On his death, which took place in 820,[[425]] his brother Aengus, who had ruled over Dalriada during the last four years of Constantin’s reign, succeeded him as king of the Picts, and ruled over both kingdoms for the first five years of his reign, in the last year of which we find recorded the martyrdom of Blathmhaic, son of Flann, by the Gentiles in Hi Coluimcille. During the remainder of his reign we find Dalriada governed successively by Aed, son of Boanta, and by his own son Eoganan. It is to this Aengus, son of Fergus, that the later chronicles have erroneously attributed the foundation of St. Andrews; but as the kings of this family are termed kings of Fortrenn, and are found bearing the same names, it is probable that they belonged to the royal family of which the first Aengus, son of Fergus, was the founder, and which appears to have been peculiarly connected with the province of Fortrenn. The death of Aengus, son of Fergus, is recorded by the Ulster Annals in 834,[[426]] and again we find a conflict between the old Pictish law of succession and the custom more recently introduced of permitting the sons of previous kings to occupy the throne, for the Pictish Chronicle tells us that Drest, son of Constantin, and Talorgan, son of Wthoil, reigned jointly for three years. The former, who was the son of Constantin mac Fergus, was probably accepted by the southern Picts, while those of the northern provinces were more tenacious of the old law, and supported a king the name of whose father was not borne by any of the previous kings.
A.D. 832.
Alpin the Scot attacks the Picts, and is slain.
We find, however, at this time a third competitor, who appears to have asserted his right to rule over the southern Picts. This was Alpin, of Scottish race by paternal descent, but whose Pictish name shows that his maternal descent was from that race. We are told in the Chronicle of Huntingdon that ‘in the year 834 there was a conflict between the Scots and Picts at Easter, and many of the more noble of the Picts were slain, and Alpin, king of the Scots, remained victorious, but being elated with his success, he was, in another battle fought on the 20th of July in the same year, defeated and decapitated.’[[427]]
Alpin seems to have made this attempt at the head of those Scots who were still to be found in the country, and was probably supported by a part of the Pictish nation who were favourable to his cause. Tradition points to the Carse of Gowrie as the scene of his attempt, and Pitalpin, now Pitelpie, near Dundee, as the locality of the battle in which he was defeated and slain; and the occurrence of a place near St. Andrews called Rathalpin or the Fort of Alpin, now Rathelpie, seems to indicate that it was in the province of ‘Fib’ or Fife that he found his support and established himself after his first success.
A.D. 836-839.
Eoganan, son of Aengus.
After the two kings Drest and Talorgan, who are said to have reigned jointly, the Pictish Chronicle has Uven, son of Unuist, who reigned three years. He is obviously the Eoganan, son of Aengus, who ruled over Dalriada for thirteen years, and probably succeeded Drest as king of the southern Picts. We find, therefore, the principle of male succession making a further step in advance, as the sons of both the previous kings, Constantin and Angus, thus reign after them over part at least of the Pictish nation; but in his reign the Picts were doomed to receive so crushing a blow from the Danish pirates that it seems to have almost exterminated the family connected with Fortrenn, and paved the way for the successful attempt of the son of Alpin the Scot to place himself on the throne of the Picts. In the ancient Tract on the wars of the Gaedheal with the Galls we are told that in the year 839 there came to Dublin threescore and five ships, and Leinster was plundered by them to the sea and the plain of Bregia, extending from Dublin to Drogheda. After the plundering of Leinster and Bregia they went northwards, when the people of Dalriada gave battle to this fleet, and Eoganan, son of Aengus, king of Dalriada, was slain in that battle. The Danes seem from this to have attempted to invade Scotland through Dalriada; but in recording the same event the Ulster Annals tell us that a battle was fought by the Gentiles against the men of Fortrenn, in which Eoganan son of Aengus, Bran son of Aengus, Aed son of Boanta, and others innumerable, were slain.[[428]] These two notices taken in combination very clearly show us that at this time the people of Dalriada and the men of Fortrenn were the same, and that Eoganan, the son of Aengus, ruled over both.
A.D. 839.
Kenneth MacAlpin invades Pictavia.
The Chronicle of Huntingdon tells us that ‘Kynadius succeeded his father Alpin in his kingdom, and that in the seventh year of his reign, which corresponds with the year 839, while the Danish pirates, having occupied the Pictish shores, had crushed the Picts, who were defending themselves, with a great slaughter, Kynadius, passing into their remaining territories, turned his arms against them, and having slain many, compelled them to take flight, and was the first king of the Scots who acquired the monarchy of the whole of Alban, and ruled in it over the Scots.’[[429]] The allusion here to the defeat of the men of Fortrenn by the Danes is obvious, and this account certainly conveys the impression that Kenneth acted in concert with them, if he did not merely take advantage of the great defeat of the Picts to renew the attempt his father had made.
Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan make Kenneth the immediate successor of Eoganan in Dalriada, but the Pictish Chronicle places two kings as reigning over the Picts—Wrad, son of Bargoit, who reigned three years, and Bred one year; so that, while the events of the year 839 appear to have placed him in possession of Dalriada, they did not, as the Chronicle of Huntingdon implies, establish him on the throne of the Picts. Bred is the last of the line of Pictish kings in the Pictish Chronicle, and the reigns of himself and his predecessor, amounting to four years, bring us to the year 844. This was the twelfth year of Kenneth’s reign, and the Chronicle of Huntingdon tells us that ‘in his twelfth year Kenneth encountered the Picts seven times in one day, and having destroyed many, confirmed the kingdom to himself.’[[430]]
A.D. 844.
Kenneth mac Alpin becomes king of the Picts.