Celtic Scotland

by W. F. Skene

THE
KINGDOM OF
ALBAN
W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London

A comparison of this description of the sevenfold division of Alban with the other account contained in the same tract, and which we relegated to the reign of Nectan, king of the Picts, in the early part of the eighth century, will show the change which the two intervening centuries had produced in the aspect of the kingdom.

The first five provinces, the boundaries of which are given by the natural features of rivers, mountains, and sea, instead of by the old names of the districts included in each, now constituted what was, strictly speaking, the kingdom of Alban or Albania, at this time extending from the Forth to the Spey. The changes which had taken place within its bounds consisted, in the main, of the district of Gowrie being detached from that of Atholl, with which it had formed one of the provinces in the earlier state of them, and being combined with Fife and Fothrif, which had formed another of the earlier provinces, into one central region, the occupiers of which now appear as Scotti or Scots. It was, no doubt, the nucleus of the settlement of Scots which had taken place in the Pictish territory, and Gowrie became the heart of the kingdom of Alban in which its capital, Scone, was situated. West of it, in the province extending from the Forth to the Tay, were the old districts of Stratherne and Menteith, the people of which were still called the Men of Fortrenn. They were probably remains of the Pictish inhabitants, and had for their chief stronghold Dundurn, at the east end of Loch Earn. Forteviot, which had also belonged to them, and which is but a few miles from the west bank of the Tay, now belonged to the Scots, and was one of the seats of their kings. North of this central region was Atholl, and east of it a province extending from Hilef to the Dee, the northern part of which was occupied by a people called the Men of Moerne, also probably remains of the Pictish population, whose chief stronghold was Dun Fother or Dunotter; and north of them, extending from the Dee to the Spey, was the most northerly province included in the kingdom, which must still have been to a great extent Pictish.

The territory overrun by Thorstein the Red, and by Sigurd, earl of Orkney, consisted of the two earlier provinces beyond the Spey, which formed the northern boundary of the kingdom of Alban strictly so called. One of them, consisting of Muref and Ross, is included in the list of later provinces, as being still under its native rulers, but the other, Cathanesia, disappears, as being attached to the Norwegian earldom of Orkney. In place of it we have Arregaithel, now connected with the kingdom. The new province thus introduced must not, however, be absolutely identified, as is usual, with the kingdom of Dalriada, which was omitted from the list of the earlier provinces, as being then a separate kingdom of the Scots. It no doubt included it, but had a much more extensive signification, embracing the western districts extending from the Firth of Clyde to Loch Broom, and derives its name from being the border or coast region of the Gaedhel or Gael, a name now applied to all the inhabitants of Scotland who belonged to the Gaelic branch of the Celtic race.[^[489]] The organisation of these seven provinces appears to have been quite analogous to that of Ireland. The unit was the Tuath or tribe; several Tuaths formed a Mortuath or great tribe; two or more Mortuaths a Coicidh or province; and at the head of each was the Ri or king; while each province contributed a portion of its territory, at their point of junction, to form a central district, in which the capital of the whole county was placed, and the Ri or king, who was elected to be its Ardri or sovereign, had his seat of government. In this account the provinces are termed ‘regna’ or kingdoms. Under each province was the ‘subregio’ or mortuath, with its ‘Regulus’ or Ri mortuath, and composed, no doubt, of a certain number of tuaths or tribes, with their chiefs or Ri tuaith; and where the four southern provinces met, was the central district in which the capital, Scone, the seat of the Ardri Albain, was placed. At the period to which the description of the provinces given us by Andrew, bishop of Caithness, belongs, this organisation had been so far modified, that the title of Ri, or king, is no longer borne by the heads of the tuath or tribe, and the mortuath or subregion, but at the head of the tuath is the Toisech, and of the mortuath, the Mormaor. The latter dignity, however, was still hereditary, and in the district of Angus, which was more immediately under Scottish influence and authority, we find it descending in the male line, while, in the most northern district of the kingdom of Alban proper, the Pictish law of succession through females was still observed.[^[490]]

Beyond these seven provinces on the north were the islands of Orkney and Shetland, which were now colonised by the Norwegians. On the death of Sigurd, the first earl, he was succeeded by his son Guthorm, who reigned only one winter, and died childless. When Earl Rognwald, who had transferred the islands to his brother Sigurd, heard of his death and that of his son, he sent his son Hallad as earl, but he soon grew tired of it and resigned the earldom, which was then bestowed upon another son called Einar, who was earl at this time, and ruled over the Orkneys a long time.[^[491]] On the west of these provinces lay the Western Islands, which were likewise colonised by the Norwegians, and were now called the Inchigall or islands of the Galls or strangers, and the Gaelic inhabitants of the islands and districts under their rule were now called the Gallgaidhel, a name originally borne by the Gallwegians, and still used in its territorial sense as synonymous with Galloway.[^[492]] These islands, with the island of Man, were even more completely subdued and subjected to the Norwegian rule than any part of Ireland itself. They were eminently fitted to serve as a stronghold for the Northern Vikings, whose strength consisted almost entirely in their large and well-constructed ships, and may be regarded as the centre of the Norwegian settlements in the west, completely cutting Scotland off from Ireland, and severing the connection and arresting the intercourse between them.[^[493]] The Western Isles were termed by them the Sudreys, to distinguish them from the Orkneys or Northern Islands;[^[494]] and as Cathannia or Caithness and Sutherland had passed under the influence of the latter, and become more Norwegian than Scotch, so Galloway appears to have borne very much the same relation to the former. South of these provinces was on the east coast what had been the most northern district of Northumbria, but was now continually overrun by the king of Alban, to which the name of Saxonia was given; and on the west were the districts occupied by the Britons of Strathclyde. In the previous century and a half these had been narrowed to the Vale of the Clyde, with Alclyde or Dumbarton as its stronghold, and the rest of the British districts had, along with Galloway, been under the dominion of the Angles of Northumbria; but their rule had been relaxed during the period of disorganisation into which the Northumbrian kingdom had fallen, and had by degrees become little more than nominal, when the invasion of Bernicia by the Briton Giric, who for a time occupied the Pictish throne, led to the severance of these districts from Northumbria, and the whole of the British territory from the Clyde to the river Derwent in Cumberland became once more united under the rule of an independent king of the Britons.

The king at this time was Donald, but he appears to have been the last of the family claiming Roman descent which had hitherto given its kings to Alclyde; and on his death, which took place in the eighth year of the reign of King Constantin, the Britons appear to have found no one of their own race fitted to preserve their new-won independence; and as they owed it to a king of their own race who occupied the throne of Alban, so now they accepted a king from Alban by electing Donald, son of Aedh and brother of Constantin, to fill the throne of Alclyde.[^[495]]

As in the earlier years of his reign Constantin had seen his kingdom overrun by a horde of Norwegians, who were finally cut off and their leader slain, so now but a few years elapsed ere he found himself engaged in a serious encounter with a powerful band of the Danish pirates, with a more doubtful result. Their leader was Regnwald, the son or grandson of Inguar or Imhair, son of Ragnar Lodbrog, and the brother of that Sitriuc who had invaded the kingdom in the latter years of his predecessor Donald. This Regnwald, in company with two other leaders, Ottir the Jarl and Oswl Gracaban, broke into the country and ravaged Dunblane. This took place in the year 912.[^[496]] We next hear of Regnwald in the following year at the Isle of Man fighting a battle with Barid, son of Ottir, who is slain;[^[497]] and he appears to have been making his way to effect a settlement in Ireland, as in 916 we hear of him arriving with innumerable hordes at Loch da Caech or Waterford, in Ireland, where they settle for the time and ravage the whole of Ireland. Here they remain for two years, when the Irish succeed in driving them out of Munster. They then proceed to Alban and invade the country. Their object appears to have been to make their way to Northumberland, and the irruption was so formidable that Constantin united with Eldred, the lord of Bamborough and ruler over Bernicia, to resist them. The encounter took place on a moor near the mouth of the river Tyne, which flows through East Lothian, called, by the Pictish Chronicle, Tynemoor. The Danes divided themselves into four bands—one under Gothbrith, a brother of Regnwald; the second under the two earls Ottir and Gracaban; the third under the young lords; and the fourth under Regnwald himself, which remained in ambuscade. The Scots invoked the aid of St. Columba, and advanced to meet them with his crozier, called the Cathbuaidh or Battle-victory, as their standard, and it did not belie its name, for the three battalions were routed by the men of Alban, and there was a great slaughter of the Danes, with the two earls Ottir and Gracaban. Regnwald then advanced from his ambuscade with the fourth battalion, and attacked the men of Alban from behind and slew many of them, but neither Constantin nor any of his maormors fell by him. Night put an end to the battle, but the Scots had evidently failed in their object, for Regnwald made his way to the south and took possession of the territories of the lord of Bamborough.[^[498]]

This was the last invasion of Alban by the Northmen, who had harassed the kingdom during the whole period of the reigns of Kenneth mac Alpin and his successors down to Constantin. It was now to obtain a respite from their incessant invasions for upwards of a century; but if Constantin had no longer to defend his kingdom against the Northmen, he had to encounter a new enemy, and the kings of Alban were for the first time brought into contact with the growing power of the kings of Wessex. Their relations with the Anglic kings had hitherto been confined to those of Northumbria alone; but while the power of the latter state had been waning, that of Wessex had been increasing, and early in the ninth century these kings had in the person of Ecgbert obtained a supremacy over the other kingdoms south of the Humber. Their advance to the north, however, was arrested by their wars with the Danes, which lasted till the reign of the great Aelfred, who, after a fierce struggle, finally made a permanent peace with them in 878-883, which was only interrupted by a renewed struggle of four years from 893 to 897.

Aelfred is said by Simeon of Durham, on the death of Guthred, the Danish king of Deira, to have had the entire disposal of the whole kingdom of the Northumbrians, and to have appended to his own kingdom the provinces south of the East Angles and the Northumbrians;[^[499]] but it was just at this moment that his renewed struggle with the Danes commenced, and the Saxon Chronicle, in recording his death, says, ‘he was king over all the Anglic race, except the part that was under the dominion of the Danes.’

His successor, Eadward the Elder, was supreme over all the states south of the Humber, but made no attempt to advance beyond it.