ALBA
Before the Scots came in the 6th century, the land they were to occupy was Pictland, inhabited by many diverse tribes known to us collectively as the Picts. When Kenneth MacAlpin united Dalriada with Pictland, he called the combined country Alba. That was the name it still had in Macbeth's day, although its inhabitants were called Scots. By tradition, Scotland had seven provinces, called Mortuatha (great tribes): Caithness, Moray, Ce, Cirech, Atholl, Fortriu, and Fife. This was the height of the Viking era. Norse chieftains held not only Norway and Iceland, but the Orkney Islands just north of Scotland and the tiny Shetland Islands between Scotland and Norway. They also held, at various times, parts of northern Scotland, the Western Isles (Mull, Skye, etc.), and large parts of Ireland. Leif Erikson, reputed to have landed in North America before Columbus, was a contemporary of Macbeth's father.
The 51st King of Picts, Oengus I, ruled from 729 to 761 (a total of 32 years). There is no disputing the fact that he was noted as a warrior. He killed his Pictish opposition as well as Britons and Scots in great battles. Finally, he defeated the Scots of Dalriada and beheaded their King to become the first King of both Picts and Scots for the final twenty years of his reign. It is possibly a lesser known fact that St. Andrew (rather than St. Peter) was "enthroned" as patron of the Picts by King Oengus I. He was probably influenced in the choice of saint by the Columban Christians from the sacred Isle of Iona. Oengus was followed by his brother Brude/Bridei IV, who ruled for two years. There is, for the first time, reason to believe that the successor to the Pictish kingship, Cinoid, might have had some Scottish blood as well as Pictish, since Dalriada was allowed to become re-established. For a lengthy period there was some confusion and darkness in the list of kings.
Several Pictish kings, including Alpin II, Drust VII, Talorc II, Talorc III MacOengus and Conall, may have reigned briefly before Castantin became the 2nd King of Picts and Scots with a term of 35 years. He was succeeded by his brother Oengus II, who reputedly brought the relics of St. Andrew back to Alba. Oengus II was killed by the Scots, after being forced to divide his army during a battle with the Vikings to the north, when Alpin of the Scots attacked from the south in 834. Some copies of the chronicle name further Kings, such as Drust VIII, Talorc, Uven (killed by Vikings in 839), Uurad, Brude/Bridei V, Kenneth, Brude/Bridei VI and Drust IX (where the lists end).
The Annals of Ulster record the effect of Viking raids on Bangor, Armagh and the churches on Lough Erne. The battle with the Vikings in 839 claimed not only King Uven and his brother Bran but also the cream of the Pictish warrior class. Thus the stage was set for a claim by a Scot to the Kingship of Picts and Scots under the Pictish rules of succession. There was no "honourable field of battle" in this episode, widely recorded as "Kenneth MacAlpin's Treason", which is reported by F. Lennox Campello as follows. "It is Giraldus Cambresis in De Instructione Principus who recounts how a great banquet was held at Scone, and the Pictish King and his nobles were plied with drinks and became quite drunk. Once the Picts were drunk, the Scots allegedly pulled bolts from the benches, trapping the Picts in concealed earthen hollows under the benches; additionally, the traps were set with sharp blades, such that the falling Picts impaled themselves (the Prophecy of St. Berchan tells that '[MacAlpin] plunged them in the pitted earth, sown with deadly blades'). Trapped and unable to defend themselves, the surviving Picts were then murdered from above and their bodies, clothes and ornaments plundered." In Lion in the North, John Prebble states that seven earls of Dalriada, his kinsmen, were included in the massacre because they might have disputed his claim to Ard-Righ Albainn. [I would question the claim that all of these earls were from Dalriada.]
The power of Kenneth MacAlpin lay in Dalriada to the west and in Fortrenn to the south, but the seeds of northern separatism were sown when a rival kindred, Cenél Loairn, took over in the old Pictish district of Fidach (Moray and Ross). Kings of Scots would soon discover ways to set clan chiefs against one another in order to cement the foundation of their power, but the old Celtic manner of succession to the throne continued to have strong support, as the inhabitants of Pictland were absorbed into the Scottish culture.
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