The success of Thorstein was destined to be ephemeral, the very year of his triumph witnessing the close of his adventurous career. Attacked unexpectedly by the followers of Constantine, he appears to have fallen in an unequal contest; Halfdan was driven from his Northumbrian conquests, perishing soon afterwards in Ireland, and the death of Sigurd’s son Guttorm delivering his father’s earldom once more into the hands of the independent Vikings, the power of the Norsemen was broken up for a time, and the threatening cloud which had loured so darkly over Scotland melted away from the horizon.[51]
A. D. 877.
But the career of Constantine was also approaching its conclusion, and he had little time to profit by the events which had released him from his enemies. As his whole reign had been passed in a continual struggle to protect his country from the Northmen, so it was at length closed with honour on the battle-field in repulsing a hostile landing upon the coast of Fife; though tradition has hinted at a darker tale, that after repelling with success the enemy’s attack he was captured by a party of the retreating Norsemen, and sacrificed by a lingering and cruel death in the gloomy recesses of the Black Cave near Crail.[52]
| Aodh (Hugh) | 877–878. |
| Eocha | 878–889. |
| Cyric (Grig) | 878–896. |
| Donald the Second | 889–900. |
In the British Islands, as indeed in every quarter to which the Norsemen penetrated, a change may be dated from their earliest incursions; and whilst in Ireland they broke the power of the Hy Nial, and taught the dynasties of Munster and of Connaught to aspire to the supremacy which had hitherto been the undisputed prerogative of the princely families of Ulster and of Meath; in England the remnants of independent sovereignty were overwhelmed and swallowed up in the flood, the line of Cerdic in Wessex, which alone was strong enough to bear up against the torrent, becoming from that very cause the sole representative in the eyes of the Saxon people of the ancient royalty of their race. Scotland, where the monarchy, though of comparatively recent date, was destined eventually to survive the crisis, appeared towards the close of the ninth century to be fast verging towards the fate of Ireland; for though Thorstein perished before his power was consolidated, the cession of the northern provinces to that enterprising sea-king revived the recollection of former independence, and many years elapsed before the authority of the Scottish kings was once more successfully asserted over the ancient territories of the northern Picts. On the accession of Aodh, or Hugh, the surviving son of Kenneth, his pretensions were disputed by Cyric—or Grig—MacDungal, a chieftain whose residence at Dundurn, or Dunadeer, in the Garioch, marks his pre-eminence amongst the northern magnates whose allegiance had been transferred to Thorstein.[53] The contest for superiority between north and south was decided in the neighbourhood of Strathallan, the locality of the battle-field, A. D. 878. within the dominions of Aodh, appearing to point to Cyric as the aggressor: victory declared in favour of the northern leader, and his opponent, wounded and a prisoner, was conveyed for security to the fortress of Inverury, where he died of his wounds after a few weeks’ captivity. Either the victor was content with asserting his own independence, or policy may have prevented him from aspiring to the vacant throne; for he appears to have been satisfied with reviving the divided sovereignty of former times; and by associating in the government a scion of the royal race of Kenneth, Eocha of Strath Clyde, a son of the British prince Cu, he may have sought to propitiate the hostile chieftains of the south, whilst the real authority over both kingdoms must have remained with the conqueror of Strathallan.[54]
Similar motives may possibly have dictated the benefaction to the church of St. Andrews, which has caused the name of Cyric to be handed down in the register of the ancient priory as “the Liberator of the Scottish Church, which had hitherto remained in a dependant and subservient position, according to the prevailing custom of the Picts.” The boon thus vaguely recorded by the grateful monks of the priory appears to have been nothing more than the transfer of the privileges which had latterly belonged to Dunkeld to the monastery endowed by the younger Angus; and St. Andrews, a diocese of the southern Picts, and often known in later days as pre-eminently the “bishopric of the Scots,” owed her primacy over the other Scottish bishoprics to the donation of a prince of the northern provinces.[55]
A. D. 889.
Upon the death of Eocha after an eventless career of eleven years, Donald, the son of Constantine, assumed his cousin’s place, and for seven years shared with Cyric the supreme authority over Scotland, on the same terms, apparently, as his predecessor the British prince. A decisive victory over a body of the Northmen, who were defeated at Collin on the banks of the Tay, signalized the commencement of the new reign, avenging the destruction of the Scottish capital of Forteviot, burnt by the invaders in the course of their inroads; and as the situation of the ruined town must have exposed it to the attacks of the pirates of the western seas, it appears to have been abandoned from this period, and the residence of the sovereign being transferred for security to the eastern bank of the Tay, the dignity of “the Royal City” belonged henceforth to Scone.[56]
The few remaining years of the century passed away without events—none at least have been recorded—Cyric died peacefully at Dunadeer after a A. D. 896. reign of eighteen years, and it was left for the chroniclers of a later age to encircle his memory with a halo of fabulous glory, and to oppose his triumphs, as the conqueror of England and Ireland, to the pretensions founded by the first Edward upon the exploits of the British Arthur.[57] No successor arose amongst the Northern Picts to emulate the policy of their departed leader, and Scotland, gradually recovering from the shock of Thorstein’s conquests, ceased for ever after the death of Cyric to be subject to a divided authority. Henceforth Donald ruled without a rival during the brief remainder of his reign; but though no competitor appeared from beyond the Grampian range to assert his equality with the representative of Constantine and Kenneth, the recollection of their early independence long survived in full force amongst the northern clans, and a continual struggle between the divisions of the ancient Pictish kingdom can still be traced after the lapse of centuries. The death of Donald, A. D. 900. who survived Cyric for only four years, would appear to have been brought about through this inveterate feud, for he is supposed to have been killed in the town of Forres, and he may have lost his life in the hostile province of Moray in attempting to re-establish the royal authority over the revolted districts of the north.[58]