Lords of Alba E-Book

Ian W. Walker

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 355

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Beschreibung

The early Scottish kingdom underwent a fundamental transformation between the tenth and twelfth centuries. This book on early medieval Scottish history considers how and why the Scottish kingdom was changed at this time. It looks at the role of individuals who initiated or influenced this process.

Leseprobe

LORDSOF ALBA

LORDSOF ALBA

THE MAKING OF SCOTLAND

IAN W. WALKER

For Adam

First published in 2006 by Sutton Publishing Limited

The History Press The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, gl5 2qgwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved © Ian W. Walker 2006, 2013

The right of Ian W. Walker to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9519 4

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

List of maps

Acknowledgements

Introduction

One

The Viking Onslaught

Two

The Kingdom of Alba

Three

A Scottish Constantine

Four

The March to the South

Five

The Great King and the Exiled Prince

Six

Malcolm, King of Alba

Seven

A New Kingdom?

Family Trees

Maps

Notes

Select Bibliography

List of Maps

Map 1:

Alba 800–1125

Map 2:

Southwards expansion 900–1100

Map 3:

Provinces and thanages

Map 4:

Early dioceses and cathedrals

Map 5:

Linguistic and cultural markers

5a:

Gaelic place-names in southern Scotland

5b:

English place-names in southern Scotland

Acknowledgements

The writing of this book proved more difficult than I anticipated. I originally planned to focus on the role of King Malcolm III and Queen Margaret in transforming Scotland. It quickly became clear, however, that the earlier period and, in particular, the reign of King Constantine II needed to be explored in order to place Malcolm more fully in context. The scope of the book therefore expanded as I wrote. The overall plan of the work consequently had to be revised to balance the original and the new material. This all meant that the writing took rather longer than intended. I am grateful to Christopher Feeney at Sutton Publishing for his patience during the extended writing period.

I would also like to thank the following people and organisations for their assistance in completing this book. The staffs of the National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library, who provided invaluable assistance in locating many of the sources consulted. The numerous organisations and individuals, who assisted with the selection of illustrations and the associated permissions to reproduce them in this book. In particular, Kristina Watson and the staff at the Royal Commission for the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, Bryony Coombs at Historic Scotland and Helen Osmani at the National Museums of Scotland, all in Edinburgh. And last but not least Elizabeth Stone and Jane Entrican at Sutton Publishing for their assistance during the actual publication process.

I would also like to thank Douglas Ansdell for the chance to discuss some of the broader concepts featured in this book. I would finally like to thank my father and mother, who worked as unpaid proof-readers and saved me from making many errors. I am solely responsible for those errors that remain in the final work

Ian W Walker Edinburgh November 2005

Introduction

The early medieval history of the northern half of Britain, which subsequently developed into modern Scotland, has been somewhat neglected. The crucial years from 800 to 1125 seldom feature as more than a foreword to general accounts of medieval Scotland and have rarely been the subject of detailed study. In comparison, the early medieval history of southern Britain and of Ireland is much better served. The few works that do tackle early medieval Scotland often end or begin with the pivotal reign of Malcolm III, who is often known as Malcolm Canmore. They focus either on the period before this or on that which followed. This is strange since the reign of Malcolm III is arguably one of the most important periods in the history of what would later become Scotland.

The early medieval period witnessed the formation of a new political entity, the kingdom of Alba, to the north of the Forth-Clyde Isthmus. It was the product of a union between the Picts and the Scots of Dalriada under a single kingship. This infant kingdom was invaded several times by the Vikings, who transformed the political shape of the entire British Isles, and was almost snuffed out in the process. Instead, it survived the storm to emerge consolidated and confident, with the once mighty Vikings relegated to its outer fringes. The new kingdom, its people tempered in war, subsequently expanded southwards to conquer new lands. It subdued and then absorbed the Britons of Strathclyde and the English of northern Northumbria to reach the Tweed and the Solway.

The latter part of this crucial period also witnessed a dramatic transformation in the cultural identity of the kingdom of Alba. In the eleventh century, under King Malcolm III, a gradual process of metamorphosis transformed the largely Gaelic society of Alba into the more mixed culture of medieval Scotland, with its strong English element. It was a change that represented the first major step on the road to the culture of modern Scotland. The subsequent impact of the Normans in the twelfth century, which undoubtedly accelerated the transformation of Gaelic Alba into Scotland, is much better documented and understood. This later change has been intensively studied almost to the exclusion of its eleventh-century beginnings.

These important events would be highly significant for the future of Scotland and northern Britain and deserve to make this crucial period the focus of major study. It was a time that witnessed the emergence in northern Britain of a large and powerful new kingdom of Scotland. It was a vibrant multicultural kingdom ruled by a single dynasty able to hold the allegiance of all its subjects. It controlled the richest agricultural lands in northern Britain and had managed to confine its enemies to the more marginal lands. It faced only one significant rival, the richer and more powerful kingdom of England to the south. In spite of tensions, the rulers of these realms managed to develop a workable modus vivendi. The existence of two major powers in Britain, which set the pattern for the future, was established in this important period.

A major reason for the lack of attention to the history of northern Britain in this period is undoubtedly the relative scarcity of sources, especially in comparison to those available for other parts of the British Isles. This is certainly a difficulty, but it should not dissuade us from at least attempting to discern some of the important processes at work at this time and to consider the relative importance of some key individuals. It must be confessed at the outset that a full history of this period simply cannot be written using local northern British sources alone. There are simply too few of them and they are often so brief, allusive and fragmentary that it is sometimes impossible to construct anything other than a skeletal framework. If these few scraps were indeed all that remained, then this period would be largely without a history.

The few local sources that do survive from northern Britain cast only a few, if bright, shafts of light on contemporary events. The narrative sources consist of a number of lists of kings, a single brief chronicle and a couple of saints’ lives, including the important ‘Life of Margaret’. This last is usually known as ‘The Life of St Margaret’, although it was not until later that the lady achieved sainthood, partly as a result of the persuasion of this work. The documentary sources include marginal notes in gospel books, some charters and related documents usually from the later part of the period. This is very little compared to the sources available for contemporary Irish or English history.

It is extremely fortunate that others were sufficiently interested in events in northern Britain to record some of what happened there in their own more plentiful and better preserved historical records. The main sources for northern Britain in this period are in fact Irish, English and Scandinavian.

The Irish sources are generally the most valuable in this context. They are often contemporary and reasonably well informed about events in northern Britain and sometimes offer a unique perspective. The Irish annals, particularly the ‘Annals of Ulster’, offer accurate and usually contemporary notices of many events in northern Britain that were of interest to their largely Irish audience. These notices are, however, often extremely brief and allusive in nature. They record the deaths of important secular or religious figures but seldom the circumstances of these deaths. They often relate the result of battles between northern peoples but seldom where they took place or what caused them. This can often make it difficult to interpret these otherwise important sources.

The wider Irish sources for this period, especially those dealing with society and social organisation, are so abundant that it is often tempting to draw on these to shed light on the relatively obscure society of contemporary Scotland. There is, however, an important reason to resist this temptation. Although the kingdom of Alba was Gaelic-speaking and an important part of the wider Irish Gaelic cultural world, it was not simply another Irish kingdom. It had originated from a synthesis of the Picts and the Scots and retained some distinct inheritances from this process. The official known as the mormaer or ‘great steward’, who is found throughout Alba, is not otherwise recorded in contemporary Ireland. It is therefore necessary to use such Irish sources with care and, generally speaking, only to do so where there is some confirmatory Scottish evidence.

In many ways the English sources are more difficult to use than the Irish ones. The English annalists, even when fairly contemporary, are not only as brief and allusive as their Irish cousins but they are often biased as well. They often seek to describe or interpret events in a way intended to enhance the status of English rulers. This results in a view of events that would not necessarily have been accepted by contemporary northerners. In addition, a number of more contrived accounts feature among the English sources, which are more distant in time from the events they describe. This means that they are more likely to have accrued errors, exaggerations and legendary material, which can all reduce their value as sources. The later English accounts should be used with great care and, wherever possible, in support of more reliable accounts rather than on their own.

The Scandinavian sources, which consist mainly of court poetry and sagas, are of much less value than the Irish or English ones. They were usually written down long after the events they purport to describe, sometimes 200 or 300 years afterwards. They should therefore only be used with a great deal of care and with the firm understanding that the information they offer may tell us more about Scandinavian society in the period of the saga writers than about the periods they describe. It is unfortunate that some historians attempt to extract specific details of contemporary events from some of these thirteenth- and fourteenth-century works. It is extremely unlikely that this degree of reliance can be placed on these sources, which clearly incorporate many legendary and folklore elements.

In addition to the relatively few contemporary sources, however, it is sometimes possible to make careful use of earlier or later sources to shed light on, for example, some aspects of society in this period. It is possible that evidence from earlier sources can allow us to assume that later society was capable of at least a similar level of sophistication. The tenth-century Senchus fer nAlbann or ‘The History of the Men Of Alba’, for example, records a sophisticated military recruitment system that existed in the seventh century and allows us to presume that the society of a later period could do likewise. In the same way later sources may sometimes preserve obsolete evidence that can shed light on earlier periods. Later charters sometimes refer to Gaelic officers and customs, which probably represent survivals from this earlier period. This kind of activity can be taken too far with unjustifiable results but, if used judiciously, can help to enhance our view of an otherwise dark period.

There are actually some advantages to this relative lack of sources. There are no official versions of northern history in this period seeking to persuade us of a particular view of events. There exists no equivalent for northern Britain to those English sources which consider that it was the manifest destiny of King Alfred and Wessex to unify the English peoples. This sort of problem is almost completely absent in early Scottish historiography. This does not mean that the scattered sources that exist are completely objective. There is, however, in most cases no single guiding hand leading us towards a particular interpretation of events. The single exception to this general rule is The Life of St Margaret commissioned by Matilda, the daughter of St Margaret and the wife of Henry I of England. This work quite clearly sets out to portray Margaret, who was the wife of Malcolm III, as an ideal queen and actively selects its information to achieve this result. In the process, it offers a distorted picture of contemporary society.

The sparse and diffuse nature of the sources for northern British history in this period make it difficult to put together a coherent account of events. Indeed, the story of these centuries often seems to consist of little more than a grim, confusing and seemingly random succession of battles, killings and deaths. It is only after closer examination of these events and their potential connections that some underlying patterns begin to emerge. It is these that provide the key to the history of northern Britain at this time. They reveal the origins and subsequent development of the kingdom of Alba and its slow transformation into a new Scotland.

The chapters that follow focus on the period prior to the reign of King David I and the arrival of the Normans in Scotland, where others have already done a great deal of work. They review the changes that took place in the earlier period, including the formation of the kingdom of Alba, the southward expansion of this kingdom and the beginnings of a process of Anglicisation that would subsequently transform the kingdom. They consider the part played in these changes by the lords of Alba. They also consider the factors behind these changes and, in doing so, reassess the role of the English wife of Malcolm III, St Margaret. The Life of St Margaret has been instrumental in portraying her as the main driver behind the process of Anglicisation. The traditional view consists of three aspects. St Margaret used her personal influence over her husband to Anglicise the royal Court, as witnessed by the English names of their children. This transformation did not extend to wider Scottish society, which remained largely Gaelic in speech and culture. It was not until the succession of David I in 1124 that the wider society of Scotland was transformed with the penetration of Normans and Anglo-Norman culture into Scotland.

This work will widen the scope of the investigation and explore alternative sources of English influence. It will also reconsider the respective roles of King Malcolm and his Queen, St Margaret, in sponsoring or exploiting these influences. The lords of Alba had been extending their influence southwards into English-speaking territories since the tenth century. In the period between 954 and 1016, they gradually brought an increasing proportion of English territory under their control. In the mid-eleventh century, King Malcolm III spent some fifteen years of his youth in exile in England. He subsequently moved the main focus of the kingdom southwards into former English territory. The period after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 witnessed an influx of English refugees into southern Scotland. These events all probably contributed to the increase in English influence in Scotland at this time. The relative importance of these various elements in the transformation from Alba into Scotland will be reassessed.

1

The Viking Onslaught

At the end of the eighth century the political map of the British Isles consisted of a mosaic of large and small kingdoms. These kingdoms were engaged in a constant competition for control of land and wealth. This competition took the form of almost incessant warfare, ranging from small-scale raiding to major campaigns aimed at securing tribute or control. In this struggle individual kingdoms sought to secure supremacy over their neighbours, whether temporarily or over a longer time frame. A number of the more consistently successful kingdoms were slowly beginning to emerge as nascent superpowers. They included the Ui Neill kingdoms in Ireland, the Mercian imperium in southern Britain and, in the north, a new union of the two previously independent kingdoms of the Picts and the Scots. The last of these would subsequently develop into the medieval kingdom of Scotland.

The traditional account of the origins of the united kingdom of the Picts and the Scots centres on the dramatic story of a brutal massacre carried out by a ruthless warlord. This is the story of Kenneth MacAlpin and his massacre of the Picts at Scone in 849. The fullest version of the legend can be found in the twelfth-century account of Gerald of Wales, which may itself be based on an earlier Irish tale, now lost, called Braflang Scoine or ‘The Treachery of Scone’. It runs as follows:

. . . [The Scots] brought together as to a banquet all the nobles of the Picts, and taking advantage of their excessive drunkenness and gluttony, they noted their opportunity and drew out the bolts which held up the boards; and the Picts fell into the hollows of the benches on which they were sitting, caught in a strange trap up to the knees, so that they could not get up; and the Scots immediately slaughtered them all.1

It is still widely believed that it was as a direct result of this episode that Kenneth was able to eliminate the Picts and establish a Gaelic-speaking Scottish kingdom in their place. He is widely credited with transforming forever the political shape of northern Britain through this violent act. In fact, the origins of the medieval Scottish kingdom are much more complex than this would suggest. They were not the result of a sudden revolution. Instead, they were the result of an evolutionary process whereby relations between a number of neighbouring peoples developed over a period of centuries. The first of these peoples to come together and form the core around which the later Scottish kingdom formed were the Picts and Scots.

The neighbouring Picts and Scots had, in fact, been drawing together over a long period of time. This was a process fostered by increasingly close political ties – including dynastic intermarriage, some commonality of religious traditions, the settlement of Gaelic-speakers in Pictish territory and cultural assimilation. It was also a process promoted by the arrival on the scene of a common enemy in the form of the heathen Vikings from Scandinavia. The latter came from a rather different cultural tradition with no access to Christianity, few close contacts with the British Isles and a Germanic language and culture.

Kenneth MacAlpin did not establish the medieval Scottish kingdom by a massacre of the Picts. He was not even the first man to rule both Picts and Scots. This feat had already been achieved during the preceding century, most notably by Oengus, son of Fergus, King of the Picts (729–61), who also ruled the Scots of Dalriada between 741 and 750. He had managed to secure at least temporary supremacy over both peoples. The success achieved by such powerful men often consisted of some form of overlordship rather than direct rule and was usually brief. It nevertheless introduced the concept of a united rule of these two peoples.

There was much more than such temporary episodes of common rule working in favour of integration of these two peoples. There was clearly a great deal of intermarriage among the ruling elites as witnessed by the increasing appearance of Gaelic names among the Pictish kings. The appearance of St Columba and other saints from Gaelic Ireland among the Picts from the 590s had introduced a major Gaelic cultural influence. This brought the Picts within the Gaelic cultural sphere for the next 200 years and produced a Christian society heavily influenced by Gaelic models. In 697 at the synod of Birr in Ireland, Adomnan Abbot of Iona, promulgated his Cain Adomnan or The Law of the Innocents, which was designed to protect non-combatants – the elderly, women, children and the clergy – from the effects of warfare. It was endorsed by no less than 40 leading churchmen and 51 kings, all of them Gaelic with the exception of Bruide, son of Derile, King of the Picts, who was nevertheless clearly considered a ruler from the Gaelic cultural world. In addition to this cultural influence Gaelic colonisers had also begun to infiltrate Pictish territory from the kingdom of Dalriada on the west coast. This seems to be confirmed by the appearance of the name ‘Atholl’ for one of the Pictish provinces, which probably originated as the Gaelic ath Fhodla or ‘New Ireland’. In all these ways Gaelic influence was gradually transforming the kingdom of the Picts.

The honour of being the first ruler of a properly united kingdom of Picts and Scots also belongs not to Kenneth MacAlpin but to a man called Constantine, son of Fergus. In 789, he succeeded in seizing the Pictish throne through a military victory over Conall, son of Tadg, King of the Picts, who was driven into exile in Strathclyde or, possibly, in Ireland. The origins of this individual are unclear but the name of his father suggests perhaps a Gaelic or Gaelic-influenced background. The name of Constantine that he himself bore suggests a strongly Christian background and perhaps even a hint of wide ambition. He was almost certainly named after Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who had secured Christianity as the official religion of the empire. In 792 the Annals of Ulster record the death of Donn Corci, King of the Gaelic Scots of Dalriada, and Constantine, King of the Picts, appears to have succeeded him as the direct ruler of Dalriada rather than simply as an overlord, like Oengus mac Fergus thirty years before. The later king-lists seem to confirm this, although it is possible that these have been adjusted to reflect subsequent political realities. The new united kingdom appears to have been known as the kingdom of Fortriu after its central province, but its rulers were still sometimes referred to as kings of the Picts.

King Constantine, son of Fergus, was now joint ruler over the Picts and the Scots and, while the written sources for his rule are meagre, a unique monumental record of his reign survives. The Dupplin Cross, which once stood on a hillside overlooking the site of a royal palace at Forteviot in Perthshire, can now be found inside the later church at Dunning nearby. It bears a badly weathered inscription in a panel on its west face. It has been interpreted to read Custantin filius Fircus rex . . . or ‘Constantine son of Fergus, King . . .’ with the rest now tantalisingly illegible. The king himself is portrayed on the opposite face of the cross as a mounted warrior above four foot soldiers who probably represent his army. The iconography of the biblical King David on other panels confirms Constantine’s status as a Christian ruler in the Old Testament mould. This cross is clearly a major monument created for an important and powerful Christian warrior king.

King Constantine was certainly a powerful enough figure to take an interest in the internal affairs of the neighbouring kingdom of Northumbria to the south. In 796 he offered refuge to Osbald, who had been King of Northumbria for only 27 days in the spring of that year. An aristocratic faction led by Ealdorman Wada had killed King Aethelred at Corbridge on the Tyne on 18 April 796 and Osbald, one of their number, was raised to the kingship. He was however quickly put to flight and driven from the kingdom by the supporters of Aethelred and arrived by ship, presumably in the Tay. He lived in exile as Constantine’s guest until his death in 799, and he was replaced in Northumbria by a man called Eardwulf, who defeated Ealdorman Wada. In 807, the exiled Conall, son of Tadg, formerly king of the Picts, was killed in Kintyre by another Conall, the son of Aedacan, who was perhaps the local ruler. This exile may have been attempting to restore his fortunes but, if so, the location of his death, on the far fringes of Constantine’s rule, suggests that he was not very successful.

King Constantine was also one of the first rulers in the British Isles to face an unexpected threat from across the North Sea. It was in 794, during the early years of his reign, that the first raiders from Scandinavia devastated the islands of Britain. In the following year, they pillaged and devastated Iona and Skye on the west coast of his newly expanded kingdom. In 798, they made further incursions in Scotland and the Hebrides, although the extent of these is unrecorded. This pattern will be familiar to students of the Vikings elsewhere in Western Europe. It marked the initial phase of Viking activity, when small groups of raiders launched seasonal hit-and-run attacks against wealthy coastal sites. In Constantine’s kingdom the prime focus for such raids was, of course, the wealthy head monastery of the church of St Columba on the island of Iona. It was attacked in 795, the monastic buildings were burned in 802 and worse was to come in 806. In 801 Bresal, son of Segene, who had been Abbot of Iona since 770, died, a circumstance possibly hastened by his experiences at the hands of the Vikings in 795. In 806, however, no less than 68 monks of the community were killed and the monastic buildings were burned for a second time. This terrible massacre seems to have prompted Abbot Cellach, who apparently survived it – perhaps he was taken captive and subsequently ransomed – to flee to relative safety in Ireland and commence the construction of a new monastery at Kells.

In the next century or so these Viking raiders would transform the politics of the British Isles. The intervention of increasing numbers of these outsiders effectively subverted the existing political system. Many long-standing kingdoms were overwhelmed or undermined while others managed to weather the initial assault before recovering and striking back. The political map of the British Isles would be transformed by the intervention of the Vikings and an entirely new system would emerge. In Ireland the Ua Briain kings of Munster would rise to challenge the Ui Neill. In southern Britain Wessex would unite with its old rival Mercia to strike back at their Viking tormentors and ultimately form a united kingdom of England. The consequences of Viking activity for northern Britain have been the subject of far fewer accounts. In essence the experience of northern Britain was very similar to that of the rest of the British Isles but it deserves more consideration than it has previously received.

The initial phase of Viking raids, in common with elsewhere in Europe, appears to have died down during the 810s. This is reflected perhaps in the fact that, when Abbot Cellach resigned his abbacy in 814, he retired to Iona to reside there until his death the following year. This suggests that the monastery had at least recovered sufficiently to provide a suitable place for Cellach, who had fled from there eight years previously, to spend his final years there in peace. He was subsequently buried on the island, presumably with appropriate funeral rites. In 818, Cellach’s successor, Abbot Diarmait was able to journey between Kells and northern Britain in apparent safety from Viking attack.

In 820 Constantine, son of Fergus, King of Fortriu, died peacefully after a reign of some thirty years. This was a long reign for this early period when the rule of kings tended to be short and to end in violence. There was, however, something even more remarkable about the rule of Constantine. In contrast to previous rulers Constantine successfully managed to pass on his joint rule over Picts and Scots to his brother and successor, Oengus II, son of Fergus. This happened almost thirty years before Kenneth MacAlpin is supposed to have eliminated the Picts.

It was during the reign of Constantine’s brother, Oengus II, son of Fergus, that the Viking assaults resumed. They now entered a new phase with larger raiding parties making more intense attacks on the richest targets. Inevitably, Iona was chief among these and, on 24 July 825, it suffered its worst experience to date at the hands of the Vikings. The Annals of Ulster simply record ‘the martyrdom of Blathmac at the hands of the heathens on Iona’. A more elaborate account of events is provided by Walafrid Strabo, a German monk, in his poem on the martyrdom of Blathmac. He recorded:

The violent accursed host came rushing through the open buildings, threatening cruel perils to the blessed men; and after slaying with mad savagery the rest of the company, they approached the holy father [Blathmac] to compel him to give up the precious metals wherein lie the holy bones of St Columba; but [they] had lifted the shrine from its pediments and had placed it in the earth, in a hollowed barrow, under a thick layer of turf, because they knew of the wicked destruction to come. This booty the Danes [sic] desired; but the saint remained with unarmed hand, and with unshaken purpose of mind; [he had been] trained to stand against the foe, and to arouse the fight, and [was] unused to yield.

There he spoke to thee, barbarian, in words such as these:- ‘I know nothing at all of the gold you seek, where it is placed in the ground or in what hiding-place it is concealed. And if by Christ’s permission it were granted me to know it, never would our lips relate it to thy ears. Barbarian, draw thy sword, grasp the hilt, and slay; gracious God, to thy aid commend me humbly.’

Therefore the pious sacrifice was torn limb from limb. And what the fierce soldier could not purchase by gifts, he began to seek by wounds in the cold bowels of the earth.2

This raid reinforces the impression that the monastery had recovered from previous attacks. It had a significant number of buildings, large numbers of monks and rich treasures worth stealing. Indeed, otherwise it would have provided a poor return for the raiders.

In the following decades, the Viking raids on the British Isles gradually increased in scale, ferocity and intensity. They were also more frequent in northern Britain, although they may still have been seasonal and did not occur in every year. In this region, however, few records survive to illuminate the Vikings’ activities and their impact on the local population. Instead we are left with little more than speculation. The local populations of the Hebridean islands and the west coasts probably withdrew as the heathen incomers commenced the settlement of these outlying areas of the Picto-Scottish kingdom. The Vikings appear to have been less prevalent on the east coast of northern Britain although this may be a quirk of the surviving sources. They failed, however, to sever entirely the sea lanes between northern Britain and Ireland, which continued to offer safe, if possibly irregular, passage for members of the Columban church at Iona. Thus Abbott Diarmait crossed safely to Scotland with the relics of St Columba in 829 and returned with them in equal comfort two years later.

In 834, Constantine’s brother and successor, Oengus II, son of Fergus, King of Fortriu died. He was succeeded by his son Eoganan, who would face the first major crisis of this second Viking onslaught. In 839 the Viking attacks reached a climax when a major Viking force invaded the heartland of the Picto-Scottish kingdom. The Annals of Ulster record that ‘The heathens won a battle against the men of Fortriu and Eoganan son of Oengus, Bran son of Oengus, Aed son of Boanta and others almost without number fell there’. This major defeat was a disaster of huge proportions for the newly combined kingdom. It not only lost two adult members of its ruling dynasty, it lost other important senior figures, like Aed, and many of its best warriors. It was the sort of calamity that could result in the downfall of the kingdom. In 839 it must have seemed to many that the kingdom of Fortriu was on the verge of becoming the first kingdom in the British Isles to fall to the Vikings. Indeed, the English kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia would fall to Viking assault in precisely this way in the 860s and 870s.

The kingdom did not fall, however, in spite of a period of internal crisis that followed this defeat and which witnessed five different rulers in the short space of ten years. Why were the Vikings who defeated Eoganan and his army apparently unable to subjugate his kingdom? There may be a number of explanations for this. The relatively small Viking armies of this early period were independent forces with no central control or direction. They appear to have consisted of units of thirty or so ships under leaders of local status. They might combine when an opportunity presented itself but such alliances were usually short-term and quickly dissolved. The force that defeated Eoganan in 839 may have been such a temporary alliance. It may have broken up in the immediate aftermath of its victory and its component parts were thereafter perhaps too small to conquer the entire kingdom. Its unknown leaders may have quarrelled about the spoils or been killed in the fighting. It seems likely that a combined Viking force gained the initial victory but thereafter dissolved and was therefore unable to exploit it fully.

It is possibly significant in this context that the years immediately following witnessed a significant increase in Viking activity in neighbouring Ireland with widespread raiding around Lough Neagh and the construction of the first fortified camps at Dublin and Annagassan in Louth. It seems possible that the Viking force which had defeated Eoganan was attracted to participate in this new assault on Ireland. This provided them with rich pickings – possibly richer than in northern Britain – for the next few years, with raids across Ulster and Leinster and on wealthy targets like Armagh, Clonmacnoise and others. In subsequent years, the Vikings encountered stiffer resistance in Ireland and endured a series of heavy defeats which must have depleted their resources and prevented them from resuming their activities in northern Britain. In 848, in particular, the Annals of Ulster record the deaths of hundreds of Vikings in a series of battles with the Irish, including that of a Jarl Tomrair, who is described as ‘tanist’ of the King of Norway.

In 849 the Vikings finally received reinforcements from Norway, but these arrived at a price. The Annals of Ulster make it clear that the intention of these men was to impose political control over their predecessors and fellow countrymen already in Ireland. They were clearly keen to obtain direct control over the rich flow of treasure and slaves at its source. They were almost certainly led by a man called Olaf, although he is not actually named until 853. He is described as the son of the King of Norway and he may have been related in some way to the Tomrair killed in 848. He was precisely the sort of significant political figure who might be expected to lead such a campaign to impose hegemony on the early raiders. It would naturally take Olaf some time to rally or subdue the many existing and formerly independent Viking bands to his authority. While many were possibly docile or weak enough to accept or even welcome his overlordship, others must have been reluctant to surrender their independent status as easily.

The position was further complicated by the arrival of the first Danish Vikings in Ireland in 851, led, according to a later source, by a man named Orm. They had been raiding south-western England and after rounding Cornwall had entered the Bristol Channel. They had suffered defeats in Dorset and Devon and now sought to muscle in on the lucrative Irish raiding scene. The result was conflict between the newly arrived ‘dark gentiles’ or Danes and the existing ‘fair gentiles’ or Norwegians already in control. This short but ferocious conflict over a lucrative prize blazed for two years until Olaf eventually emerged victorious over the Danes in 853. The Annals of Ulster report that ‘Olaf, son of the King of Norway came to Ireland and the foreigners of Ireland submitted to him . . .’ In the period after this the defeated Danes under Orm appear to have become restive, probably under pressure from a victorious Olaf. They seem to have attempted to leave Ireland and try their luck elsewhere. In 856 the Welsh Annals record that the Danes raided Anglesey. In the following year the Annals of Ulster report that the Welsh prince Rhodri, son of Merfyn defeated and killed Orm, the leader of the Danes in north Wales.

It seems likely that this defeat of the Danes ensured the consolidation of Olaf’s authority over all or most of the independent Viking groups. A brief period of recovery and reorganisation probably followed this since the Irish sources record no further significant Viking activity until 856. In that year the Irish High-king Mael Sechnaill attacked them with the support of a mixed Norse-Irish force under a man called Ketill. Olaf and Ivar subsequently defeated Ketill and his force in Munster in the following year, 857. This further period of internal warfare appears to have drawn Olaf and his men into Irish internal politics for the next few years and effectively protected distant northern Britain from their attentions.

In northern Britain, meanwhile, in spite of the absence of Viking attacks, the period following the defeat of Eoganan in 839 was clearly one of crisis for the brand-new Picto-Scottish kingdom. The later king-lists record a number of rulers with very short reigns and give little indication of the extent or security of their rule. There was undoubtedly some form of power vacuum which a series of local warlords sought to fill, only to be ousted by their rivals. This ushered in a decade which featured a confused succession of short reigns: Ferat, Bruide, Kenneth MacAlpin, Bruide, Drust, Kenneth MacAlpin again until after 848. The breathing space from outside attack provided by the Viking preoccupation with Ireland, allowed Kenneth I MacAlpin or Cinaed mac Alpin to emerge from this confusion and establish and secure his position as ruler of the Picto-Scottish kingdom in the decade from 848 to 858.

It is surprising just how little is known about this pivotal figure in Scottish history. He is generally identified as the son of a man called Alpin, who is recorded in later sources as an apparently independent king of Dalriada from 839–41. It is assumed that Kenneth succeeded his father as ruler of Dalriada, although there is only late evidence for this. He is said to have launched a series of attacks against the Picts during their period of decline after 839. He then assumed direct rule over them, probably following the death of Drust, the last of Ferat’s short-lived dynasty in 848. It is usually at this point that he is supposed in later legend to have destroyed the Picts, as related at the opening of this chapter. He almost certainly defeated or subdued any Pictish opposition, including any supporters of rival claimants such as Ferat, Bruide and Drust.

In around 849, according to some of the first entries in the native Scottish Chronicle, he installed the relics of St Columba in a new church he had built at Dunkeld. In 849 the Ulster annals record the arrival in Ireland of Indrechtach, Abbot of Iona, who brought the relics of St Columba to Ireland, perhaps after leaving some with King Kenneth at Dunkeld. What does this signify? It seems that King Constantine, son of Fergus had already built a church here, so it was not a new foundation. This act by King Kenneth I was rather an important sign of the consolidation of the new united realm of the Picts and Scots. He placed the relics of St Columba, who was an important saint to both peoples but especially to the Scots, at the heart of the new united kingdom. He thus transformed Dunkeld into the head church of the new kingdom and irrevocably positioned the primary focus of Scottish religious devotion squarely within it. He had cut the umbilical cord that connected them to Iona and the west coastlands. In 865 the Annals of Ulster report the death of Tuathal, son of Artgus, chief Bishop of Fortriu and Abbot of Dunkeld, which confirms this transformation.

The Vikings appear to have remained largely quiescent for much of Kenneth’s reign. They were probably preoccupied with their activities in Ireland. It is true that the Scottish Chronicle includes mention of a single Viking raid on his kingdom, but it is not easy to place this event in the chronology of the period. The Chronicle lists a whole series of events which supposedly occurred after the seventh year of his reign, or 849, but with no further indication of their dates. The events include no less than six invasions of England by Kenneth, encompassing the burning of Dunbar and Melrose, the burning of Dunblane by the Britons of Strathclyde and the wasting of the ‘land of the Picts’ as far as Clunie and Dunkeld by ‘Danes’ who were almost certainly Norwegians Vikings from Ireland. There is no way of telling exactly when any of this occurred and no independent confirmation that it occurred at all.