During the last three reigns another actor had appeared on the scene, and this was Aidan the Scot. Before his accession to the throne of Dalriada in 574 he appears as one of the kinglets among the nations south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and seems to have had claims upon the district of Manau or Manann, peopled by the Picts. After his accession he allied himself with Baedan, son of Cairell, who then ruled over the Irish Cruithnigh, and called himself king of Ulster. By him the Saxons were driven out of Manann, and he retained possession of it till his death in 581.[[180]] Two years after Tighernac records the battle of Manann by Aidan, of which, however, we have no particulars except that he was victorious; and again, in 596, the battle of Chirchind, in which four of his sons were slain.[[181]] Adamnan evidently refers to this battle, which he calls ‘the battle of the Miathi,’ when he tells us in his Life of Saint Columba that while the Saint was in Iona ‘he suddenly said to his minister, Diormit, “Ring the bell.” The brethren, startled at the sound, proceeded quickly to the church, with the holy prelate himself at their head. There he began, on bended knees, to say to them, “Let us pray now earnestly to the Lord for this people and king Aidan, for they are engaging in battle at this moment.” Then, after a short time, he went out of the oratory, and, looking up to heaven, said, “The barbarians are fleeing now, and to Aidan is given the victory—a sad one though it be;” and the blessed man in his prophecy declared the number of the slain in Aidan’s army to be three hundred and three men.’[[182]] It is difficult to fix the site of this battle, but it was no doubt fought against the Southern Picts, who seem to have been still known by the name of Miathi, perhaps the same as Mæatæ.
Battle of Degsastane or Dawstane.
In 603 Rhydderch appears to have died, and Bede tells us that Aidan came against Aedilfrid with a large and powerful army. It consisted no doubt of a combined force of Scots and Britons, at whose head Aidan was placed as Guledic, and he appears also to have had the aid of Irish Picts. He advanced against the Bernician kingdom, and entered Aedilfrid’s territories by the vale of the Liddel, from the upper end of which a pass opens to the vale of the Teviot, and another to that of the North Tyne. The great rampart called the Catrail, which separated the Anglic kingdom from that of the Strathclyde Britons, crosses the upper part of the vale of the Liddel. Its remains appear at Dawstaneburn, whence it goes on to Dawstanerig, and here, before he could cross the mountain range which separates Liddesdale from these valleys, Aidan was encountered by Aedilfrid and completely defeated, his army being cut to pieces at a place called by Bede ‘Degsastan,’ in which we can recognise the name of Dawstane, still known there. On the part of Aedilfrid, his brother Theobald, called by Tighernac, Eanfraith, was slain by Maeluma, the son of Baedan, king of Ulster, and the body of men he led into battle cut off.[[183]] On Nine Stone Rig, opposite Dawstane, there still exists a circle of nine stones; and on the farm of Whisgills, some miles lower down the valley, there is an enormous cairn in the middle of an extensive moor, and near it a large stone set on end about five feet high, called the standing stone; and at Milnholm, on the Liddel, an ancient cross of one stone. These are probably memorials of the battle and flight which followed it. It was fought within sight of the ancient hill-fort which we have identified as Coria, one of the cities of the Ottadeni in the second century.
Bede adds that this battle was fought in the year 603, and the eleventh year of the reign of Aedilfrid, which lasted for twenty-four years, and that from this time forth till his own day (that is, till 731), none of the kings of the Scots ventured to come in battle against the nation of the Angles, and thus terminated the contest between these tribes for the possession of the northern province substantially in favour of the latter people, who under Aedilfrid now retained possession of the eastern districts from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, as far west as the river Esk.
[102]. Hibernia is first mentioned as being also called Scotia by Isidore of Seville in 580.
[103]. Procop. Bell. Goth. iv. 20. (A.D. 540-550.)
[104]. Steph. Byzant. De Urbibus (A.D. 490).
[105]. Exceptis diversorum prolixioribus promontoriorum tractibus, quæ arcuatis oceani sinibus ambuitur.—Hist. Gild. § 3.
[106]. Quantum tamen potuero, non tam ex scripturis patriæ scriptorumve monimentis—quippe quæ, vel si qua fuerint, aut ignibus hostium exusta, aut civium exsilii classe longius deportata, non compareant,—quam transmarina relatione, quæ crebris irrupta intercapedinibus, non satis claret.—Hist. Gild. 4.