HE is said to have been a British king, who, after the death of his
queen, resigned the crown to his son, and became a monk in the monastery
of St. David. It is added that he afterwards went into North Britain,
and joined St. Columba in preaching the gospel among the Picts, who then
inhabited a great part of what is now called Scotland. He founded a
monastery at Govane, near the river Cluyd, converted all the land of
Cantire to the faith of Christ, and died a martyr by the hands of
infidels, towards the end of the sixth century. He was buried in his
monastery of Govane, and divers churches were erected in Scotland, under
his invocation. But it seems most probable that the Scottish martyr is
not the same person with the British king. Colgan supposes him to have
been an Irish monk, who had lived in the community of St. Carthag, at
Rathane.
Footnotes:
1. See the MS. Lives of Scottish Saints, compiled by a Jesuit, who was
nephew of bishop Lesley, kept in the Scottish College at Paris.
Several Scottish historians give the title of saint to Constantine
III. king of the Scots, who, forsaking his crown and the world,
entered himself among the Culdees, to religious ma at St. Andrew's,
in 946.