Suppressed century of Dalriadic history.
By all the Chronicles compiled subsequent to the eleventh century, Alpin, son of Eochaidh, is made the last of the kings of Dalriada; but the century of Dalriadic history which follows his death in 741 is suppressed, and his reign is brought down to the end of the century by the insertion of spurious kings. The true era of the genuine kings who reigned over Dalriada can be ascertained by the earlier lists given us by Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan in the eleventh century, and the Annals of Tighernac and of Ulster, which are in entire harmony with each other. These earlier lists place nine kings during this century which followed the death of Alpin, whose united reigns amount to ninety-eight years. There is unfortunately a hiatus in the Annals of Tighernac from the year 765 to the year 973; but during the thirty years from 736 to 765 Tighernac records no king of Dalriada. In the remaining seventy-six years of the suppressed century, the Annals of Ulster mention only three kings of Dalriada, the first of whom corresponds with the second name in the list of nine kings given by the earlier Chroniclers, and he may have been a Scot;[[399]] but the seven who follow him bear the most unequivocal marks of having been Picts, and this shows us that the effect of Aengus’s repeated invasions and final conquest of Dalriada was to make it a Pictish province: his entire possession of the country having led the remains of both the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran to seek settlements elsewhere; while during the reign of his successor one attempt only appears to have been made to restore the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada.[[400]]
The list of Pictish kings in the later Chronicles bears also marks of having been manipulated for a purpose, but here fortunately we have the trustworthy guide of the Pictish Chronicle, which belongs to the tenth century, and is evidently untainted. For the Anglic history our invaluable guide Bede leaves us in 731, and the short chronicle annexed to his work in 765, as does also the continuator of Nennius in 738; and we have now to resort to the works of Simeon of Durham, as the best source remaining to look to for Northumbrian events. For the Britons of Alclyde we have merely the short notices contained in the chronicle annexed to Nennius, usually termed the Annales Cambriæ, and the Welsh Chronicle called the Brut y Tywysogyon.
These nations had now resumed their normal relation to each other—east against west—the Picts and Angles again in alliance, and opposed to them the Britons and the Scots. Simeon of Durham tells us that in 744 a battle was fought between the Picts and the Britons, but, by the Picts, Simeon usually understands the Picts of Galloway, and this battle seems to have followed the attack upon them by Alpin and his Scots. It was followed by a combined attack upon the Britons of Alclyde by Eadberct of Northumbria, and Aengus, king of the Picts. The chronicle annexed to Bede tells us that in 750 Eadberct added the plain of Cyil with other regions to his kingdom.[[401]] This is evidently Kyle in Ayrshire, and the other regions were probably Carrick and Cuninghame, so that the king of Northumbria added to his possessions of Galloway on the north side of the Solway the whole of Ayrshire. In the same year the Picts of the plain of Manann and the Britons encountered each other at Mocetauc or Magedauc, now Mugdoch in Dumbartonshire, where a great battle was fought between them, in which Talorgan, the brother of Aengus, who had been made king of the outlying Picts, was slain by the Britons.[[402]] Two years after, Teudubr, the son of Bile, king of Alclyde, died, and a battle is fought between the Picts themselves at a place called by Tighernac ‘Sreith,’ in the land of Circin, that is, in the Strath in the Mearns, in which Bruide, the son of Maelchu, fell. As his name is the same as the Bruide, son of Maelchu, who was king of the northern Picts in the sixth century, this was probably an attack upon Aengus’s kingdom by the northern Picts.[[403]]
Eadberct, king of Northumbria, and Aengus, king of the Picts, now united for the purpose of subjecting the Britons of Alclyde entirely to their power, and in 756 they led an army to Alclyde, and there received the submission of the Britons on the first day of August in that year. Ten days afterwards, however, Simeon of Durham records that almost the whole army perished as Eadberct was leading it from Ovania, probably Avendale or Strathaven in the vale of the Clyde, through the hill country to Niwanbyrig or Newburgh.[[404]] The Britons of Alclyde thus passed a second time under subjection to the Angles, which continued some time, as in 760 the death of Dunnagual, the son of Teudubr is recorded, but he is not termed king of Alclyde.[[405]] In the year 761 Tighernac records the death of Aengus mac Fergus, king of the Picts, after a reign of thirty years; and the chronicle annexed to Bede, which places his death in the same year, adds that ‘from the beginning of his reign to the end of it he showed himself a sanguinary tyrant of the most cruel actions.’[[406]]
Foundation of St. Andrews.
Nevertheless, it is to the reign of this Angus, son of Fergus, that the foundation of the monastery of Kilrimont or St. Andrews properly belongs. According to the earliest form of the legend, the king of the Picts, Ungus son of Uirguist by name, with a large army, attacks the Britannic nations inhabiting the south of the island, and cruelly wasting them arrives at the plain of Merc (Merse). There he winters, and being surrounded by the people of almost the whole island with a view to destroy him with his army, he is, while walking with his seven ‘comites,’ surrounded by a divine light, and a voice, purporting to proceed from St. Andrew, promises him victory if he will dedicate the tenth part of his inheritance to God and St. Andrew. On the third day he divides his army into twelve bodies, and proving victorious returns thanks to God and St. Andrew for the victory, and wishing to fulfil his vow, he is uncertain what part of his territory he is especially to dedicate as the principal city to St. Andrew, when one of those who had come from Constantinople with the relics of St. Andrew arrives at the summit of the King’s Mount, which is called Rigmund. The king comes with his army at a place called Kartenan, is met by Regulus the monk, a pilgrim from Constantinople, who arrives with the relics of St. Andrew, at the harbour called Matha. They fix their tents where the royal hall now is, and King Aengus gives the place and city to God and St. Andrew to be the head and mother of all the churches in the kingdom of the Picts.[[407]] The later and more elaborate legend contained in the Register of St. Andrews tells substantially the same tale, but adds that Hungus, the great king of the Picts, fought against Adhelstan, king of the Saxons, and was encamped at the mouth of the river Tyne, and that St. Andrew appeared to him in a dream; that the king of the Picts divided his army into seven bodies, and defeated the Saxons, slaying their king Adhelstan, whose head he cut off. King Hungus returns with his army to his own country, taking Adhelstan’s head with him, and affixed it on a wooden pillar at the harbour called Ardchinnechun, now the Queen’s Harbour, after which the Saxons never ventured to attack the Picts. In the meantime Regulus the bishop, with the relics of St. Andrew, arrives in the land of the Picts, at a place formerly called Muckros, and now Kilrimont. From thence they go to Fortevieth, where they find the three sons of Hungus, Howonam and Nectan and Phinguineghert, and because their father was then engaged in an expedition into the regions of Argathelia and they were anxious for his life, they dedicate to God and St. Andrew the tenth part of the city of Fortevieth. They then go to Moneclatu, now called Monichi, and here they find Queen Finche, who bears a child to King Hungus called Mouren, and Queen Finche gives the house and whole royal palace to God and St. Andrew. They then cross the Mounth, and come to a lake called Doldencha, now Chondrochedalvan. Here they meet King Hungus returning from his expedition, who does honour to the relics of St. Andrew, and gives that place to God and St. Andrew, and builds a church there. The king then crosses the Mounth and comes to Monichi, where he builds a church, and then to Fortevieth, where he also builds a church, and after that to ‘Chilrymont,’ where he dedicates a large part of that place to God and St. Andrew for the purpose of building churches and oratories.[[408]] It is unnecessary to follow this legend further. The places here mentioned can be identified without difficulty, and are simply those where churches dedicated to St. Andrew existed. Chilrymont is the modern St. Andrews, the principal church dedicated to the apostle St. Andrew in honour of his relics. Monichi is Eglis Monichti in the county of Forfar, also dedicated to St. Andrew, and Chondrochedalvan is Kindrochet in Braemar, which is also dedicated to him. The war with the Saxons refers to that period in the reign of Aengus when he was at war with Eadberct, king of Northumberland; the expedition into Argathelia, to his invasion of Dalriada in 736. His sons living at Fortevieth, and giving a tenth part of the city, shows his connection with the province called Fortrenn, in which it was situated; and the appearance for the first time during Aengus’s reign of an abbot of Ceannrigmonaidh, whose death Tighernac records in 747, fixes the foundation to his reign.[[409]]
These legends must, of course, be taken only for what they are worth, and in analysing them it is necessary to distinguish between that portion which belongs to the history of the relics of St. Andrew and what is obviously connected with the foundation of St. Andrews. The events in this portion of the legend are thus not inconsistent with those of the reign of Aengus, son of Fergus, and we may accept them so far as to conclude that, as in the reign of Nectan, son of Derili, the Columban monks had been superseded by a clergy from that portion of the Irish Church which had conformed to the Roman usages, and from the Anglic Church established by Wilfrid, and the veneration of Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles, had replaced the dedication of the churches to their local founders, according to the custom of the Columban Church; so in the reign of Aengus, son of Fergus, another clerical immigration from the same quarter had brought in the veneration of St. Andrew, and founded a church in honour of his relics at the place first called ‘Ceannrighmonaigh,’ and afterwards from the church ‘Cellrighmonaidh,’ corrupted to Kilrymont, which commended itself so much to the Pictish nation that it, in its turn, superseded the veneration of St. Peter. St. Andrew was adopted as their patron saint, and the church of St. Andrews became their national church; and these legends emerged from this church in the form we have them, as they felt the importance of claiming for its foundation an antiquity superior to that of Iona.
A.D. 761-763.
Bruide mac Fergusa, king of the Picts.
Aengus was succeeded, in accordance with the Pictish law, by his brother Bruide, who reigned only two years, and died in 763. He is termed by Tighernac king of Fortrenn.[[410]] |A.D. 763-775.
Ciniod, son of Wredech, king of the Picts.| His successor was Ciniod, son of Wredech, who reigned twelve years. Eadberct, the king of Northumbria, abdicated his throne in 758, and was succeeded by his son Osulf, who had reigned only one year when he was slain, and by his own people; and in 759, Ethelwald, called Moll, became king; and in the third year Simeon tells us a battle was fought between him and Oswine, one of his generals, at Eldun near Melrose,[[411]] in which Oswine was slain, which shows that Ethelwald’s kingdom still extended at least as far as East Lothian. After a six years’ reign, Ethelwald was succeeded in 765 by Alcred, a descendant of Ida through a concubine. Ciniod had reigned only five years over the Picts, when a battle is recorded in Fortrenn between him and Aedh.[[412]] This is the first appearance of that Aed called by Flann Mainistrech the plunderer, and by the Albanic Duan the high lord,[[413]] and is the first of those kings of Dalriada who appear in the Annals of Ulster, where he is termed Aed Finn, son of Ecdach. He was probably a Scot who attempted to restore the Dalriadic kingdom after the strong grasp of Angus mac Fergus over it was withdrawn. Aedh’s death is recorded in 778, and in 781 that of his brother Fergus, but the latter does not appear among the list of kings in Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan, and therefore was either only nominally king or reigned in Irish Dalriada, and three years after the last tie which bound the Scots to Dalriada was severed. The founders of the colony, the three sons of Erc, are stated in all the chronicles to have been buried in Iona, and in 784 their remains were exhumed and carried to the city of Taillten, in Meath, in Ireland, the ancient cemetery of the kings of Ulster.[[414]]