Celtic Scotland

by W. F. Skene

The Coronation Stone.

It was at Scone too that the Coronation Stone was ‘reverently kept for the consecration of the kings of Alban,’ and of this stone it was believed that ‘no king was ever wont to reign in Scotland unless he had first, on receiving the royal name, sat upon this stone at Scone, which by the kings of old had been appointed the capital of Alban.’[^[375]] Of its identity with the stone now preserved in the coronation chair at Westminster there can be no doubt. It is an oblong block of red sandstone, some 26 inches long by 16 inches broad, and 10½ inches deep, and the top is flat and bears the marks of chiselling. Its mythic origin identifies it with the stone which Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel, and then set up there for a pillar and anointed with oil, which, according to Jewish tradition, was afterwards removed to the second temple, and served as the pedestal for the ark. Legend has much to tell of how it was brought from thence to Scotland, but history knows of it only at Scone.[^[376]] It too may have been connected with the legend of Bonifacius. We find that the principal Irish missionaries frequently carried about with them a slab or block of stone, which they used as an altar for the celebration of the Eucharist, and which was usually termed a stone altar. In places where it had been used for this purpose by any celebrated saint, and remained there, it was the object of much veneration among the people, and is the subject of many of the miracles recorded in the acts of the saint. Saint Patrick’s stone altar is frequently mentioned in his acts, and, in the only strictly analogous case to the coronation stone of the Scotch kings—that of the kings of Munster, who were crowned on the rock of Cashel, sitting upon a similar stone—the belief was that this coronation stone had been the stone altar of Saint Patrick on which he had first celebrated the Eucharist after the conversion and baptism of the king of Cashel. It is therefore not impossible that the coronation stone of Scone may have had the same origin, and been the stone altar upon which Bonifacius first celebrated the Eucharist after he had brought over the king of the Picts and his people from the usages of the Columban Church to conformity with those of the Roman Church, and possibly re-baptized him. The legend that it had been the stone at Bethel, which became the pedestal of the ark in the temple, and brought from thence, may have also a connection with the statement in the legend of Bonifacius that he was an Israelite and a native of Bethlehem, and had come from thence to Rome.[^[377]]

Expulsion of the Columban clergy.

Be this as it may, the fact that Nectan and his people had at this time conformed to the Anglican Roman Church as contradistinguished from the Columban, and had issued a decree requiring the adoption of the Roman usages by the clergy of his kingdom, based as it is upon the personal knowledge of Bede, who lived at the time and records it, is undoubtedly historical. Nectan appears to have failed to obtain the submission of the Columban clergy to his decree, and some years after, in 717, he took the strong step of expelling them from the kingdom, and driving them across Drumalban, which then formed the boundary between the southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada.[^[378]] This opened the Columban foundations in the territory of the Picts to Scottish clergy who belonged to that part of the Irish Church which had conformed to Rome, and were not under the jurisdiction of Hii or Iona, as well as to such clergy from the kingdom of Northumbria as were disposed to adventure themselves once more into the Pictish country; and seven years afterwards, in the year 724, Nectan himself became a cleric, and was succeeded on the Pictish throne by Druxst.[^[379]] The step thus taken by Nectan of dispossessing the Columban Church of the foundations it had possessed for a century and a half, and of driving its clergy out of the kingdom, naturally placed the kingdom of the Scots of Dalriada and that of the Picts in direct antagonism to each other, and arrayed the clergy under the jurisdiction of Iona against the latter, while the contest between the Dalriads and the Britons had for the time ceased. That, however, between the two great tribes of the Dalriads themselves—the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran—still continued. In 719 Ainbhceallach, the son of Fearchar Fata, who had reigned one year after his father, and been expelled by his brother Sealbach, and sent bound to Ireland, appears to have made an effort to recover his position at the head of the Cinel Loarn, and a battle took place at Finglen on the Braes of Loarn, near Lochavich, between the brothers, in which Ainbhceallach was slain.[^[380]] Tradition has preserved a record of this battle in the name Blar nam braithrean, or the battle-field of the brothers. In the same year a naval battle took place between the Cinel Gabhran under Dunchadh, son of Becc, the chief of that branch of the tribe which possessed the south half of Kintyre, and were descended from Conaing, son of Aidan, and the Cinel Loarn under Sealbach, at a place called Arddanesbi, probably the Point of Ardminish on the island of Gigha, in which the latter was defeated and several of the chiefs of his vassal tribes were slain. Dunchadh did not long enjoy his victory, for his death is recorded two years after, in which he is designated king of Kintyre.[^[381]] In 722 the death of Beli, son of Alpin, king of Alclyde, is also recorded, and in the following year Sealbach becomes a cleric, and resigns his throne to his son Dungal.[^[382]] Sealbach is the first of those chiefs, subsequent to the death of Domnall Brecc in 642, who bears the title of king of Dalriada, which shows that the kingdom of Dalriada had now been reconstituted, and that the chiefs of the Cinel Loarn had made good their right to occupy the throne along with the head of the Cinel Gabhran. Of the events of the reign of Drust two only are recorded, which seem to show an opposition between the party of Nectan, the previous king, and that of Drust. In 725, Simal, the son of Drust, is taken and bound, and in 726 Drust retaliates by subjecting the cleric Nectan to a similar fate.

Simultaneous revolution in Dalriada and the kingdom of the Picts.

There now follows a revolution in the two kingdoms of the Dalriads and the Picts, which takes place simultaneously. In the one Dungal of the Cinel Loarn is driven from the throne, and Eochaidh, who now appears as the head of the Cinel Gabhran, succeeds him. In the other Drust is driven from the throne and succeeded by Alpin.[^[383]] These were brothers. Eochadh was the son of that Eochaidh, the grandson of Domnall Brecc, who died in 697, and Alpin was another son of the same Eochaidh, but his name shows that he had a Pictish mother, through whom he derived his claim to the Pictish throne.[^[384]] The expulsion of Dungal from the throne of Dalriada seems to have called forth his father Sealbach from his monastery to endeavour to regain it. In 727 there is recorded a conflict at Ross-Foichen, or the promontory of Feochan, at the mouth of Loch Feochan, between him and the family of Eachdach, the grandson of Domnall, in which several of the two Airgiallas were slain.[^[385]] Sealbach was unsuccessful, as Eochaidh remained in possession of the throne till his death is recorded as king of Dalriada in 733.[^[386]] If, however, the revolution in Dalriada in 726 led to a renewed contest between the Cinel Gabhran under Eochaidh and the Cinel Loarn under Sealbach, that which took place in the kingdom of the Picts was followed by a still more determined struggle for supremacy which broke out, apparently, between several of the Pictish tribes, and led to the final establishment of a new family on the Pictish throne, the head of which was destined to terminate the Dalriadic kingdom. The parties to this struggle were Alpin, the reigning king, and Drust, his predecessor, who seem to have had their main interest in the central region about Scone; Nectan, the son of Derili, who, once more entering into secular life, endeavoured to regain his crown; and seems to have been connected with the more northern districts; and Aengus, son of Fergus, who is identified with the province of Fortrenn, and appears to have been the founder of a new family. The first collision was at ‘Monaigh Craebi’ or Moncrieffe, a name which belongs to a hill separating the valley of the Earn from that of the Tay, not far from the junction of the two rivers, between Aengus and Alpin, in which battle Aengus was victorious, and wrested the country west of the Tay from Alpin, whose son was slain in the conflict. The second collision was between Alpin and Nectan at ‘Caislen Credi’—the Castle of Belief, or Scone, the capital of the kingdom—when Alpin was again defeated, his territories and all his men were taken, and Nectan obtained the kingdom of the Picts while Alpin fled.[^[387]] The sympathies of the Irish chronicler were with Alpin, as he terms this battle Cath truadh, an unfortunate battle. In the following year Angus attacked Nectan, who now bore the title of king of the Picts, and seems to have fled before him, as the final conflict took place on the bank of a lake formed by the river Spey, then termed Loogdeae, but now Loch Inch, between Nectan and an army Angus had sent in pursuit of him, in which Aengus’s family were victorious, and the officers of Nectan were slain,—Biceot son of Moneit, and his son, and Finguine son of Drostan, and Ferot son of Finguine, and many others.[^[388]] Angus himself, who now called himself king of the Picts, encountered Drust at a place called Dromaderg Blathmig, which has been identified as the Redhead of Angus, near Kinblethmont, where Drust was slain on the 12th day of August.[^[389]] The last battle fought in this struggle was in 731, between Brude, son of Aengus, and Talorcan, son of Congus, in which the latter was defeated and fled across Drumalban into Lorn,[^[390]] and in the following year Tighernac records the death of Nectan, son of Derili.

A.D. 731-761.
Aengus mac Fergus, king of the Picts.

Aengus was now firmly established on the Pictish throne, and his reign of thirty years is variously dated from 729 or from 731, according as the battles in the one or the other year are held to have finally confirmed his rule over the kingdom of the Picts. The death of Eachach, king of Dalriada, two years after, again opened the throne to the race of Loarn, and Muredach, the son of Ainbhceallach, assumed the chiefship of the Cinel Loarn, while Dungal, son of Selbaig, took possession of the throne of Dalriada; and in the same year the fleet of Dalriada was summoned to Ireland to assist Flaithbertach, king of Ireland, who had been defeated in battle by Aeda Allan, head of the Cinel Eoghan, and afterwards his successor on the throne of Ireland, and many of the Dalriads were slain and others drowned in the river Bann. Dungal, who appears to have accompanied them on his way to invade Culrenrigi, an island of the Cinel Eoghan, found Brude, the son of Aengus, in Toragh, a church founded by Saint Columba, in Tory island off the coast of Donegal, and violated the sanctuary by dragging him from it, which drew down upon him the wrath of Aengus, who in the following year invaded Dalriada and destroyed a fort called Dun Leithfinn, but which cannot now be identified, after having wounded Dungal, who fled to Ireland from his power. At the same time Tolarg, the son of Congus, was delivered into his hands by his own brother and drowned by his orders, and Talorgan, the son of Drostan, was taken near Dunolly and bound.[^[391]]

A still more formidable attack was made by Aengus, the Pictish king, upon Dalriada, two years after, when in 736 he is recorded to have laid waste the entire country, taken possession of its capital Dunad, burnt Creic, a fort, the remains of which are still to be seen on the promontory of Craignish, and thrown the two sons of Sealbach, Dungal and Feradach, into chains; and shortly after his son Brude, who had been taken prisoner by Dungal, the king of Dalriada, died.[^[392]] On this occasion Aengus appears to have obtained entire possession of Dalriada, and to have driven the two branches of its people, the Cinel Loarn under Muredach and the Cinel Gabhran under Alpin, the brother of Eochaidh, to extremity, for the former appears to have burst from Dalriada upon the Picts who inhabited the plain of Manann between the Carron and the Avon, in a desperate attempt to take possession of their country or to draw Aengus from Dalriada, and was met on the banks of the Avon at Cnuicc Coirpri in Calatros, now Carriber, where the Avon separates Lothian from Calatria, by Talorgan, the brother of Aengus, and defeated and pursued by him with his army, and many of his chief men slain.[^[393]]

At this time the Northumbrians were at enmity with the Picts. Ceoluulf, the king of Northumbria, had followed the fashion of the time, and become a monk in Lindisfarne in the year 737. He was succeeded by his cousin Eadberct, the son of his father’s brother; and we are told, in the short chronicle annexed to Bede, that in 740 Aedilbald, king of Mercia, unfairly laid waste part of Northumbria, its king, Eadberct, being occupied with his army against the Picts.[^[394]] It is probable that Aengus had excited the hostility of the king of Northumbria by stirring up the Picts of Lothian and Galloway to revolt, and that Eadberct may have encouraged if not invited the Scots of Dalriada to occupy their country. Alpin is said by all authorities to have reigned four years after Dungal, which brings us to the year 740, when he invaded Galloway with the part of the Dalriadic nation which followed him, and was slain there, after having laid waste and almost destroyed the country of the Picts. The Ulster Annals thus record it in 741:—Battle of Drum Cathmail between the Cruithnigh and the Dalriads against Innrechtach.[^[395]] The locality of this battle appears to have been in Galloway, not far from Kirkcudbright, and Innrechtach was probably the leader of the Galloway Picts. One of the Chronicles appears to have preserved the traditionary account of his death when it tells us that he was slain in Galloway, after he had destroyed it, by a single person who lay in wait for him in a thick wood overhanging the entrance of the ford of a river as he rode among his people.[^[396]] The scene of his death must have been on the east side of Loch Ryan, where a stream falls into the loch, on the north side of which is the farm of Laight, and on this farm is a large upright pillar stone, to which the name of Laight Alpin, or the grave of Alpin, is given.[^[397]] In the same year we have the short but significant record of the crushing of the Dalriads by Aengus, son of Fergus.[^[398]]