STRATHCLYDE like most of Scotland was Pictish, but perhaps closer to the Welsh and British tribes, mainly pagan. Ca 500 most of Argyll and the Isles came under the territorial expansion of the Irish tribe of Dal Riata to form Dalriada, and Gaelic became the language of the West. Strathclyde in the sixth century saw the work of at least one eminent religious founder in the person of Kentigern (518-603). A century before Saint Columba and King Brude Macmalchon, Nechtan Morbet reigned over the Picts from his capital at Dunnichen (Dun Nechtan) near Forfar. In the fifth century, the Celts from Cornwall invaded Armorica (Brittany). The Celts of Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall became separated from the Celts of Wales after the Battle of Deorham in about 577. Thus did the Campbells of the Cineal Loairn inherit the leadership of the Clann Duibhne, whose name they retained notwithstanding the fact that they, like the Galbraiths of Loch Lomond, were by origin Strathclyde Britons from around Dunbarton, where they were still important to the end of the thirteenth century.
| During the 9th and 10th centuries Penrith was allied with Scotland as part of Strathclyde and served as the capital of the kingdom of Cumbria until 1070. Penrith is the chief northern town of the Vale of Eden, and, for many centuries, was a gateway north and south, east and west. The Romans built a fort, Voreda, four miles north of the town, as one of their staging posts north to Hadrian's Wall. King Dunmail was defeated by the combined forces of King Edmund and Malcom of Scotland. When Dunmail is referred to as "the last king of Cumberland" this means that he was infact the the last king of the Cumber or British. The lands he ruled over probably covered Cumberland to Strathclyde, which represented the final stronghold of the British. There is some question in my mind if Dunmail was the last king of Cumberland or if Cumberland still existed as Strathclyde at the time of the Norman Conquest. Dunmail was not killed when his lands were given to king Malcom of Scotland. There is even a reference to Dunmail going on a pilgrimage to Rome in 975 or Malcom as being Dunmails son as there was a king Domnall of Strathclyde in 975. There were also two Malcoms in the Strathclyde Royal house Malcolm I and II between 971 and 973 prior to Domnall and Malcolm III an Malcolm IV the Maiden after him. |  |
The Battle of Largs was an engagement fought between the armies of Norway and Scotland near the present-day town of Largs in North Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde in Scotland on 2 October 1263. It was the most important military engagement of the Scottish-Norwegian war. The Norwegian forces were led by king Håkon Håkonsson and the Scottish forces by king Alexander III. The result was inconclusive, but in the long term favoured the Scots. Much of the Western seaboard belonged to the Kingdom of Norway from the 11th century to the Battle of Largs (1263), hence the continuing allegiance of Sodor to Trondheim. Alexander's successor Alexander III continued this policy, but again king Håkon refused. In the summer of 1262 Scottish forces under the earl of Ross launched raids against the Isle of Skye. News of this reached the Norwegian king together with reports that the Scottish king was planning to conquer all the islands west of Donegal. Håkon responded by equipping a large conscripted leidang-fleet, according to Icelandic annals "the biggest fleet ever to leave Norway", which left Bergen for Scotland in July 1263.
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