwegians, who fled before the power of Harald

Harfagr, the king of Norway; and that king having, after his power was

established, sailed to the Orkneys with his fleet, and taken possession,

he gave them on his return to Rognwald, Earl of Maeri, as a compensation

for the loss of his son killed in one of his battles. By him they were

made over to his brother Sigurd, to whom the king gave the title of

Jarl, and thus the Norwegian earldom of Orkney was founded. Soon after

Sigurd’s establishment as earl he invaded Scotland, and, in one account,

‘obtained possession of Caithness and Sutherland and all as far as

Ekkialsbakki;’ in another, ‘Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray;’ and

in a third, ‘all Caithness and much more of Scotland—Maerhæfui (Moray)

and Ross—and that he built a borg on the southern border of Maerhæfui.’

These were the same districts which had been overrun by Thorstein the

Red, and these Sagas confound the two invasions, and join Sigurd with

Thorstein in their acquisition; but the inexorable logic of dates shows

that the two invasions were different, and that the one was subsequent

to the other.[482] The borg was no doubt built on the promontory called

Torfnes by the Norse, and now Burghead, situated between the Findhorn

and the Spey. We are then told that Melbrigda Tönn, or of the Tooth, a

Scottish jarl, and Earl Sigurd made an arrangement to meet in a certain

place with forty men each in order to come to an agreement regarding

their differences. On the appointed day Sigurd, suspicious of treachery

on the part of the Scots, caused eighty men to be mounted on forty

horses. When Earl Melbrigda saw this, he said to his men, ‘Now we have

been treacherously dealt with by Earl Sigurd, for I see two men’s legs

on one side of each horse, and the men, I believe, are thus twice as

many as the beasts. But let us be brave and kill each his man before we

die.’ Then they made themselves ready. When Sigurd saw it, he also

decided on his plan, and said to his men, ‘Now let one half of your

number dismount and attack them from behind when the troops meet, while

we shall ride at them with all our speed to break their battle-array.’

There was hard fighting immediately, and it was not long till Earl

Melbrigda fell, and all his men with him. Earl Sigurd and his men

fastened their heads to the saddle-straps in bravado, and so they rode

home triumphing in their victory. As they were proceeding, Earl Sigurd,

intending to kick at his horse with his foot, struck the calf of his leg

against a tooth protruding from Earl Melbrigda’s head, which scratched

him slightly; but it soon became swollen and painful, and he died of it.

Sigurd the Powerful was buried in a mound at Ekkialsbakki.[483]

The power of the Scottish king of Alban, however, could hardly at this

time have extended to these northern districts, and their invasion would

not materially affect Domnall’s position. A Danish invasion, however,

followed some years after, which had for its scene the more southern

districts, and proved fatal to the king himself. Towards the end of this

century a fleet of Danes under the sons of Imhair came to Dublin, and

the greater part of Ireland was plundered by them. After four years

these Danes left Ireland, and invaded Alban under Sitriuc, son of

Imhair. A battle was fought between these Danes and the Scots at a place

which cannot now be recognised under the corrupted name of Visibsolian,

or Visibcolian, in which the Scots claimed to be victorious; but that

they had overrun the southern districts is evident, as Domnall the king

was himself cut off and slain at Dun Fother, or Dunotter.[484]

The Ulster Annals record his death after a reign of eleven years in the

year 900, and he is the first of the kings of the line of Kenneth who is

termed by them _Ri_ or king of Alban.[485]

[Sidenote: A.D. 900-942.

Constantin, son of Aedh, king of Alban.]

He was succeeded, according to the Tanistic usage, by Constantin, son of

Aedh, his father’s brother, who reigned forty years, and was, soon after

his accession, exposed to a similar invasion, for in his third year the

Northmen plundered Dunkeld and the whole of Alban, but in the following

year were cut off in Stratherne, and their leader, Imhair Ua Imhair,

slain by the men of Fortrenn, who are said to have invoked the aid of

Saint Columba, and to have attacked them with the crozier of Saint

Columba at their head as their standard, which was henceforth called the

Cathbuaidh, or Battle-victory.[486]

Constantin seems now to have turned his attention towards consolidating

his kingdom, and obliterating the distinctions between its discordant

elements by placing them on a footing of equality with each other. In

his sixth year a solemn assembly was held on the Mote Hill, near the

royal city of Scone, in which he as king, and Cellach, as bishop of

Kilrymont, or St. Andrews, resolved ‘that the laws and discipline of the

faith, and the rights of the churches and of the evangel, should be

preserved entire and on a footing of equality with the Scots.’[487] By

this declaration the Pictish and Scottish churches were now united into

one, with the bishop of Kilrymont as its head, the supremacy of Dunkeld

ceased, and the bishops of St. Andrews became known as bishops of Alban.

It is to this period also that we may probably attach one of the

accounts given of the division of Alban, or Albania, into seven

provinces. This account is given on the authority of Andrew, Bishop of

Caithness, a Scotsman by birth, and a monk of Dunfermline. He is

mentioned as bishop in the year 1150, and died on 3d December 1184. He

seems to have considered that these provinces were separated from each

other by large rivers or mountain chains, which do not always form what

were evidently their actual boundaries. The first province, he tells us,

extended from the water of Forth, which divides the kingdoms of the

Scots and the Angles, and flows past Stirling, to the river Tay. This

province consists, therefore, of the districts of Menteith and

Stratherne, and was certainly that known by the name of Fortrenn. The

second province extended to the Hilef, and contains the districts

encircled by the sea as far as the hill on the north of the plain of

Stirling called Athran. If by Hilef he means the river Isla, he must

have supposed that instead of falling into the Tay it flowed in a direct

line towards the sea, but he may also have meant the place now called

Lyff, on the present boundary between the counties of Perth and Forfar

at the sea. By Athran, Aithrie, near Stirling, is meant, and this

province evidently contained the whole peninsula of Fife, including

Kinross and Clackmannan, along with the district of Gowrie. The third

province extends from Hilef to the Dee, and contains the old districts

of Angus and Mearns, now the counties of Forfar and Kincardine. The

fourth province extended from the river Dee to the river Spey, and

included the old districts of Mar and Buchan, now the counties of

Aberdeen and Banff. The fifth province extended from the Spey to the

mountains of Brumalban, or Breadalbane, and by it the district of Atholl

seems meant. The sixth province was Muref or Moray in its extended

sense, and Ross; and the seventh was Arregaithel.[488]

[Illustration:

THE

KINGDOM OF

ALBAN

_W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London_

]

A comparison of this description of the sevenfold division of Alban with

the other account contained in the same tract, and which we relegated to

the reign of Nectan, king of the Picts, in the early part of the eighth

century, will show the change which the two intervening centuries had

produced in the aspect of the kingdom.

The first five provinces, the boundaries of which are given by the

natural features of rivers, mountains, and sea, instead of by the old

names of the districts included in each, now constituted what was,

strictly speaking, the kingdom of Alban or Albania, at this time

extending from the Forth to the Spey. The changes which had taken place

within its bounds consisted, in the main, of the district of Gowrie

being detached from that of Atholl, with which it had formed one of the

provinces in the earlier state of them, and being combined with Fife and

Fothrif, which had formed another of the earlier provinces, into one

central region, the occupiers of which now appear as Scotti or Scots. It

was, no doubt, the nucleus of the settlement of Scots which had taken

place in the Pictish territory, and Gowrie became the heart of the

kingdom of Alban in which its capital, Scone, was situated. West of it,

in the province extending from the Forth to the Tay, were the old

districts of Stratherne and Menteith, the people of which were still

called the Men of Fortrenn. They were probably remains of the Pictish

inhabitants, and had for their chief stronghold Dundurn, at the east end

of Loch Earn. Forteviot, which had also belonged to them, and which is

but a few miles from the west bank of the Tay, now belonged to the

Scots, and was one of the seats of their kings. North of this central

region was Atholl, and east of it a province extending from Hilef to the

Dee, the northern part of which was occupied by a people called the Men

of Moerne, also probably remains of the Pictish population, whose chief

stronghold was Dun Fother or Dunotter; and north of them, extending from

the Dee to the Spey, was the most northerly province included in the

kingdom, which must still have been to a great extent Pictish.

The territory overrun by Thorstein the Red, and by Sigurd, earl of

Orkney, consisted of the two earlier provinces beyond the Spey, which

formed the northern boundary of the kingdom of Alban strictly so called.

One of them, consisting of Muref and Ross, is included in the list of

later provinces, as being still under its native rulers, but the other,

Cathanesia, disappears, as being attached to the Norwegian earldom of

Orkney. In place of it we have Arregaithel, now connected with the

kingdom. The new province thus introduced must not, however, be

absolutely identified, as is usual, with the kingdom of Dalriada, which

was omitted from the list of the earlier provinces, as being then a

separate kingdom of the Scots. It no doubt included it, but had a much

more extensive signification, embracing the western districts extending

from the Firth of Clyde to Loch Broom, and derives its name from being

the border or coast region of the Gaedhel or Gael, a name now applied to

all the inhabitants of Scotland who belonged to the Gaelic branch of the

Celtic race.[489] The organisation of these seven provinces appears to

have been quite analogous to that of Ireland. The unit was the _Tuath_

or tribe; several Tuaths formed a _Mortuath_ or great tribe; two or more

Mortuaths a _Coicidh_ or province; and at the head of each was the _Ri_

or king; while each province contributed a portion of its territory, at

their point of junction, to form a central district, in which the

capital of the whole county was placed, and the _Ri_ or king, who was

elected to be its _Ardri_ or sovereign, had his seat of government. In

this account the provinces are termed ‘regna’ or kingdoms. Under each

province was the ‘subregio’ or _mortuath_, with its ‘Regulus’ or _Ri

mortuath_, and composed, no doubt, of a certain number of _tuaths_ or

tribes, with their chiefs or _Ri tuaith_; and where the four southern

provinces met, was the central district in which the capital, Scone, the

seat of the _Ardri Albain_, was placed. At the period to which the

description of the provinces given us by Andrew, bishop of Caithness,

belongs, this organisation had been so far modified, that the title of

Ri, or king, is no longer borne by the heads of the tuath or tribe, and

the mortuath or subregion, but at the head of the _tuath_ is the

_Toisech_, and of the _mortuath_, the _Mormaor_. The latter dignity,

however, was still hereditary, and in the district of Angus, which was

more immediately under Scottish influence and authority, we find it

descending in the male line, while, in the most northern district of the

kingdom of Alban proper, the Pictish law of succession through females

was still observed.[490]

Beyond these seven provinces on the north were the islands of Orkney and

Shetland, which were now colonised by the Norwegians. On the death of

Sigurd, the first earl, he was succeeded by his son Guthorm, who reigned

only one winter, and died childless. When Earl Rognwald, who had

transferred the islands to his brother Sigurd, heard of his death and

that of his son, he sent his son Hallad as earl, but he soon grew tired

of it and resigned the earldom, which was then bestowed upon another son

called Einar, who was earl at this time, and ruled over the Orkneys a

long time.[491] On the west of these provinces lay the Western Islands,

which were likewise colonised by the Norwegians, and were now called the

Inchigall or islands of the _Galls_ or strangers, and the Gaelic

inhabitants of the islands and districts under their rule were now

called the _Gallgaidhel_, a name originally borne by the Gallwegians,

and still used in its territorial sense as synonymous with

Galloway.[492] These islands, with the island of Man, were even more

completely subdued and subjected to the Norwegian rule than any part of

Ireland itself. They were eminently fitted to serve as a stronghold for

the Northern Vikings, whose strength consisted almost entirely in their

large and well-constructed ships, and may be regarded as the centre of

the Norwegian settlements in the west, completely cutting Scotland off

from Ireland, and severing the connection and arresting the intercourse

between them.[493] The Western Isles were termed by them the Sudreys, to

distinguish them from the Orkneys or Northern Islands;[494] and as

Cathannia or Caithness and Sutherland had passed under the influence of

the latter, and become more Norwegian than Scotch, so Galloway appears

to have borne very much the same relation to the former. South of these

provinces was on the east coast what had been the most northern district

of Northumbria, but was now continually overrun by the king of Alban, to

which the name of Saxonia was given; and on the west were the districts

occupied by the Britons of Strathclyde. In the previous century and a

half these had been narrowed to the Vale of the Clyde, with Alclyde or

Dumbarton as its stronghold, and the rest of the British districts had,

along with Galloway, been under the dominion of the Angles of

Northumbria; but their rule had been relaxed during the period of

disorganisation into which the Northumbrian kingdom had fallen, and had

by degrees become little more than nominal, when the invasion of

Bernicia by the Briton Giric, who for a time occupied the Pictish

throne, led to the severance of these districts from Northumbria, and

the whole of the British territory from the Clyde to the river Derwent

in Cumberland became once more united under the rule of an independent

king of the Britons.

The king at this time was Donald, but he appears to have been the last

of the family claiming Roman descent which had hitherto given its kings

to Alclyde; and on his death, which took place in the eighth year of the

reign of King Constantin, the Britons appear to have found no one of

their own race fitted to preserve their new-won independence; and as

they owed it to a king of their own race who occupied the throne of

Alban, so now they accepted a king from Alban by electing Donald, son of

Aedh and brother of Constantin, to fill the throne of Alclyde.[495]

As in the earlier years of his reign Constantin had seen his kingdom

overrun by a horde of Norwegians, who were finally cut off and their

leader slain, so now but a few years elapsed ere he found himself

engaged in a serious encounter with a powerful band of the Danish

pirates, with a more doubtful result. Their leader was Regnwald, the son

or grandson of Inguar or Imhair, son of Ragnar Lodbrog, and the brother

of that Sitriuc who had invaded the kingdom in the latter years of his

predecessor Donald. This Regnwald, in company with two other leaders,

Ottir the Jarl and Oswl Gracaban, broke into the country and ravaged

Dunblane. This took place in the year 912.[496] We next hear of Regnwald

in the following year at the Isle of Man fighting a battle with Barid,

son of Ottir, who is slain;[497] and he appears to have been making his

way to effect a settlement in Ireland, as in 916 we hear of him arriving

with innumerable hordes at Loch da Caech or Waterford, in Ireland, where

they settle for the time and ravage the whole of Ireland. Here they

remain for two years, when the Irish succeed in driving them out of

Munster. They then proceed to Alban and invade the country. Their object

appears to have been to make their way to Northumberland, and the

irruption was so formidable that Constantin united with Eldred, the lord

of Bamborough and ruler over Bernicia, to resist them. The encounter

took place on a moor near the mouth of the river Tyne, which flows

through East Lothian, called, by the Pictish Chronicle, Tynemoor. The

Danes divided themselves into four bands—one under Gothbrith, a brother

of Regnwald; the second under the two earls Ottir and Gracaban; the

third under the young lords; and the fourth under Regnwald himself,

which remained in ambuscade. The Scots invoked the aid of St. Columba,

and advanced to meet them with his crozier, called the Cathbuaidh or

Battle-victory, as their standard, and it did not belie its name, for

the three battalions were routed by the men of Alban, and there was a

great slaughter of the Danes, with the two earls Ottir and Gracaban.

Regnwald then advanced from his ambuscade with the fourth battalion, and

attacked the men of Alban from behind and slew many of them, but neither

Constantin nor any of his maormors fell by him. Night put an end to the

battle, but the Scots had evidently failed in their object, for Regnwald

made his way to the south and took possession of the territories of the

lord of Bamborough.[498]

This was the last invasion of Alban by the Northmen, who had harassed

the kingdom during the whole period of the reigns of Kenneth mac Alpin

and his successors down to Constantin. It was now to obtain a respite

from their incessant invasions for upwards of a century; but if

Constantin had no longer to defend his kingdom against the Northmen, he

had to encounter a new enemy, and the kings of Alban were for the first

time brought into contact with the growing power of the kings of Wessex.

Their relations with the Anglic kings had hitherto been confined to

those of Northumbria alone; but while the power of the latter state had

been waning, that of Wessex had been increasing, and early in the ninth

century these kings had in the person of Ecgbert obtained a supremacy

over the other kingdoms south of the Humber. Their advance to the north,

however, was arrested by their wars with the Danes, which lasted till

the reign of the great Aelfred, who, after a fierce struggle, finally

made a permanent peace with them in 878-883, which was only interrupted

by a renewed struggle of four years from 893 to 897.

Aelfred is said by Simeon of Durham, on the death of Guthred, the Danish

king of Deira, to have had the entire disposal of the whole kingdom of

the Northumbrians, and to have appended to his own kingdom the provinces

south of the East Angles and the Northumbrians;[499] but it was just at

this moment that his renewed struggle with the Danes commenced, and the

Saxon Chronicle, in recording his death, says, ‘he was king over all the

Anglic race, except the part that was under the dominion of the Danes.’

His successor, Eadward the Elder, was supreme over all the states south

of the Humber, but made no attempt to advance beyond it.

The Saxon Chronicle tells us in 924, ‘In this year king Eadward was

chosen for father and for lord by the kings of the Scots, and by the

Scots, and by king Regnall, and by all the Northumbrians, and also by

the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, and by all the Strathclyde Welsh;’

but there is no record of any war beyond the Humber by which the

submission of the northern kingdoms could have been obtained or

enforced. What exactly took place, which could be interpreted by the

Saxon Chronicle into the language of commendation, cannot now be

discovered; but there was nothing in the relations of the northern

kingdoms to the king of Wessex at that time that should naturally have

led to a voluntary surrender of their independence, and the statement

itself contains within it elements of suspicion which lead to doubt of

its genuineness, while it is hard to believe that there was any reality

in it. It was not till the reign of Aethelstan, the son and successor of

the latter, that any serious attempt was made to extend the power of the

Wessex kings beyond the Humber; and the great struggle to which it led

on the part of the northern kingdoms to resist this advance and to

maintain their independence, is sufficient to cast doubt upon mere

nominal claims, unsupported by any events which would naturally have

given rise to the supposed relation involved in them.[500]

With the accession of Aethelstan in 925, and the extension of the power

of the kings of Wessex beyond the Humber, we obtain the valuable

guidance of the Saxon Chronicle in the northern events. Aethelstan no

sooner found himself firmly seated on the throne than he set himself

seriously to work to add Northumbria to his kingdom. His first

proceeding was to form a treaty of alliance with the existing rulers of

Northumbria and with the northern powers who would support him. There

was at this time a close connection between the Danes of Northumbria and

those of Dublin and Waterford. Their chiefs belonged to the same family,

and were equally descended from Inguar or Imhair, as he was termed by

the Irish, the son of Ragnar Lodbrog, who first invaded Northumbria in

867, and the same person was frequently king of Dublin at one time, and

king of Northumbria at another. The Danish king who ruled over Deira at

this time was Sitriuc. He was the same Sitriuc called son of Imhair who

had invaded Dublin in the last year of the reign of Donald, the

predecessor of Constantin. He had been king of Dublin, but had been

driven from thence in the year 920, and became king of the Danes of

Deira. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 925 a meeting took

place between him and Aethelstan at Tamworth, on the thirtieth of

January, and that Aethelstan gave him his sister as a wife. In the

following year an opportunity unexpectedly offered itself to Aethelstan

by the sudden death of Sitriuc, and he immediately seized the kingdom of

Deira and added it to his own, driving out, according to Simeon of

Durham, Guthferth, the son of Sitriuc, who had succeeded his father. The

northern part of Northumbria, to Bernicia, was at this time under the

rule of a family calling themselves lords of Bamborough, and with

Ealdred, son of Ealdulf of Bamborough, he made peace, maintaining him in

his possessions, and also with Constantin, king of Alban; and, adds the

Saxon Chronicle, they confirmed the peace by pledge and by oaths, at the

place which is called Eamot, on the fourth of the Ides, or the 12th of

July; but the Chronicle stamps its own statement with doubt when it adds

‘and they renounced all idolatry, and after that submitted to him in

peace.’

Anlaf, the eldest son of Sitriuc, had, on his father’s death, gone to

Dublin, and his father’s brother, Guthferth, having attempted, with a

party of Danes from Dublin, to recover the kingdom of Deira, and been

driven out in the following year by Aethelstan, he appears to have gone

to Alban, and there cemented an alliance with Constantin by marrying his

daughter, and they were probably making preparations for an attempt to

recover Anlaf’s kingdom, when Aethelstan anticipated them, and, on the

plea that Constantin had broken the peace, invaded Alban in the year 933

both by sea and land. The Saxon Chronicle merely says that he ravaged a

great part of it; but Simeon of Durham, who places the invasion in the

year 934, tells us that having put Owin, king of the Cumbrians, and

Constantin, king of the Scots, to flight, he ravaged Scotland with his

land force, which consisted of cavalry, as far as Dunfoeder, or

Dunfother, and Wertermore, probably the Saxon form of Kerrimor or

Kirriemuir in Forfarshire, and with his navy as far as Caithness, and in

a great measure depopulated it.[501]

[Sidenote: A.D. 937.

Battle of Brunanburg.]

Three years after this the whole of the northern population beyond the

Humber united in a great effort to wrest Northumbria from Aethelstan,

and the result of this effort was to decide whether the power of the

kings of Wessex was to be arrested at the Humber and their kingdom

limited to the southern part of Britain, or whether it was to extend to

the Firth of Forth, if not to sweep the kingdom of Alban itself within

its grasp. It was resolved to concentrate the northern forces upon

Deira. Constantin and his son-in-law, Anlaf Cuaran as he was called,

were to proceed with a fleet which was to enter the Humber, and a land

army was to advance into Northumbria. The Strathclyde Britons were to

cross the hills which divided them from the Anglic kingdom, and another

Anlaf was to come from Dublin, with a body of the Danes of Dublin to

support them. The chroniclers merely tell us of this battle in general

terms, but we have two detailed accounts of it preserved to us: one from

a Norse source in the Egills Saga, and the other in the poem

commemorating the battle which is preserved to us in the Saxon

Chronicle. Florence of Worcester tells us that Anlaf the Pagan, king of

the Irish and of many islands besides, at the instigation of his

father-in-law Constantin, king of the Scots, entered the mouth of the

river Humber with a powerful fleet. King Aethelstan and his brother

Eadmund the Etheling, met him at a place called Brunnanburg, and after a

battle which lasted from daybreak until evening, slew five reguli and

seven earls, whom the enemy had brought with them as auxiliaries,

shedding more blood than had ever before in England been shed in battle,

and returned home in great triumph, having driven the kings, Anlaf and

Constantin, back to their ships. The latter were terribly cast down by

the destruction of their army, and returned to their country with very

few followers.[502]

The Egills Saga tells us that ‘when Adalsteinn had taken the kingdom

there rose up to war those chiefs who had lost the dominion which their

ancestors had possessed.’ They were ‘Britons, Scots, and Irish’ (Bretar

oc Scotar oc Irar). Among them was ‘Olafr Skotakonungr,’ called the red;

‘he was Scotch by father’s kin, but Danish by mother’s kin; he came of

the race of Ragnar Lodbrok.’[503] He drew together a mighty host, and

went south from Scotland to England, when he harried all Northimbraland,

gained a victory over two earls, who governed it under Adalsteinn, and

subdued all Northimbraland. When Adalsteinn heard this he summoned all

his troops and advanced to meet him. The two armies meet at Vinheidi

(the Vin-heath) by Vinnskoda (the Vin-wood). King Olaf occupied a ‘Borg’

that stood north of the heath, with the greater part of his army, which

encamped on the heath between the wood and the river. South of the heath

was another ‘Borg,’ which was occupied by King Adalsteinn’s army, the

leader of which amuses King Olaf with negotiations for peace till King

Adalsteinn comes to the southern borg with additional troops. After a

preliminary skirmish in which two of King Olaf’s earls had fallen with

many of the Britons and Scots, the main battle takes place between the

two armies, which are about equal in numbers. The details are given very

minutely, but mainly to show the exploits of Egill and his brother from

whom the saga is named. The result was that the army of King Olaf gave

way, and great slaughter was made of them. ‘King Olaf fell there, and

the most part of the troops that Olaf had led, because those that turned

to flee were slain by their pursuers. King Adalsteinn there made a

wonderful victory.’[504] This account, though inaccurate in its details,

for King Olaf or Anlaf was not slain but fled in his ships from the

Humber, is chiefly valuable from the description it gives of the scene

of the battle. The Saxon Chronicle contains the following poem

celebrating the victory, from which we may gather the following

particulars:—

This year King Aethelstan,

Lord of Earls,

Ring-giver of warriors,

And his brother eke

Eadmund Aetheling,

Life-long glory

In battle won,

With edges of swords

At Brunanburh:

which gives us the oldest name of the field of battle. Then we have—

The foes lay low,

The Scots people

And the shipmen,

Death-doomed fell;

showing that they had arrived by sea. Again—

The West Saxons forth

The livelong day

In martial bands

Followed the footsteps

Of the hostile nations.

Again—

The Mercians refused not

The hard hand-play

To any of the warriors

Who with Olaf,

O’er the waves mingling

In the ship’s bosom,

The land had sought

Death-doomed in fight;

showing that Olaf too had arrived by sea. The slaughter too was great.

Five lay

On that battle stead,

Young kings,

By swords laid to sleep,

So seven eke

Of Olaf’s jarls,

Of the army countless,

Shipmen and Scots.

Then both Olaf and Constantin take refuge in their ships, and fly by

sea.

There was put to flight,

The Northmen’s prince,

By need constrained,

To the vessel’s prow,

With a little band.

The bark drove afloat,

The king departed

On the fallow flood,

His life preserved.

So there eke the aged

Came by flight

To his country north,

Constantine,

Hoary warrior.

His son and friends are slain.

He of his kinsmen was bereft,

Of his friends deprived,

On the trysting place,

In conflict slain,

And his son he left

On the slaughter place,

Mangled with wounds,

Young in warfare.

The Northmen who came from Dublin with another Olaf return.

Departed then the Northmen

In their nailed barks,

The darts gory leaving,

On the roaring sea,

O’er the deep water,

Dublin to seek,

Ireland once more,

In mind abashed.

And the poem concludes—

No slaughter has been greater

In this island,

Ever yet

Of folk laid low,

Before this,

By the sword’s edges,

From what books tell us,

Old chroniclers,

Since hither from the East,

Angles and Saxons

Came to land,

O’er the broad seas.

Britain sought

Proud war smiths,

The Welsh o’ercame,

Men for glory eager,

The country gained.[505]

The site of this great battle is one of the problems in English history

which has not yet been solved. It has been generally placed at Brumby or

Brough on the Humber, from the statement that Anlaf entered the Humber

with his ships; but if a large part of his force came from the north by

land, it is unlikely that they would be allowed to penetrate as far as

the Humber before they were met by Aethelstan. Others have looked for it

in Lancashire, from the statement that Anlaf fled in his ships to

Dublin; but the Anlaf who returned to Dublin was Anlaf, son of Godfrey,

king of the Danes of Dublin, who had come to support his brethren in

Northumbria, and he probably landed in Cumberland and made his way with

the Cumbrians from thence to Northumbria and returned as he came. Anlaf,

the son-in-law of Constantin, was Anlaf, son of Sitriuc, and he appears

to have escaped with his father-in-law in the ships from the Humber, and

returned to Scotland.

The poem in the Saxon Chronicle terms the field of battle the

trysting-place, and the Egills Saga likewise implies that the battle had

been fought at the place fixed by Anlaf for the assembling of his

forces. We must therefore look for it at some point suitable for

bringing these forces together. They may be said, in the main, to have

come from three directions. First, a part under Constantin and possibly

his son-in-law Anlaf came in ships up the Humber. Another part,

consisting of the Scotch army, came by land from Scotland; and a third,

consisting of the Cumbrians and the Danes from Dublin, came from the

west, while Aethelstan in his march from the south met them and gave

them battle at a place called Brunanburh in the Saxon Chronicle, and

Vinheidi by the Egills Saga. Simeon of Durham says, in his history of

the kings, that ‘Aethelstan fought at Wendune, and put King Onlaf with

six hundred and fifteen ships, Constantin king of the Scots, and the

king of the Cumbrians, with all their forces, to flight.’ And in his

history of the Church of Durham, he says ‘Aethelstan fought at Weondune,

which is also called Ætbrunnanmere or Brunnanbyrig, against Onlaf, the

son of Guthred, the late king, who had arrived with a fleet of six

hundred and fifteen ships, supported by the auxiliaries of the kings

recently spoken of, that is to say, of the Scots and Cumbrians.’

The Wendune of Simeon is evidently the Vinheidi of the Egills Saga, and

Brunnanbyrig, the Duinbrunde of the Pictish Chronicle, and the Borg on

the river at the northern extremity of the heath occupied by Anlaf and

his army. Now the Humber, with the Ouse which falls into it, is

navigable for vessels as far as Boroughbridge, anciently called Ponte

Burgi, about sixteen miles from York. A little lower down the river was

the important Roman station of Isurium, the ramparts of which still

remain, and here four Roman roads met, two from the south and two from

the north. The Roman road from York passed along the left bank of the

Ouse, until it crossed at a ferry near Aldwark, not far above the

present bridge. Another road from the south passed through

Knaresborough, and joined the former road at this point. From it two

‘Itinera’ went, one direct to the north, and the other to Cataracton or

Catterick on the Swale, whence it proceeded by Stanmore into Cumberland.

The Roman station of Isurium was called by the Angles the ‘Ealdburg,’ or

Old Burgh. It appears in the time of Edward the Confessor as the manor

of Burc, and it is now Aldborough. About a quarter of a mile to the west

of Boroughbridge are three large monoliths, varying from eighteen to

twenty-three feet high. They are now called the Devil’s Arrows; and east

of Aldborough, at a place called Dunsforth, was a tumulus called the

Devil’s Cross; it was broken into many years ago for road materials, and

in it were found human remains.

Aldborough unites almost all the conditions required for the site of

Brunanburgh. The ships which entered the Humber could make their way

thus far. This burg, called by the Angles the old Burg, may have been

the Borg on the river occupied by Anlaf. The Borg, south of the heath,

occupied by Aethelstan, could hardly have been York, as it was too well

known not to be mentioned by name, but may have been the strong position

of Knaresborough, from whence an ancient way led to Aldborough. The

Scots would advance by one of the northern routes, and the Danes of

Dublin and the Cumbrians by the great highway which led from Cumberland

by Catterick. The only authority which gives any indication of its

situation are the Annals of Clonmacnoise, which say that the battle was

fought on the plains of Othlyn. Othlyn is probably Gethlyn, now Getling,

which gives its name to two Wapentakes in the vale of the Swale, which

unites with the Ure close to Aldborough, and forms the river Ouse, which

flows past York into the Humber, and the monuments called the Devil’s

Cross and the Devil’s Arrows may be memorials of the battle.

Soon after Aethelstan had gained this great victory, he was to receive

an unexpected auxiliary in curbing the Danes of Northumberland. In one

of the Norse sagas we are told that Eric, called Bloody Axe, the son of

the Norwegian king Harald Harfagr, sailed with a fleet to the west. He

went first to Orkney, where he recruited his force, and then sailed

south to England, plundering the coasts of Scotland and Northumberland

as he went. On which King Aethelstan offered him a settlement in

Northumberland, if he would defend it against the Danes and other

Vikings and be baptized. Eric accepted their offers, received lands in

Northumberland, where he settled his followers, was baptized, and had

his residence at York.[506]

Aethelstan did not long survive the battle, but died in the year 940,

and was succeeded by his brother Eadmund.

Five years after this great defeat, Constantin, worn out with age and

disappointment, resigned the throne for the pilgrim’s staff, and

committed the kingdom to Malcolm, the son of his predecessor Donald, who

was entitled under the Tanistic law to succeed him.[507] The later

chronicles say that he became abbot of the Culdees of St. Andrews, and

served God in that capacity for five years; but that is importing later

language and ideas into his time, though he appears to have retired to

the monastery of St. Andrews. St. Berchan says—

Afterwards God did call him

To the Recles (monastery) on the brink of the waves,

In the house of the apostle (Andrew) he came to death.

Undefiled was the pilgrim.

He lived ten years after his retirement, and his death is recorded by

the Ulster Annals in the year 952, and by the Pictish Chronicle in the

tenth year of his successor.[508]

[Sidenote: A.D. 942-954.

Malcolm, son of Donald, king of Alban.]

Malcolm commenced his reign by making the first attempt to push the

power of the kings of Alban beyond the Spey. So far as the northern

boundary of the kingdom, their authority seems now to have been pretty

well established; but he now invaded the province of Moreb or Moray

beyond it with his army, and slew Cellach, probably its provincial

king,[509] but with what permanent result we are not told. He was soon,

however, to receive a much more important addition to his dominions in

another direction. In the year 941, we are told by the Saxon Chronicle,

the Northumbrians belied their fealty oaths, and chose Olaf of Ireland

for their king. It is difficult to distinguish between the acts of the

two Anlafs,—the son of Guthfrith and the son of Sitriuc,—in their

appearances in Northumberland, and the chroniclers themselves seem to

share in the difficulty; but following in the main the Saxon Chronicle,

we may hold that this was Anlaf, son of Guthfrith or Godfrey, king of

the Danes of Dublin; but a year after that, having laid waste and burnt

the church of St. Balthere at Tyningham, he suddenly perished. Anlaf,

the son of Sitriuc and son-in-law of Constantin, at length became king

of Northumberland. In the year 943 he took Tamworth by storm, and great

slaughter was made on either side; and the Danes had the victory, and

led away great booty with them. King Eadmund then beset him in

Leicester, and would have captured him had he not escaped out of the

town by night. After that King Anlaf gained King Eadmund’s friendship,

and was received by him at baptism, and he royally gifted him. And in

the same year, after a good long interval, he received King Regnald at

the bishop’s hand. This sudden friendship, however, only subsisted one

year, for in 944 King Eadmund subdued all Northumberland into his power

and expelled the two kings, Anlaf son of Sitriuc, and Regnald son of

Guthfrith. During the whole of these attempts by the Danish kings of

Dublin to maintain possession of Northumberland, and the repeated

invasions from Dublin which followed every effort to expel them, they

seem to have made their way through the territories of the Cumbrian

Britons, and to have received the support of their kings, who, as

descended from the brother of King Constantin, whose daughter Amlaiph,

or Anlaf Cuaran, had married, were nearly connected with him. Eadmund

seems therefore to have resolved to deprive them of this ready means of

access to Northumberland and the support they obtained from it, by

overrunning the British territories and making the king of Alban a

guarantee for their fidelity.

[Sidenote: A.D. 945.

Cumbria ceded to the Scots.]

The Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 945 ‘King Eadmund harried

over all Cumberland, and gave it all up to Malcolm, king of the Scots,

on the condition that he should be his co-operator both on sea and on

land.’ It has usually been assumed that this refers to the district in

England afterwards called Cumberland alone, but the people termed by the

same chronicle the Strathclyde Welsh had now come to be known under the

Latin appellation of ‘Cumbri,’ and their territory as the land of the

Cumbrians, of which ‘Cumbraland’ is simply the Saxon equivalent. Their

king at this time was Donald, the son of that Eugenius or Owin, who was

at the battle of Brunanburh. He is called king of the Northern Britons,

and his kingdom extended from the Derwent in Cumberland to the Clyde.

Accordingly we find in the British annals that at this time Strathclyde

was ravaged by the Saxons.[510] There can be little question that the

tenure by which the Cumbrian kingdom was held by Malcolm was one of

fealty towards the king of England, and this seems to be the first

occasion on which this relation was established with any reality between

them, so far at least as this grant is concerned.

In the following year Eadmund died, and is succeeded by Eadred

Aetheling, his brother, who, the Saxon Chronicle tells us, ‘reduced all

Northumberland under his power; and the Scots gave him oaths that they

would all that he would.’ The next year ‘Wulstan, the archbishop, and

all the Northumbrian Witan swore fealty to the king; and within a little

space belied it all, both pledges and also oaths;’ as did also the

Scots, for in 948 ‘king Eadred harried over all Northumberland because

they had taken Eric for their king. And when the king went homewards,

the army within York overtook him, and there made great slaughter. Then

was the king so indignant that he would again march in, and totally

destroy the country. When the Northumbrian Witan understood that, they

forsook Eric, and made compensation for the deed to King Eadred.’ Upon

this the irrepressible Anlaf Cuaran again appeared on the scene, and

came in the year 949 to Northumberland. This was the seventh year of the

reign of Malcolm, the son of Donald; and we are told by the Pictish

Chronicle that in that year he laid waste the Anglic territories as far

as the river Tees, and carried off a multitude of men with their flocks,

and that he did this at the instigation of Constantin, though some say

that he made this plundering raid himself, having requested the king to

surrender the kingdom to him for one week for the purpose; but he seems

at all events to have retained in his penitential cell a sufficient

interest in secular matters to incite Malcolm to support the attempt by

his son-in-law Anlaf upon Northumberland by this expedition.[511] Anlaf

only possessed Northumberland three years when the Northumbrians

expelled him in 952,[512] and again received Eric Bloody Axe, and two

years after expelled him, and submitted to Eadred, who in 954 ‘assumed

the kingdom of the Northumbrians.’ This terminated the kingdom. Eadred

committed the government to an earl, and Northumbria from a kingdom thus

became an earldom, and remained so from henceforth. Anlaf Cuaran, on

this his last expulsion, took refuge in Ireland, and spent the rest of a

long life in incessant wars in that country as king of the Danes of

Dublin, till at last, in the year 980, he was defeated in a great battle

at Tara with the king of Ireland, in which his son Ragnall was slain,

together with all the nobles of the Galls of Dublin, and Anlaf, son of

Sitriuc, high king of the Galls, went on a pilgrimage to

Hi-Choluimcille, where he died.

In the year 954 the Ulster Annals record that Maelcolam, son of Domnall,

king of Alban, was slain. The Pictish Chronicle tells us that the men of

Moerne slew him at Fodresach, now Fetteresso, in the parish of Fordun,

Kincardineshire;[513] but the later chronicles remove the scene of his

death farther north, and state that he was slain at Ulurn by the

Moravienses, or people of Moray. St. Berchan, however, places it with

the Pictish Chronicle in the parish of Fordun, when he says—

Nine years to his reign,

Traversing the borders.

On the brink of Dun Fother at last

Will shout the Gael around his grave.

[Sidenote: A.D. 954-962.

Indulph, son of Constantin, king of Alban.]

The succession to the throne now fell, according to the system of

alternate succession which prevailed in the line of the Scottish kings,

to Indulph, the son of his predecessor Constantin, and during his reign

of eight years only two events are recorded, the first of which is,

however, one of great significance. We are told by the Pictish Chronicle

that in his time Duneden, or Edinburgh, was evacuated by the Angles and

surrendered to the Scots, who still possessed it when the chronicle was

compiled.[514] The surrender of Edinburgh implied that of the district

between the Esk and the Avon, of which it was the principal stronghold,

and the tenure of which by the Angles had always been very uncertain and

precarious. From the Avon to the Forth the territory was still probably

claimed by the Britons of Strathclyde. The other event recorded in the

Pictish Chronicle is that a fleet of the Sumarlidi, or ‘Summer

Wanderers’—a term applied to those Norwegian pirates who went out on

plundering expeditions in summer, spending the winter at home or in a

friendly port—had made a descent upon Buchan, and were there cut

off.[515] This Norwegian fleet in question was probably that of the sons

of Eric Bloody Axe, who had gone on his death from Northumberland to

Orkney.[516] The later chronicles state that Indulph was slain by the

Norwegians at Inverculen, but if this is the same event the Pictish

Chronicle gives no countenance to the statement, and St. Berchan

distinctly implies that he died at St. Andrews. In his metrical account

of his reign he alludes to this unsuccessful attempt upon his

territories, and to his acquisition of Duneden, when he says—

No severance will he sever

Of Alban of ships of long territories;

It is an addition to his kingdom he will take

From a foreign land by force;

Nine years and a half of bright fame

For him over Alban in the sovereignty.

In the house of the same pure apostle

He died, where died his father.

[Sidenote: A.D. 962-967.

Dubh, son of Maelcolam, king of Alban.]

As his death is not recorded by the Pictish Chronicle or by the Ulster

Annals, it is probable that he had followed his father’s example and

retired to the monastery of Kilrymont, committing his kingdom to

Dubh,[517] the son of Malcolm, who would have been entitled to succeed

him on his death, but his family do not appear to have acquiesced in

this, and there is some appearance that the principle of lineal

succession was now coming into conflict with the form of Tanistic

succession which had hitherto prevailed. The acquisition first of the

Cumbrian kingdom and afterwards of part of Lothian would, no doubt, aid

this. The latter was the acquisition of Indulph himself, and his son

would naturally claim it as his inheritance accordingly. Dubh had not

been three years on the throne when we find a battle fought at Drumcrub,

in Stratherne, between him and Cuilean, the son of Indulph, who appears

to have been supported by the lay abbot of Dunkeld and the governor of

Atholl. In this battle Cuilean was defeated and his two supporters

slain.[518]

[Sidenote: A.D. 967-971.

Cuilean, son of Indulph, king of Alban.]

Two years after Cuilean succeeds in expelling Dubh, and in the same year

the Ulster Annals record his death.[519] The later chronicles relate a

strange story that Dubh was slain in Forres, that his body was hidden

under the bridge of Kynlos, and that the sun did not shine till it was

found. These chroniclers usually remove the scene of the battles in

which these kings were slain from their southern localities to the

northern districts of Scotland. It is, however, possible that in this

case, when Dubh was expelled from the kingdom, he may have taken refuge

in the country beyond the Spey, and had been slain at Kynlos, while the

fact that an eclipse of the sun was visible there on the 10th of July

967 may have given rise to the tradition. Of Cuilean’s reign, which

lasted four years and a half, we know nothing further than that he and

his brother Eochodius or Eocha were slain by the Britons in the year

971.[520] The later chronicles are here in accord with the older, for

they state that he was slain in Laodonia or Lothian, that is probably

the part of Lothian which his father had acquired from the Angles, by

Andarch, son of Donvald, on account of his daughter. St. Berchan names

these two kings Dubh or black and Fionn or white, and considers that

during Dubh’s life they reigned jointly.

Two kings after that over Alban,

Both of them at mutual strife,

Fionn and Dubh together.

Woe! who took them in joint reign,

Nine years for them in their reign.

He terms the latter ‘Dubh of the three black divisions,’ which implies

that he had the support of only three of the provinces. Of Fionn or

Cuilean he says—

The grave of Fionn on the brink of the waves

A spear shall sever (life);

In a strange high valiant land,

It was by the Britons shall be his death.

[Sidenote: A.D. 971-995.

Kenneth, son of Malcolm, king of Alban.]

The succession to the throne of Alban now fell to Kenneth, the son of

Malcolm and brother of Dubh, and his first act seems to have been to

retaliate upon the Britons for the death of his predecessor, but this he

did not effect without loss. He is said by the Pictish Chronicle to have

immediately laid waste the territory of the Britons to a great extent,

while a party of his foot-soldiers were cut off with great slaughter in

the moss of the Cornag, the water which gives its name to Abercorn.[521]

His attention, however, was soon directed to the more important field of

Northumbria. When the kingdom came to an end in 954, and the government

of an earl substituted, the first earl appointed was Osulf, who ruled

over both provinces, but he was succeeded in 966 by Oslac, and soon

after Northumbria was divided into two earldoms, Oslac ruling at York

and the southern parts, while Eadulf, called Yvelchild, was placed over

the Northumbrians from the Tees to Myrcforth, or the Firth of

Forth.[522] Immediately after the unsatisfactory expedition against the

Strathclyde Britons, the Scots are recorded in the Pictish Chronicle to

have laid waste Saxonia or the northern part of Northumbria as far as

Stanmore, Cleveland, and the pools of Deira, that is, the part of

Northumbria which had been placed as a separate earldom under Eadulf;

and in order to protect himself against the Britons, Kenneth fortified

the fords of the river Forth, which at this time separated his kingdom

from that of Strathclyde.[523] In the following year Kenneth repeated

his invasion of Northumbria, and is said to have carried off a son of

the king of the Saxons, by whom Earl Eadulf is probably meant. We now

lose the invaluable guidance of the Pictish Chronicle, which appears to

have been compiled in Kenneth’s reign, at Brechin, as it breaks off with

the intimation that this king gave the great city of Brechin to the

Lord,[524] and leaves the years of his reign unfilled up, while it

contains no record of his death; but, on the other hand, we recover the

Irish annalist, Tighernac, the hiatus in whose annals terminates with

the year 973. In 975 he tells us that Domnall, son of Eoain, king of the

Britons, went on a pilgrimage. The Welsh Chronicle, the Brut y

Tywysogion, which records the same event, calls him Dunwallaun, king of

Strathclyde, and states that he went to Rome.[525] He is the same

Domnaldus who was king of the Cumbrians when Eadmund ravaged the country

in 945, and was the son of that Eugenius, king of the Cumbrians, who

fought in the battle of Brunnanburg. Kenneth too appears to have had to

contend against the claims of the sons of Indulph to succeed to their

father in preference to that form of the law of Tanistry which had

hitherto regulated the succession, by which it alternated between the

two branches of the Scottish royal family; for Tighernac records that

Amlaiph or Olaf, the son of Indulph, king of Alban, was slain in the

year 977, by Kenneth, son of Malcolm.[526] The English chroniclers,

however, add some events to the reign of Kenneth, of a much more

questionable character, the chief of which is that the district of

Lothian was ceded to Kenneth by King Eadgar, to be held by him as a fief

of the English crown. This statement first appears in the Tract on the

arrival of the Saxons, attributed to Simeon of Durham. It is there said

that when Eadgar set the two earls, Oslac and Eadulf, over Northumbria,

giving the latter the territory from the Tees to the Firth of Forth,

these earls, with the bishop, brought Kenneth, king of the Scots, to

King Eadgar, and when he had done homage to him, Eadgar gave him Lothian

and sent him home with honour.[527] This Chronicle was made use of by

John Wallingford, who wrote nearly a century later, and thus elaborates

the story:—‘Kenneth, the king of Scotland, hearing from common report,

and the praises of the two earls, Oslach and Eadulf, and Elfsi, bishop

of Durham, of the greatness of King Eadgar, desiring greatly to see him,

asked and obtained a safe-conduct to London, that he might converse with

him. Thus conducted at the command of the king by the two earls and the

bishop, Kenneth, the king of Scotland, came to London, and was

honourably received by King Eadgar, and treated with high consideration.

While they were conversing familiarly and pleasantly together, Kenneth

suggested to Eadgar that “Louthion” was a hereditary possession of the

kings of Scotland, and therefore ought to belong to him. King Eadgar

being unwilling to do anything hurriedly, for fear of repenting of what

he had done afterwards, referred the cause to his counsellors.

‘These men having been well instructed in the wisdom of their ancestors

... unless the king of Scotland should consent to do homage for it to

the king of England ... and chiefly because the means of access to that

district for the purposes of defence are very difficult, and its

possession not very profitable.... Kenneth, however, assented to this

decision, and sought and obtained it on the understanding that he was to

do homage for it; and he did homage accordingly to King Eadgar, and

further was obliged to promise under pledges, in solemn form, that he

would not deprive the people of that region of their ancient customs,

and that they should still be allowed to use the name and language of

the Angles. These conditions have been faithfully observed to the

present day, and thus was settled the old dispute about Louthion, though

a new ground of difference still often arises.’[528]

The older English chroniclers know nothing whatever of this cession of

Lothian by King Eadgar to Kenneth, and it is quite inconsistent with the

account given by Simeon of Durham himself of how the Scottish kings

acquired it. The Saxon Chronicle, though it mentions the cession of

Cumbria to Malcolm, has no hint of this transaction, while the Pictish

Chronicle presents us with a totally different picture of the relations

between Kenneth and the two earls who shared the Northumbrian

territories between them. There he appears only as endeavouring to wrest

the country north of the Tees from one of them. We may therefore dismiss

this tale as having no foundation in fact, and as one of those spurious

narratives arising out of the controversy as to the dependence of

Scotland. That the kings of Alban of the line of Kenneth mac Alpin

asserted some claim to the territory south of the Firth of Forth seems

however to have some foundation, otherwise it is difficult to account

for the fact that they no sooner become possessed of the Pictish throne

than, instead of consolidating their power over the Pictish kingdom,

they at once attack Saxonia or the Northumbrian districts on the south

side of the Firth of Forth. Kenneth, the founder of their house, is said

to have invaded it six times. Giric is said to have conquered Bernicia.

We find Constantin, son of Aedh, in alliance with the northern Saxons,

and in conjunction with Anlaf Cuaran invading Northumbria. Malcolm, son

of Donald, overruns the country as far as the Tees. Edinburgh and the

district around it are given up by the Angles to Indulph, and Kenneth,

of whom we are treating, twice repeats a similar invasion; but if these

invasions of Northumbria were connected with any supposed claim to its

possession, it was not Lothian alone but the whole of Bernicia that they

claimed. Upon what right such a claim could have been based, whether

upon the extent to which the previous kings of the Picts had obtained

possession of part of that territory, or whether upon some ground

peculiar to their dynasty, and involving, as Wallingford asserts, the

assertion of a hereditary right, it is difficult to say. There is no

doubt that not long before the accession of Kenneth mac Alpin to the

Pictish throne the kingdom of Northumbria seems to have fallen into a

state of complete disintegration, and we find a number of independent

chiefs, or ‘duces’ as they are termed, appearing in different parts of

the country and engaging in conflict with the kings and with each other,

slaying and being slain, conspiring against the king and being conspired

against in their turn, expelling him and each other, and being expelled.

Out of this confusion, however, one family emerges who appear as lords

of Bamborough and for a time govern Bernicia. Galloway, with which

Kenneth’s family was connected, and out of which he emerged to claim the

Pictish throne, was nominally a part of Bernicia, and under Anglic rule;

and it is not impossible that among the chiefs who at this time appear

to have asserted their position against the king of Northumbria, and to

have practically ruled over different districts, one of Scottish

descent, either from his connection with Galloway or from some

connection in the female line with the Northumbrians, may have for the

time obtained such a right to the rule over Bernicia as might give rise

to a claim on the part of his descendants;[529] but be this as it may,

we may hold it as certain that no cession of any part of this territory,

in addition to what had been acquired by Indulph, had been made at this

time to Kenneth son of Malcolm.

But if Kenneth did not add permanently to his kingdom on the south, we

find that the districts beyond the Spey, on the north, had again fallen

under the dominion of the Norwegian earl of Orkney. The earl who ruled

at this time was Sigurd ‘the Stout.’ He was the son of Hlodver, the

previous earl of Orkney, whose father Thorfinn, called the

‘Skull-cleaver,’ was the son of Earl Einar, and by his marriage with

Grelauga, daughter of Dungadr or Duncan, the jarl of Caithness, had

brought that district to the Norwegian earls of Orkney. But although

they appear to have claimed Caithness as now forming an integral part of

their dominions as Norwegian earls, and maintained possession of it as

such, the kings of Alban seem also to have asserted a right to a

sovereignty over it as one of the dependencies of their kingdom. By

Grelauga Earl Thorfinn had five sons, three of whom were successively

earls of Orkney. Havard, the eldest son, succeeded him, and was slain by

his wife; and we find that when Liotr, the second brother, was earl of

Orkney, another brother, Skuli, went to Scotland, and obtained a right

to the earldom of Caithness from the king of the Scots. This led to a

conflict between the brothers, in which Skuli was supported by the

Scottish king and a Scottish earl called Magbiodr, and a battle ensued

in which the Scots were defeated and Skuli slain. Earl Liotr then took

possession of Caithness, and remained at war with the Scots, when Earl

Magbiodr again came from Scotland with an army, and met him at Skidamyre

in Caithness, where a hotly-contested battle took place, in which Liotr

was victorious, but was mortally wounded. Hlodver, the only surviving

brother, succeeded to the earldom, but died of sickness, and was buried

at Hofn in Caithness. Sigurd, his son, succeeded him about the year 980,

and was, we are told, a powerful man and a great warrior. He kept

Caithness by main force from the Scots, and went every summer in war

expeditions to the Sudreys or Western Isles, to Scotland, and to

Ireland.[530]

Soon after Sigurd’s succession we find Finleikr, a Scotch jarl, entering

Caithness with a large army, and challenging Earl Sigurd to meet him in

battle at the same Skidamyre in Caithness where Magbiodr had met the

former earl. He was no doubt the Finlaic, son of Ruaidhri, Mormaer of

_Moreb_ or Moray, whose death Tighernac records in the year 1020, and

Magbiodr was probably the Maelbrigdi who is mentioned as his brother,

and had been the previous Mormaer.[531] Sigurd drew an army together,

but it was inferior in numbers until he obtained the aid of the ‘Bondir’

or allodial possessors of Orkney, by restoring to them the full right to

their allodial lands, which had been taken from them by Earl Einar, and

then went to battle with Earl Finleikr, whom he entirely defeated.

Sigurd seems to have followed up his victory by overrunning the

provinces north of the Spey, as we find him in 989 in possession of the

four provinces of Moray, Ross, Sudrland or Sutherland, and Dali.[532]

The district to which the name of Dali is here given was probably that

part of Argathelia which had borne the name of Dalriada, a name which

still lingered in connection with it, and appears in the Irish annalists

for the last time at this period; and the acquisition of this district

by Sigurd seems to have brought him in contact with the rulers of the

Western Isles, who had hitherto possessed it. These were also

Norwegians; and the kings of Norway appear to have claimed tribute from

the islands, and to have attempted from time to time to maintain a

direct dominion over them by means of jarls or earls, while at other

times they appear under the rule of a Danish king of the Isles. In 973

we find a king Maccus or Magnus, whom Florence of Worcester calls king

of many islands; and in the Irish Annals he is called son of Aralt, who

was son of Sitriucc, lord of the Danes of Limerick.[533] He died about

977, and we then find his brother Godred or Goffraigh, son of Aralt,

called king of Innis Gall or the Western Isles. These kings were

descended from Inguar or Imhair, the ancestor of the Danish kings of

Dublin, termed from him Hy Imhair; and thus, while the Danes gave kings

to Dublin, Waterford, and Northumbria, the Norwegians gave earls to

Orkney, which they colonised, and possessed the Innse Gall, Sudreys, or

Western Isles,—the island of Man appearing to have been a bone of

contention between the two.[534]

At the time that Sigurd came into contact with Godred or Godfrey mac

Aralt he had entered into a short struggle with the Danes of Dublin for

the possession of Man and the Isles. In 986 the Ulster Annals tell us

that the Danes came with three ships to ‘Airer Dalriatai,’ or the coast

lands of Dalriada, but that the attack was successfully resisted, the

Danes were taken, 140 of them were hung, and the rest thrust through,

and in the same year I Columcille was plundered by the Danes on

Christmas Eve, and the abbot slain, with fifteen of the brethren. In the

following year a battle is fought at the Isle of Man against Gofrath mac

Aralt and the Danes, in which a thousand of them were slain, and in the

same year a great slaughter was made of the Danes who had pillaged

Iona.[535] Godred or Gofra had, however, now to encounter Sigurd, earl

of Orkney. The events of this war are partly detailed to us in the Nial

Saga in connection with the adventures of Grim and Helgi, the sons of

Nial of Iceland. The narrative commences with the sons of Nial leaving

Iceland in a ship with Olaf Ketilson of Elda, and Bardi the White. They

are driven southward by a strong north wind, and so thick a mist came

over them that they knew not where they were till the shoal water showed

them they must be near land. They ask Bardi if he knows what land they

would be nearest, who says that with the wind they had had it might be

the Islands of Scotland or Ireland. Two nights after they enter a fiord,

when they see land on both sides and breakers within. Here they anchor,

and next morning are attacked by thirteen ships coming out of the fiord

commanded by Griotgard and Snaekolf, sons of Moldan, from Duncansby in

Caithness. The battle is then described, and they are hard bestead,

when, looking to seaward, they see ten vessels coming from the southward

round the promontory. They row hard towards them, and in the first of

the ships they see a man by the mast clad in a silken kirtle, with a

gilded helmet and gold-studded spear. This was Kari Solmundson, one of

Earl Sigurd’s courtiers, who had been taking scat or tribute from the

Sudreys from Earl Gilli. The battle is then renewed, and the sons of

Earl Moldan are both slain. The sons of Nial then accompany Kari to

Hrossey or the Mainland of Orkney, where he presents them to Sigurd, and

tells him he found them fighting in the fiords of Scotland with the sons

of Earl Moldan. These fiords of Scotland must be the numerous sea lochs

which intersect the west coast; and as the fiord in question lay between

Orkney and the Sudreys, had land on both sides, and a fleet coming from

the south would be seen passing on looking to seaward, the description

seems to answer to Loch Broom in the north-west of Ross-shire. The sons

of Nial are passing the winter with Sigurd, when he receives news that

two Scotch earls, Hundi and Melsnati, had entered the Norwegian

territory on the mainland and slain Havard of Threswick, Sigurd’s

brother-in-law, who was probably its Norwegian governor. This territory,

we are told, consisted of the rikis or provinces in Scotland of Ros,

Moray, Sudrland, and Dali, Caithness being considered as belonging to

Orkney and not to Scotland. Earl Sigurd collects a large army and lands

in Caithness, and a great battle takes place between him and the earls

at Duncansness, when the Scots are defeated, Earl Melsnati slain, and

Earl Hundi driven to flight, who is pursued till they learn that Earl

Melkolf is collecting another army at Duncansby, when, finding

themselves not in a position to meet a second army, the Norwegians

return to Orkney. In the following summer Kari goes on an expedition

with the sons of Nial, makes war in many places, and is everywhere

victorious. They encounter Godred, king of Man, and vanquish him. Kari

then goes to Norway with the scat or tribute to Earl Hakon of Norway. In

the following summer they make a second expedition and harry all the

Sudreys. Thence they go to Kintyre, land there, fight with the landsmen

and carry off plunder. Then they go south to Wales, hold on for the Isle

of Man, again meet Godred, fight with him, and slay Dungall, his son.

Thence they go north to Koln or Colonsay, where they find Earl Gilli,

and stay with him a while. Then Earl Gilli accompanies them to the

Orkneys to meet Earl Sigurd, who gives him his sister Nereide in

marriage, and he returns to the Sudreys and the sons of Nial to

Iceland.[536] Such is a short outline of this curious narrative, from

which we may gather that the tenure by which Earl Sigurd held his

mainland possessions, extending to the river Spey, was a very precarious

one, and appears to have been more an assertion of dominion over the

native Mormaers, who took every opportunity to throw off the yoke. In

the Western Islands we find an Earl Gilli having his principal seat in

Colonsay, and paying scat or tribute to Sigurd, while Godred, who is

obviously the Gofraigh mac Arailt, the Danish king of Innse Gall of the

Ulster Annals, has his residence in Man. We also see that the Earl of

Orkney paid scat or tribute to Earl Hakon of Norway. The name Gilli

indicates that he was a native,[537] and not a Norwegian, and that the

Sudreys did not so much differ from the mainland possessions in being

merely subject and tributary to the Norwegians as in being actually

colonised by them. The Ulster Annals record in 989 the death of Gofraigh

mac Arailt, king of Innse Gall in Dalriatai, the Dali of Nials Saga,

which gives us the date of the conclusion of this war, by which the

temporary occupation of the Western Isles by the Danes of Dublin appears

to have been brought to an end.[538]

If Kenneth was thus unable to extend his territories either south of the

Firth of Forth or beyond the Spey on the north, we may well suppose that

during a long reign of twenty-four years he could do much to consolidate

the power of the Scots within these limits. Of the two great branches of

the descendants of Kenneth mac Alpin who gave kings alternately to

Alban, the senior house, of which he was the head, seems to have had its

main interest in the provinces north of the Tay, while the junior house

was more particularly connected with that of Fife and the other

provinces south of it. We find the kings of the former house invariably

confronted with the people called the Men of Moerne or the Mearns (viri

na Moerne), as those of the latter were with the Men of Fortrenn (firu

Fortrenn). Thus Donald, son of Constantin, is slain at Dun Fother, or

Dunotter. His son Malcolm, too, is killed by the men of the Moerne at

Fetteresso, and Kenneth, son of Malcolm, founds the church of Brechin in

this part of the kingdom. On the other hand, the two conflicts which

Constantin, son of Aedh, had with the Northmen—one against the

Norwegians in his third year, and the other against the Danes in his

eighteenth year—are fought by the men of Fortrenn. After the reign of

Constantin we hear no more of the men of Fortrenn, who had now

apparently become merged in the general population; but Kenneth, like

his father and grandfather, is doomed to find his end in the same

quarter. Tighernac, in recording his death in 995, merely tells us that

he was slain by his own subjects, to which the Ulster Annals add the

significant expression ‘by treachery.’[539] We have not now the

assistance of the Pictish Chronicle, but the later chronicles tell us

that he was slain in Fotherkern, now Fettercairn, in the Mearns, by the

treachery of Finvela, daughter of Cunchar, earl of Angus, whose only son

Kenneth had killed at Dunsinnan;[540] and this is confirmed by St.

Berchan, who places his death on the moorland plain at the foot of the

Mounth or great chain of the so-called Grampians.

He will bend his steps, no neighbourly act,

To Magsliabh at the great Monadh.

The Gael will shout around his head.

His death was the end of it.[541]

[Sidenote: A.D. 995-997.

Constantin, son of Cuilean, king of Alban.]

He was succeeded by Constantin, the son of his predecessor Cuilean, but

his accession was not unopposed, as he had barely reigned two years when

we are told by Tighernac that a battle took place between the men of

Alban in the year 997, in which Constantin mac Cuilindain was slain with

many others.[542] The later chronicles say that he was slain at

Rathinveramon, or the fort at the mouth of the river Almond, by Kenneth,

son of Malcolm.[543] Fordun places this battle on the banks of the

Almond in West Lothian, and says that this Kenneth was an illegitimate

brother of the deceased king.[544] This latter statement may be true, as

we have no other clue to his identity, but St. Berchan clearly places

the battle on the Tay.

A great battle shall be fought in Alban

With the shame of his head colours shall be changed.

The leader of the hosts was he

At Sruthlinn, or the Pool, which is called Toe.

The allusion in the second line is to the epithet given him of

Constantin the Bald, and by the name Toe the Tay is meant.

Tighernac likewise records in the year 997 the death of Malcolm, son of

Donald, king of the Northern Britons.[545] He was, no doubt, the son of

that Donald who was king of the Cumbrians, when his kingdom was overrun

by King Eadmund and bestowed upon Malcolm, king of Alban, and this shows

that though the sovereignty was now vested in the Scottish kings, the

line of provincial kings still remained in possession of their

territory.

[Sidenote: A.D. 997-1004.

Kenneth son of Dubh, king of Alban.]

Constantin’s successor was Kenneth, son of Dubh, who was the son of

Malcolm, and the elder brother of Kenneth, son of Malcolm, the

predecessor of Constantin. He is termed by St. Berchan

The Donn, or brown, from strong Duncath,

which is probably the fort on one of the Sidlaw hills in the parish of

Fearn, Forfarshire, now called Duncathlaw, which connects him with the

same part of the kingdom with which the branch of the descendants of

Kenneth mac Alpin to which he belonged were peculiarly connected. In his

fourth year Aethelred, king of England, appears to have attempted to

wrest the Cumbrian kingdom from him, as the Saxon Chronicle tells us

that in the year 1000, ‘the king went to Cumbraland and ravaged it very

nigh all, and his ships went out about Chester, and should have come to

meet him but could not,’ while St. Berchan implies that he had

successfully resisted the attempt.

He will scatter hosts of the Saxons.

After the day of battle he will possess.

Five years after this, we are told by the Ulster Annals that a battle

took place between the men of Alban among themselves, in which Kenneth,

son of Dubh, the king of Alban, fell.[546] This expression, ‘a battle

among the men of Alban themselves,’ usually implies a war of succession,

and the later chronicles tell us that he was slain by Malcolm, the son

of Kenneth, in Moeghavard[547] or Monzievaird in Stratherne, and St.

Berchan confirms this when he says

Eight years and a half, bright the deeds,

To the Donn in their sovereignty

’Twas shut till they came against him.

Alas! the Gael again,

The Gael gathered around him,

The day on which he will be killed by us

At his stone of blood between two glens,

Not far from the banks of the Earn.

St. Berchan’s expression, ‘Alas! the Gael again,’ seems to imply that on

this occasion Malcolm, son of Kenneth, brought against him the men of

Moerne, who appear to have occupied an important position in the

population of the kingdom of Alban throughout the entire history of her

kings.

-----

Footnote 481:

If Donald was under age in 878 when the succession, according to this

law, opened to him, it is probable that the cause of the revolution

was his arriving at an age sufficient to satisfy the requirements of

the law, which demanded that the throne should only be filled by an

adult. Kenneth dying in 860, supposing him born in 800, and his son

Constantin in 830, Donald could not have been born before 860, but if

born in 864, he would be twenty-five in 889.

Footnote 482:

See _Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis_, pp. 65, 66; also Anderson’s

edition of the _Orkneyinga Saga_, p. 204. Thorstein died in 875, and

Sigurd could not have become earl till after the battle of

Hafursfiord, which made Harald Harfagr master of Norway. The

chronology of Harald Harfagr’s reign can be tolerably well made out

from his Saga. He was born in 853, and became king at the age of ten

in 863. When old enough to marry, he vows, at the instigation of his

bride, not to cut his hair till he became master of all Norway, and

this is accomplished by the battle of Hafursfiord. His hair had then

been uncut ten years. After he had ruled over all Norway for ten years

he is said to have been forty years of age. He was therefore twenty

years old when he made the vow, and thirty when he fought the battle

of Hafursfiord, which places it in the year 883, and some years after

Sigurd became earl of Orkney. The following passage in the Pictish

Chronicle under the reign of Donald appears to refer to this invasion:

‘Normanni tunc vastaverunt Pictaviam.’

Footnote 483:

This account of Sigurd’s death, which is more detailed than that in

the Orkneyinga Saga, is taken from the Flatey book (see Anderson’s

Orkneyinga Saga, p. 204). The word Bakki means in Icelandic the bank

of a river; and Ekkialsbakki has usually been assumed to be the river

Oikell, which separates Sutherlandshire from Ross-shire. Dr. Anderson,

whose opinion is entitled to weight, takes this view, and fortifies it

by a very plausible identification of Sigurd’s grave on its north

bank. The place he mentions is, however, not on the north bank of the

river Oikell, but on the Dornoch Firth, and he is obliged to admit

that this identification of Ekkialsbakki is inconsistent with other

passages. A comparison of the accounts of Sigurd’s conquest shows that

it must have been at or near the southern boundary of Moray; and the

passage in chapter lxxii., where Swein Asleif’s son goes to Moray, and

thence by Ekkialsbakki to Atholl, points to the Findhorn, which is

remarkable for a high bank, has an estuary which ships could enter,

and would be the natural route to Atholl. The resemblance between the

name Oikell and Ekkial is merely accidental. The battle may have been

fought near Forres, and the sculptured pillar known by the name of

Sweno’s Stone a record of it. Its connection with the name Sweno is no

older than Hector Boece, and it seems to tell the tale. On one side

are two figures engaged in apparently an amicable meeting, and above a

cross with the usual network ornamentation. On the other side we have

below a representation which it is difficult to make out, but it seems

to show a number of persons as if engaged in council, the background

probably representing the walls of some hall or fortification. Above

we see a party of horsemen at full gallop, followed by foot-soldiers

with bows and arrows. Above that we have a leader having a head

hanging at his girdle, followed by three trumpeters sounding for

victory, and surrounded by decapitated bodies and human heads. Above

that we have a representation of a party seizing a figure in Scottish

dress; and below it a party, in which in the centre is a figure in the

act of cutting off the head of another, and above all a leader riding

on horseback, followed by seven others. Something to this effect seems

represented, and its correspondence with the incidents in this tale is

striking enough. When digging into a mound close to the pillar in 1813

eight human skeletons were found (Stuart, _Sculptured Stones_, p. 9),

and in 1827 there was dug out of a steep bank above the Findhorn a

coffin of large dimensions, composed of flagstones, containing the

remains of a human skeleton.—_N. S. A._ vol. xiii. p. 222.

Footnote 484:

_War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, p. 29. The death of Donnchadh,

king of Cashel, which took place in 888, fixes the date. ‘In hujus

regno bellum est factum in Visibsolian inter Danarios et Scottos.

Scotti habuerunt victoriam. Oppidum Fother occisum est a gentibus.’

This place, called Visibsolian, or Visibcolian, may be Collie, near

Dunkeld. Oppidum is, in this chronicle, the Latin rendering of Dun,

and the place where he was slain—for this seems what is meant by

‘occisum est’—was Dun Fother. That this place was in Kincardineshire,

and has improperly been supposed to mean Forres, is apparent from St.

Berchan, who says

‘Nine years to the king

Traversing the borders,

One after another in every place;

With Galls, with Gael.

He will disperse the Gael for a purpose

At the end over Fotherdun.

Upon the brink of the waves he lies

In the east in his broad gory bed.’

Fotherdun in this poem is now Fordun, the name of the parish in which

Dun Fother, or Dunotter, is situated. By “gentibus” probably

Norwegians are meant.

Footnote 485:

A.D. 900. Domhnall mac Constantin Ri Alban moritur.—_An. Ult._ The

later chronicles transfer his death to Forres, in Morayshire.

Footnote 486:

Cujus tertio anno Normanni prædaverunt Duncalden omnemque Albaniam. In

sequenti utique anno occisi sunt in Sraithherni Normanni.—_Pict.

Chron._ A.D. 904. Imhair Ua h-Imhair domarbadh la firu Fortrenn agus

ar mar nimbi (slain by the men of Fortrenn, and great slaughter around

him).—_An. Ult._ See also _Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 405. The

passage in the Pictish Chronicle, taken in conjunction with that in

the Ulster Annals, shows that the seat of the men of Fortrenn was in

Stratherne. The Cronicum Scotorum has in this year ‘Ead Ri

Cruithentuaithe do tuitim fri da h-Imhair ocus fri Catol. go .d.

cedoibh’ (fell by the two grandsons of Imhair and by Catel, along with

500 men). This king of ‘Cruithentuaithe,’ or Pictland, was probably

the chief of the men of one of the provinces slain in the previous

attack.

Footnote 487:

In vi. anno Constantinus rex et Cellachus episcopus leges

disciplinasque fidei atque jura ecclesiarum evangeliorumque pariter

cum Scottis in Colle Credulitatis, prope regali civitati Scoan

devoverunt custodiri. At hoc die collis hoc meruit nomen, id est,

Collis Credulitatis.—_Pict. Chron._ The expression ‘pariter cum

Scottis’ has an obvious relation to the expression in the cause

assigned by the same Chronicle for the downfall of the Picts, ‘Sed et

in jure æquitatis aliis æqui parari noluerunt.’ The scene of this

solemn assembly, and its object, throws light upon Bede’s account of

the assembly in which Nectan, king of the Picts, issued a decree

affecting the church in 710.

Footnote 488:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 136.

Footnote 489:

In the Tract ‘De Situ Albaniæ’ (_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 136) four

interpretations of this name are given. First, because it was the

‘margo’ or border region of the Scots or Irish, for all the Scots and

Irish—Hibernenses et Scotti—are generally called Gaithel from their

first leader Gathelus; or secondly, because the Gwyddyl

Ffichti—Scotti-Picti—first inhabited it after coming from Ireland; or,

third, because the Irish inhabited it after the Picts; or, fourthly,

because this part of the region of Scotia borders upon the region of

Hibernia. The first is probably the true origin of the name.

Footnote 490:

The Pictish Chronicle gives us at this time Dubucan, son of

Indrechtaig, mormair Oengusa, who seems to have been succeeded by

Maelbrigde, son of Dubican. In the Book of Deer we obtain a glance

into the internal organisation of Buchan, which bears out this

statement. In the eighth century we had a Ri Athfotla, or king of

Atholl, now we have in the Pict. Chron. a Satrapas Athochlach.

Footnote 491:

Einar appears to have died about the same time as King Harald

Haarfagr, who died in 936. The Ynglinga Saga, the Landnamabok, and the

Orkneyinga Saga in the Flateybok, conjoin the expeditions of Thorstein

the Red and Sigurd, and make them conquer these districts together;

but it is hardly possible to place Sigurd so early, and the Laxdaela

Saga makes Thorstein conquer them alone, without any mention of

Sigurd. Now Thorstein died in 875, and if Sigurd died in the same

year, Einar became earl two years after, which would make him rule

from 876 to 936, a period of fifty-nine years, which is hardly

credible. Harald Haarfagr succeeded his father in 863, when only ten

years old, and his mother’s brother acts as regent. He then, after

attaining puberty at least, commences a war with the petty kings of

Norway, and finally subdues them all, and after a great battle at

Hafursfiord becomes king of all Norway, which, as we have seen, took

place in 883. The Northmen then fly from his power and take possession

of Orkney and Shetland. They winter there, and in summer maraud in

Norway. Harald goes every summer to the Isles, and the Vikings fly

before him. At last one summer he makes a great expedition, and sweeps

the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Western Isles as far as Man, of the

Vikings, and plunders in Scotland. In this expedition he gives Orkney

to Earl Rognwald, who transfers it to Sigurd, who becomes rich and

powerful, conquers these districts in Scotland, and dies. Now all this

could not have taken place between 873 and 875. Harald is said to have

been about forty when Einar became earl of Orkney, which would place

the commencement of his rule in 893, and make him earl for forty-three

years, which is much more probable; and this brings Sigurd’s conquest

and death to the first years of Donald’s reign, when, the Pictish

Chronicle tells us, ‘Normanni tunc vastaverunt Pictaviam.’

Footnote 492:

In the Felire of Angus the Culdee, in his notice of S. Donnan of Egg,

the scholiast says that when Donnan went to the island of Egg, he went

with his people to the Gallgaidhel (i n-Gallgaedelaib), and took up

their abode there.—Reeves’s _Columba_, orig. ed. p. 304. The Four

Masters have, at 1154, mention of the fleet of ‘Gallgaedhel, Arann,

Kintyre, Mann, and the coasts of Alban.’ The Ulster Annals have, at

1199, ‘Rolant mac Uchtraigh Ri Gallgaidhel. He was Lord of Galloway.’

Footnote 493:

Munch, _Chronicle of Man_, p. 33.

Footnote 494:

It is a very common mistake, and repeated by most writers without

consideration, that the name Sudreys belonged to the islands south of

the point of Ardnamurchan. Nothing can be more unfounded, as a mere

superficial examination of the subject would show.

Footnote 495:

Et in suo octavo anno cecidit excelsissimus rex Hibernensium et

archiepiscopus apud Laignechos id est Cormac mac Cuilennan. Et mortui

sunt in tempore hujus Donevaldus rex Britannorum et Duvenaldus filius

Ede rex eligitur.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 9. Cormac, king of

Ireland, was slain in 908, which fixes the eighth year of king

Constantin.

Footnote 496:

912 Reingwald rex et Oter Comes et Oswl Cracabam irruperunt et

vastaverunt Dunbline.—_Sim. Dun._

Footnote 497:

913 Bellum navale oc Manainn ittir Barid mac n-Octir et Regnall h.

Imair ubi Bare pene cum omni exercitu suo deletus est.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 498:

The Pictish Chronicle records this battle shortly thus, and claims the

victory for the Scots:—‘In xviii. anno bellum Tinemore factum est

inter Constantinum et Regnall et Scotti habuerunt victoriam.’ The

Northumbrian and the Irish accounts differ both as to the scene and

the result of the battle. The anonymous author of the history of St.

Cuthbert, attributed to Simeon of Durham, has—‘Regenwaldus rex venit

cum magna multitudine navium occupavitque terram Aldridi filii

Eadulfi. Fugatus igitur Eldredus in Scottiam ivit, Constantini regis

auxilium quæsivit, illum contra Regenwaldum regem apud Corebriege in

prælium adduxit. In quo prælio, nescio quo peccato agente, paganus rex

vicit, Constantinum fugavit, Scottos fudit,’ etc. Thus making Regnwald

land in Bernicia, drive the lord of Bamborough to Scotland, who

obtains assistance from Constantin, returns, and he and the Scots are

beaten at Corbridge on the southern river Tyne. On the other hand, the

Tract on the Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill says that they went

from Munster into Alban, and there gave battle to Constantin, in which

both Regnall and Otter were slain (p. 35). The Ulster Annals say they

were the Galls of Loch da Caech, expelled from Erin, and invaded the

people of Alban, who prepared to meet them with the assistance of the

Northern Saxons, and describes the battle as in the text. The author

has endeavoured to reconcile the two accounts by placing the scene of

the battle at the northern Tyne in East Lothian. The feature of St.

Columba’s crozier being used as a standard is taken from the

‘Fragments of Annals,’ _Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 406. See also

Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, Introduction, p. xcix.

Footnote 499:

Mortuo Guthredo, rex Elfridus Northanimbrorum regnum suscepit

disponendum. Postquam enim Sanctus Cuthbertus ei apparuerat, paterno

regno, id est, occidentalium Saxonum, et provinciam orientalium

Anglorum et Northanimbrorum post Guthredum adjecit.—Sim. Dun. _Hist.

Ec. Dur._ c. xxix.

Footnote 500:

The question of the independence of Scotland, and the bearing of these

passages upon it, has been very ably discussed on the English side by

Mr. Freeman in his _History of the Norman Conquest of England_, vol.

i. pp. 60, 133, and 610; and on the Scottish side by Mr. Robertson, in

his _Scotland under her Early Kings_, vol. ii. p. 384. It is

unnecessary for the author to do more than refer to this discussion,

and to add his opinion that Mr. Freeman has failed on the whole

successfully to meet Mr. Robertson’s criticism. Mr. Robertson was not

the first to see the fatal objection to the statement in the Saxon

Chronicle that Regnwald, king of Northumbria, took Eadward for his

father and lord in 924, while he died in 921. Florence of Worcester

saw it before him, and places the event under the year 921.

Footnote 501:

Deinde hostes subegit, Scotiam usque Dunfoeder et Wertermorum

terrestri exercitu vastavit, navali vero usque Catenes depopulatus

est.—Sim. Dun. _de Gestis Reg._ Fugato deinde Owino rege Cumbrorum et

Constantino rege Scotorum terrestri et navali exercitu Scotiam sibi

subjugando perdomuit.—Sim. Dun. _Hist. de Dun. Ec._

The Pictish Chronicle has—‘In xxxiv. ejus anno bellum Duinbrunde ubi

cecidit filius Constantini.’ Though this is placed in the year of the

invasion of Scotland, Constantin’s son was slain in the battle of

Brunanburgh three years later, which seems to be the bellum Duinbrunde

of the Chronicle. Kerimor was the name of one of the quarters into

which Angus was divided, and is derived from Ceathramh, corrupted to

Keri, a quarter. The Saxon equivalent is Feorde, probably corrupted to

Werte.

Footnote 502:

Flor. _Wig. Chron._ ad an. 937.

Footnote 503:

This was Anlaf Cuaran, son of Sitriuc and son-in-law of Constantin.

Mr. Robertson, in a note to his _Scotland under her Early Kings_, vol.

i. p. 56, remarks on this account of Olaf’s descent, ‘that the name of

the _father_ of Sitric and his brothers is never mentioned by the

Irish annalists, who invariably call them Hy Ivar, or _grandsons_ of

Ivar;’ and adds, ‘If one of these Vikings, a Scottish lord of the

Gall-Gaidhel or Oirir Gaidhel, had married Ivar’s daughter, the

description in the Egills Saga would exactly apply to himself, his

wife, and his sons, and it would be only necessary to suppose that the

writer of the saga, aware of Olave’s descent from a Scottish Viking,

and a granddaughter of Ragnar Lodbroc, made him by mistake the _son_

instead of the _grandson_ of the Scot.’ The Tract on the _Wars of the

Gaidhil with the Gaill_ calls Sitriuc, however, Mac Imair, or son of

Ivar, but there is no improbability in supposing one of the Gall

Gaidhel to have married a daughter of Inguar or Imhair, and his sons

to have been adopted and naturalised as Danish vikings. Anlaf being

called by Florence of Worcester lord of many islands rather favours

the supposition.

Footnote 504:

Johnstone, _Ant. Celto-Scandicæ_, p. 32.

Footnote 505:

_Sax. Chron._ ad an. 937, Thorpe’s translation. The Ulster Annals have

the following: 937 Bellum ingens, lacrimabile et horribile inter

Saxones et Normannos crudeliter gestum est, in quo plurima millia

Normannorum, quæ non numerata sunt, ceciderunt; sed rex cum paucis

evasit .i. Amlaiph. Ex altera vero parte multitudo Saxonum cecidit.

Adalstan vero rex Saxonum magna victoria dilatus est. And the Annals

of Clonmacnoise, which now exist only in a translation made in 1627,

give particulars not to be found elsewhere. ‘Awley, with all the Danes

of Dublin and north part of Ireland, departed and went over seas. The

Danes that departed from Dublin arrived in England, and, by the help

of the Danes of that kingdom, they gave battle to the Saxons on the

plains of Othlyn, where there was a great slaughter of Normans and

Danes, among which these ensuing captains were slain—viz. Sithfrey and

Oisle, the two sons of Sittrick Galey; Awley Fivit, and Moylemorrey,

the son of Cossewarra, Moyle-Isa, Geleachan, king of the Islands;

Ceallach, prince of Scotland, with 30,000, together with 800 captains

about Awley mac Godfrey; and about Arick mac Brith, Hoa, Deck, Imar,

the king of Dannach’s own son, with 4000 soldiers in his guard, were

all slain.’ It must be borne in mind that there were two Olafs in the

battle—Olaf or Anlaf Cuaran, son of Sitriuc, King Constantin’s

son-in-law, and Olaf or Amlaibh, son of Godfrey or Guthfrith, king of

the Danes of Dublin.

Footnote 506:

Hacon the Good’s Saga.

Footnote 507:

Et in senectute decrepitus baculum cepit et Domino servivit et regnum

mandavit Mail(colum) filio Domnail.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 508:

952 Constantin mac Aeda ri Albain moritur.—_An. Ult._

Mortuus est autem Constantinus in x. ejus anno sub corona penitenti in

senectute bona.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 509:

Cum exercitu suo Malcolaim perrexit in Moreb et occidit

Cellach.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 510:

944 Strathclyde was ravaged by the Saxons.—_Brut of Tywysogion._

946 Stratclut vastata est a Saxonibus.—_An. Camb._

The life of St. Cadroë gives us almost a contemporary notice of the

Cumbrian kingdom. St. Cadroë was a native of Alban, and flourished in

the reign of Constantin who fought at Brunanburh, and left him to go

on a foreign mission. He came to the ‘terra Cumbrorum,’ and

Dovenaldus, the king who ruled over this people, received him gladly

and conducted him ‘usque Loidam civitatem quæ est confinium

Normannorum atque Cumbrorum.’—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 116. There

he is received by Gunderic, a nobleman, who takes him to King Erick at

York, who is no doubt Eric Bloody Axe, whom Aethelstan had settled in

the country.

Footnote 511:

949 In this year came Olaf Cuaran to Northumberland.—_Sax. Chron._

‘In vii^o anno regni sui predavit Anglicos ad amnem Thesis et

multitudinem rapuit hominum et multa armenta pecorum; quam predam

vocaverunt Scotti predam Albidosorum idem Nainndisi. Alii autem dicunt

Constantinum fecisse hanc predam querens a rege, id est Maelcolaim,

regnum dari sibi ad tempus hebdomadis, ut visitaret Anglicos. Verum

tamen non Maelcolaim fecit predam, sed instigavit eum Constantinus ut

dixi.’ The people plundered are here called Albidosi, that is

Nainndisi. The Pictish Chronicle was evidently translated into Latin

from a Gaelic original, and this latter word is evidently Na

Fhinndisi, the F when aspirated being silent. It means the White

Tisians, a white people of the Tees, and Albidosi is an attempt at a

Latin rendering. The Danes of Northumberland belonged to the branch of

the Northmen called Dubh Gall, or Dubh Gennti, that is black

strangers; but the followers of Eric Bloody Axe were Norwegians, who

were termed Fin Gall, or Finn Gennti, that is white strangers. Eric’s

people had therefore probably been settled on the Tees, and were the

objects of Malcolm’s attack, as they had been placed there to oppose

the Danes.

Footnote 512:

The Ulster Annals have in this year, ‘Battle against the men of Alban,

Britain, and Saxons, by the Galls,’ which seems to refer to the above

event; Eric’s people, or the Galls, opposing the people of Alban, the

Cumbrians, and the Bernicians.

Footnote 513:

A.D. 954 Maelcoluim mac Domhnaill Ri Albain occisus est.—_An. Ult._

Et occiderunt viri na Moerne Maelcolaim in Fodresach, id est, in

Claideom.—_Pict. Chron._ This word Claideom was evidently in the

original Claitheamh tir, or Sword land, a name given in one of the

Pictish traditions to Magh Gherghinn or Moerne.—_Chron. Picts and

Scots_, p. 319.

Footnote 514:

In hujus tempore oppidum Eden vacuatum est ac relictum est Scottis

usque in hodiernum diem.—_Pict. Chron._ In this chronicle ‘oppidum’ is

the usual rendering of the Gaelic Dun.

Footnote 515:

Classi Sumerlidionum occisi sunt in Buchain.—_Pict. Chron._

Footnote 516:

That this description applies to Eric’s followers appears from the

saga, which says that ‘King Eric had many people about him, for he

kept many Northmen who had come with him from the east, and also many

of his friends had joined him from Norway. But as he had little land

he went on a cruise every summer, and plundered in Shetland, the

Sudreys, Iceland, and Bretland, by which he gathered property.’ On his

death his sons go to Orkney, stay there in winter, and in summer ‘went

on viking cruises, and plundered in Scotland and Ireland.’

Footnote 517:

Dubh is an epithet meaning black. The version of the Pictish Chronicle

in the Irish Nennius calls him Cinaed vel Dubh.

Footnote 518:

Bellum inter Nigerum et Caniculum super Dorsum Crup, in quo Niger

habuit victoriam, ubi cecidit Duchad abbas Duncalden et Dubdon

satrapas Athochlach.—_Pict. Chron._ A.D. 965 Battle between the men of

Alban among themselves, ‘ubi multi occisi sunt’ about Duncan, abbot of

Dunkeld.—_An. Ult._ Cuilean, a whelp, from Cu, a dog, here translated

Caniculus.

Footnote 519:

Expulsus est Niger de regno et tanist Caniculus brevi tempore.

A.D. 967 Dub mac Maelcolaim, Ri Alban, slain by the people of Alban

themselves.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 520:

Culen et frater ejus Eochodius occisi sunt a Britonibus.—_Pict.

Chron._

A.D. 971 Culen mac Illuilb Ri Alban slain by the Britons in

battle.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 521:

Statim predavit Britanniam ex parte. Pedestres Cinadi occisi sunt

maxima cede in Moin na Cornar.—_Pict. Chron._ Moin is a moss in

Gaelic, na the genitive of the definite article, and Cornar or Cornac

the river called by Bede the Curnig, which falls into the Firth of

Forth at Abercorn.

Footnote 522:

A.D. 966. And in the same year Oslac obtained an aldordom.—_Sax.

Chron._ Deinde sub Eadgaro rege Oslac præficitur Comes Eboraco et

locis ei pertinentibus; et Eadulf, cognomento Yvelchild, a Teisa usque

Myrcforth præponitur Northymbris.—_Libellus de adventu, Sax. Ch._ p.

212.

This word Myrcforth is in one MS. Myreforth, which reading has been

usually adopted, but the former is the correct form of the name. The

Firth of Forth is called in the Norse Sagas Myrkvafiord or the mirk or

dark firth, and Myrcford is the Saxon equivalent.

Footnote 523:

Scotti prædaverunt Saxoniam ad Stanmoir et ad Clivam et ad Stang na

Deram. Cinadius autem vallavit ripas vadorum Forthen. Post annum

perrexit Cinadius et prædavit Saxoniam et traduxit filium regis

Saxonum.—_Pict. Chron._ It was not Cumberland, but Saxonia, Kenneth

laid waste. Stanmore is at the head of the Tees, and separates Cumbria

from Northumbria. Cliva seems Cleveland, on the south of the Tees

farther east. Deram seems meant for Deira.

Footnote 524:

Hic est qui tribuit magnam civitatem Brechne Domino. The ‘Hic est’ is

a Gaelic idiom for _Is e_; and Brechne is in Gaelic the genitive of

Brechin.

Footnote 525:

975 Domnall mac Eoain Ri Bretain in ailitri.—_Tigh._ 974 Dunwallawn,

king of Strathclyde, went on a pilgrimage to Rome.—_Brut y Tyw. Chron.

Picts and Scots_, pp. 77, 124.

Footnote 526:

977 Amlaim mac Illuilb Ri Alban domarbadh la Cinaeth mic

Maelcolaim.—_Tigh._

Footnote 527:

Isti duo Comites cum Elfsio, qui apud Sanctum Cuthbertum episcopus

fuerat, perduxerunt Kyneth regem Scottorum ad regem Eadgarum, qui, cum

illi fecisset hominium, dedit ei rex Eadgarus Lodoneium, et multo cum

honore remisit ad propria.

Footnote 528:

_Chron. Joh. Wallingford_, ap. Gale, p. 545. Some of the sentences are

imperfect in the original.

Footnote 529:

We have too little information as to the internal condition of

Northumbria to enable us to decide this point. After Guthred’s death

in 994, we find Bernicia under these dukes or lords of Bamborough, and

they seem to have had some connection with Galloway. In 912 Athulf,

commander of the town called Bamborough, dies.—_Ethelwerd Chron._ In

the same year Regnwald, according to Simeon of Durham, occupies the

land of Aldred, son of this Athulf or Eadulf, who takes refuge with

Constantin and asks his assistance. Among the kings who are said, in

the Saxon Chronicle, to have chosen Eadward the elder for their father

and lord are Regnwald and the sons of Eadulf, that is this Aldred and

all those who dwell in Northumbria; but in a later Chronicle it is

‘Reginaldus rex Northumbrorum ex natione Danorum et dux

Galwalensium.’—_Flores Hist._ The lord of Bamborough in the one is the

lord of Galloway in the other. Then St. Berchan, in his metrical

account of the reign of Eochodius or Eocha, son of Run, king of the

Britons, and of the daughter of Kenneth mac Alpin, says—

The Briton from Clyde shall possess,

Son of the woman from Dun Guaire.

But Dun Guaire, as we learn from Nennius, was the name given by the

Celtic population to Bamborough. Simeon of Durham has in 801 ‘Edwine,

qui et Eda dictus est, quondam dux Northanhymbrorum, tunc vero per

gratiam Salvatoris mundi abbas in Dei servitio roboratus, velut miles

emeritus diem clausit ultimum in conspectu fratrum xviii. kal.

Februarii.’ Eda, the other name by which he was known, is the usual

Latin form of the Gaelic Aedh. Is it possible that he could have been

the Aedan, grandfather of Kenneth mac Alpin, whose son Conall appears

in Kintyre in 807, and that from him this claim to the northern part

of Northumbria was derived?

Footnote 530:

Orkneyinga Saga and Olaf Tryggvasonar Saga. See _Collectanea de Rebus

Albanicis_, pp. 330-333, and Mr. Anderson’s edition.

Footnote 531:

A.D. 1020. Findlaec mac Ruaidhri Mormaer Moreb a filiis fratris sui

Maelbrigdi occisus est.—_Tigh._

Footnote 532:

Nials Saga. _Coll. de Rebus Alb._ p. 337. The fiord in which the sons

of Nial fought with the sons of Moldan from Duncan’s Bay was probably

Loch Broom.

Footnote 533:

See _Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, pp. 271, 272.

Footnote 534:

It is necessary, in steering one’s way through the numerous invasions

of the Northmen, to distinguish clearly between Norwegians and Danes.

This is evidently done in the Pictish Chronicle, the Norwegians being

called Normanni, and the Danes, Danari.

Footnote 535:

986 The Danes come to Airer Dalriatai with three ships, and 140 of

them were hung, and the rest dispersed. I Columcille plundered by the

Danes on the eve of the Nativity, and the abbot and fifteen of the

clergy of the church were slain.—_An. Ult._

987 Cath Manann ria mac Aralt et rias na Danaraibh, ubi mille occisi

sunt. Great slaughter of the Danes who ravaged I, of whom 360 were

slain.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 536:

Nials Saga in _Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis_. Dasent’s Saga of Burnt

Njal.

Footnote 537:

Gilli is apparently the prefix Gille, which enters into so many Gaelic

names. King Harald Gilli was so called because, being born in Ireland,

he originally bore the name of Gillechrist.

Footnote 538:

A.D. 989 Gofraigh mac Arailt, Ri Insi-Gall domarbh in Dalriatai.—_An.

Ult._

Footnote 539:

A.D. 995 Cinaeth mac Malcolaim Ri Alban a suis occisus est. _Tigh._

(per dolum—_An. Ult._)

Footnote 540:

Interfectus est a suis hominibus in Fotherkern per perfidiam Finvelæ

filiæ Cunchar comitis de Engus, cujus Finvelæ unicum filium predictus

Kyneth interfecit apud Dunsinoen.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, pp. 175,

289.

Footnote 541:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 96.—It is curious that on this and the

occasion when the men of Moerne slay his father, St. Berchan uses the

expression, ‘the Gael will shout around his head.’

Footnote 542:

A.D. 997 Cath etir Albancho itorchair Constantin mac Cuilindain Ri

Alban et alii multi.

Footnote 543:

Interfectus a Kynnet filio Malcolmi in Rathinveramon.—_Chron. Picts

and Scots_, pp. 175, 289.

Footnote 544:

Fordun’s _Chronicle_, vol. ii. p. 168.

Footnote 545:

A.D. 997 Maelcolaim mac Domnall Ri Breatan Tuaiscert moritur.—_Tigh._

Footnote 546:

A.D. 1005 Cath etir firu Alban imonetir itorcair Ri Alban .i. Cinaed

mac Duib.—_An. Ult._

Footnote 547:

Interfectus a filio Kinet in Moeghavard.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, pp.

175, 289. The later Chronicles term this king Girus or Grig, son of

Kenneth, son of Dubh. The Albanic Duan calls him simply Macdhuibh, but

Flann Mainistrech has Cinaet mac Duib, the oldest authority thus

confirming the Annals of Ulster.