KENNEDY, THOMAS FRANCIS (1788-1879), Scottish politician, was born near Ayr in 1788. He studied for the bar and became advocate in 1811. Having been elected M.P. for the Ayr burghs in 1818, he devoted the greater part of his life to the promotion of Liberal reforms. In 1820 he married the only daughter of Sir Samuel Romilly. He was greatly assisted by Lord Cockburn, then Mr Henry Cockburn, and a volume of correspondence published by Kennedy in 1874 forms a curious and interesting record of the consultations of the two friends on measures which they regarded as requisite for the political regeneration of their native country. One of the first measures to which he directed his attention was the withdrawal of the power of nominating juries from the judges, and the imparting of a right of peremptory challenge to prisoners. Among other subjects were the improvement of the parish schools, of pauper administration, and of several of the corrupt forms of legal procedure which then prevailed. In the construction of the Scottish Reform Act Kennedy took a prominent part; indeed he and Lord Cockburn may almost be regarded as its authors. After the accession of the Whigs to office in 1832 he held various important offices in the ministry, and most of the measures of reform for Scotland, such as burgh reform, the improvements in the law of entail, and the reform of the sheriff courts, owed much to his sagacity and energy. In 1837 he went to Ireland as paymaster of civil services, and set himself to the promotion of various measures of reform. Kennedy retired from office in 1854, but continued to take keen interest in political affairs, and up to his death in 1879 took a great part in both county and parish business. He had a stern love of justice, and a determined hatred of everything savouring of jobbery or dishonesty.
KENNEDY, WALTER (c. 1460-c. 1508), Scottish poet, was the third son of Gilbert, 1st Lord Kennedy. He matriculated at Glasgow University in 1475 and took his M.A. degree in 1478. In 1481 he was one of four examiners in his university, and in 1492 he acted as depute for his nephew, the hereditary bailie of Carrick. He is best known for his share in the Flyting with Dunbar (q.v.). In this coarse combat of wits Dunbar taunts his rival with his Highland speech (the poem is an expression of Gaelic and “Inglis,” i.e. English, antagonism); and implies that he had been involved in treason, and had disguised himself as a beggar in Galloway. With the exception of this share in the Flyting Kennedy’s poems are chiefly religious in character. They include The Praise of Aige, Ane Agit Manis Invective against Mouth Thankless, Ane Ballat in Praise of Our Lady, The Passion of Christ and Pious Counsale. They are printed in the rare supplement to David Laing’s edition of William Dunbar (1834), and they have been re-edited by Dr J. Schipper in the proceedings of the Kais. Akad. der Wissenschaften (Vienna).
See also the prolegomena in the Scottish Text Society’s edition of Dunbar; and (for the life) Pitcairn’s edition of the Historie of the Kennedies (1830).
KENNEL, a small hut or shelter for a dog, also extended to a group of buildings for a pack of hounds (see [Dog]). The word is apparently from a Norman-French kenil (this form does not occur, but is seen in the Norman kinet, a little dog), modern French chenil, from popular Latin canile, place for a dog, canis, cf. ovile, sheep-cote. The word “kennel,” a gutter, a drain in a street or road, is a corruption of the Middle English canel, cannel, in modern English “channel,” from Latin canalis, canal.
KENNETH, the name of two kings of the Scots.
Kenneth I., MacAlpin (d. c. 860), often described as the first king of Scotland (kingdom of Scone), was the son of the Alpin, called king of the Scots, who had been slain by the Picts in 832 or 834, whilst endeavouring to assert his claim to the Pictish throne. On the death of his father, Kenneth is said to have succeeded him in the kingdom of the Scots. The region of his rule is matter of conjecture, though Galloway seems the most probable suggestion, in which case he probably led a piratic host against the Picts. On the father’s side he was descended from the Conall Gabhrain of the old Dalriadic Scottish kingdom, and the claims of father and son to the Pictish throne were probably through female descent. Their chief support seems to have been found in Fife. In the seventh year of his reign (839 or 841) he took advantage of the effects of a Danish invasion of the Pictish kingdom to attack the remaining Picts, whom he finally subdued in 844 or 846. In 846 or 848 he transported the relics of St Columba to a church which he had constructed at Scone. He is said also to have carried out six invasions of Northumbria, in the course of which he burnt Dunbar and took Melrose. According to the Scalacronica of Sir Thomas Gray he drove the Angles and Britons over the Tweed, reduced the land as far as that river, and first called his kingdom Scotland. In his reign there appears to have been a serious invasion by Danish pirates, in which Cluny and Dunkeld were burnt. He died in 860 or 862, after a reign of twenty-eight years, at Forteviot and was buried at Iona. The double dates are due to a contest of authorities. Twenty-eight years is the accepted length of his reign, and according to the chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon it began in 832. The Pictish Chronicle, however, gives Tuesday, the 13th of February as the day, and this suits 862 only, in which case his reign would begin in 834.