CHRONICA DE MAILROS opens with the yeare 735, ends abruptly in 1270 and is founded solely upon the Cottonian Manuscript. The first portion, namely from the commencement to about the yeare 1140, is a compilation from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other existing histories by Simeon of Durham and Hoveden. The second portion, namely from about the yeare 1140 to the abrupt termination of the Chronicle in 1270. The Kingdom of Fortriu, traditionally the kingdom has been seen as centered on central Scotland, equivalent to the Kingdom of the Southern Picts, with a heartland perhaps in Strathearn. By contrast, a northern recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes it clear that Fortriu was north of the Mounth (i.e. the eastern Grampians), in the area visited by Columba. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, tells us that King Dub was killed at Forres, a location in Moray. Additions to the Chronicle of Melrose confirm that Dub was killed by the men of Moray at Forres. Fortriu was in the north of Scotland, centered on Moray and Easter Ross, where most early Pictish monuments are located. Hence, it is in these areas that the united kingdom of the Picts came from, perhaps acquiring southern Pictland after the expulsion of the Northumbrians by King Bridei at the Battle of Dunnichen (685.) For the next thirty years they established political dominance over the Kingdoms of Strathclyde and Dál Riata, as well as Pictish Fortriu. Moray (Moravia) was how Fortriu was still understood in High Middle Ages.
The Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern district of Moray, the territory of which has contracted to a small territory around Elgin. This medieval lordship was in fact centered both the lower Spey valley and around Inverness and the northern parts of the Great Glen, and probably originally included Buchan and Mar, as well as Ross.
The Annals of Tigernach (s.a. 976) reports that three Scottish Mormaers were in the warbands of the Leinster kindred called Uí Failge, with the three mormaers each meeting his death. One of these was Donnchad mac Morggain (Donnchadh mac Morgaand). The Book of Deer records a prominent Buchan kindred called Clann Morggain (=children of Morggan)...Ruadri is the name of the progenitor of all the known Moravian rulers of the 11th century.
From the making of the Kingdom of Fortriu, the Cenél Loairn, spread out over the rugged country of northern Argyll, had only the same total fighting strength as the tighter-knit Cenél nÓengusa based on Islay. The picture of the dynasty of Cenél Loairn in the early eighth century, under attack on three fronts, was typical of early kingship, in Dalriada and elsewhere in northern Britain. There were also internal feuds, which resulted in Selbach, King of Dalriada, having to lay waste to Dunollie, a stronghold of Cenél Loairn septs, in 701. The overkingship was disputed by the Cenél nGabráin, who briefly gained the upper hand after a naval victory over Selbach waters somewhere in Dalriadic waters in 719; it was the first recorded sea battle in the history of Britain. Scotland consists of over 790 islands.
In the fourth century, the seate of Pictish power seems to have lain in Strathearn and Menteith; the survey in the De Situ Albanie gave premier place to Circenn, in Angus and the Mearns, but at an undisclosed date; by the late sixth century, when Columba visited King Bridei at his court near Inverness, the focus of Pictish powers seems to have lain in the north. Bridei was certainly overlord of the Pictish people to the north of the Mounth, but it may be that the notion of high kingship can be traced to this period. A hundred years later in 685, when Bridei mac Bile defeated Northumbrian invaders at Dunnichen Moss in Angus, there is no doubt that he as acknowledged as high king of all the Picts. By then, however, the centre of Pictish royal power had moved decisively southwards, to Fortriu, where it would remain.
Bede certainly viewed Pictland as a single political entity in his own day, in the early eighth century; he describes the kingdom of Nechtan in 710 as embracing all the provinces of the Picts. And the writers of Irish Annals often use the name of Fortriu as synonymous with the Pictish nation as a whole from the reign of Bridei (d. 693) onwards. The written history of Scotland essentially began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in southern Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now England and Wales and called it Britannia. To the north was territory not conquered by the Romans: Caledonia. Caledonia was peopled by the Picts, with the Gaels of Dál Riata in Argyll. Pictland became dominated by the Pictish sub-kingdom of Fortriu, but the Kingdom of Scotland is traditionally dated from 843, when Kenneth I of Scotland became King of the Picts and Scots.
The Heptarchy 500AD-927AD
Kingdom of England 927 AD-1707 AD
Kingdom of Scotland 843 AD-