Tighernac likewise records in the year 997 the death of Malcolm, son of Donald, king of the Northern Britons.[[545]] He was, no doubt, the son of that Donald who was king of the Cumbrians, when his kingdom was overrun by King Eadmund and bestowed upon Malcolm, king of Alban, and this shows that though the sovereignty was now vested in the Scottish kings, the line of provincial kings still remained in possession of their territory.
A.D. 997-1004.
Kenneth son of Dubh, king of Alban.
Constantin’s successor was Kenneth, son of Dubh, who was the son of Malcolm, and the elder brother of Kenneth, son of Malcolm, the predecessor of Constantin. He is termed by St. Berchan
The Donn, or brown, from strong Duncath,
which is probably the fort on one of the Sidlaw hills in the parish of Fearn, Forfarshire, now called Duncathlaw, which connects him with the same part of the kingdom with which the branch of the descendants of Kenneth mac Alpin to which he belonged were peculiarly connected. In his fourth year Aethelred, king of England, appears to have attempted to wrest the Cumbrian kingdom from him, as the Saxon Chronicle tells us that in the year 1000, ‘the king went to Cumbraland and ravaged it very nigh all, and his ships went out about Chester, and should have come to meet him but could not,’ while St. Berchan implies that he had successfully resisted the attempt.
He will scatter hosts of the Saxons.
After the day of battle he will possess.
Five years after this, we are told by the Ulster Annals that a battle took place between the men of Alban among themselves, in which Kenneth, son of Dubh, the king of Alban, fell.[[546]] This expression, ‘a battle among the men of Alban themselves,’ usually implies a war of succession, and the later chronicles tell us that he was slain by Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, in Moeghavard[[547]] or Monzievaird in Stratherne, and St. Berchan confirms this when he says
Eight years and a half, bright the deeds,
To the Donn in their sovereignty