Death to Bruide, son of Bile;
It is rare,
After ruling in the kingdom of the north,
That a hollow wood of withered oak (an oak coffin)
Is about the son of the king of Alcluaith.’[[357]]
He was succeeded by Taran, son of Entefidich, who seems to have belonged to a different section of the Picts, and not to have been generally accepted by the nation, as in the year following his accession we have again a siege of Dun Foither or Dunnotter, and after a short reign of four years he is driven from the throne.[[358]] Taran was succeeded by Bridei, son of Dereli. In the year following Tighernac records a battle between the Saxons and the Picts, in which Brechtraig, son of Bernith, is slain. Bede in his Chronicle also records that Brerctred, a royal commander of the Northumbrians, was slain by the Picts,[[359]] and we are told in the Ulster Annals that, a year after, Taran took refuge in Ireland. Brechtraig appears to have been the son of that Bernaeth who headed the insurrection of the Picts in 672, and seems to have made an effort to recover the influence of the Angles over the Picts, which was successfully resisted. Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, died in 705, and was succeeded by his son Osred, a boy of eight years old; and in the following year Tighernac records the death of Brude, son of Dereli,[[360]] who was succeeded by his brother Nectan, son of Dereli, according to the Pictish law of succession. Five years after his accession, the Picts of the plain of Manann, probably encouraged by the success of the neighbouring kingdom of the Picts in maintaining their independence against the Angles, rose against their Saxon rulers. They were opposed by Berctfrid, the prefect or Alderman of the Northumbrians, whose king was still only in his fourteenth year. The Picts, however, were defeated with great slaughter, and their youthful leader Finguine, son of Deleroith, slain. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that this battle was fought between Hæfe and Cære, by which the rivers Avon and Carron are probably meant, the plain of Manann being situated between these two rivers.[[361]] These Picts appear to have been so effectually crushed that they did not renew the attempt, and we do not learn of any further collision between the Picts and the Angles during this period.
Position Scots and Britons.
The Scots of Dalriada and a party of the British nation, we are told, recovered their freedom, the Angles still maintaining the rule over the rest of the Britons. The portion of their kingdom which became independent consisted of those districts extending from the Firth of Clyde to the Solway, embracing the counties of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Lanark, Ayr, and Dumfries, with the stronghold of Alclyde for its capital: but the Angles still retained possession of the district of Galloway with its Pictish population, and Whitehern as their principal seat, as well as of that part of the territory of the Britons which lay between the Solway Firth and the river Derwent, having as its principal seat the town of Carlisle, which Ecgfrid had, in the same year in which he assailed the Picts, given to Saint Cuthbert, who had been made bishop of Lindisfarne in the previous year, that is, in 684.[[362]]
Eight years after the death of Ecgfrid, Tighernac records the death of Domnal mac Avin, king of Alclyde. He was probably the son of that Oan or Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642,[[363]] and had, on the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, recovered his father’s throne. He was succeeded by Bile, son of Alpin, and grandson of the same Eugein.
Contest between Cinel Loarn and Cinel Gabhran.