Cináed "Cináed mac Ai..." mac Ailpín King of Scots and Picts (± 810-859) » Family tree Homs

Personal data Cináed "Cináed mac Ai..." mac Ailpín King of Scots and Picts

Alternative names: King Kenneth I of Scotland, Kenneth I MacAlpin King of Scotland, /Macalpi, The Hardy 'The Conqueror' 'Kenneth I
Nickname is Cináed mac Ai....
He was born about 810 TO ABT 810 in Iona, Argyllshire, ScotlandIona, Argyllshire.
Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church.
Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church.
Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on October 17, 1893.
Emigrated, reigned 850-860 over Scots &, Picts.
Occupations:

about 834 in King of Dalriad Scots.
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about 843 in King of Picts.
{geni:current} 0
about 843 TO ABT 858 in King of Picts and Scots.
{geni:current} 0
about 846 in King of Alban.
{geni:current} 0

Resident:

Scotland.
Scotland.

He died on 13 FEB 858 TO ABT 859 in Forteviot, Perthshire, ScotlandForteviot, Perthshire.
He is buried about 858 in Isle of Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland.
A child of Alpín mac Eochaid and sister of Constantine king of the Picts
This information was last updated on June 16, 2012.

Household of Cináed "Cináed mac Ai..." mac Ailpín King of Scots and Picts

He is married to Mrs Kenneth I Scotland.

They got married about 830 at Iona, Argylshire, ScotlandIona.

Child(ren):

Constantine King of Picts and Scots King of Picts and Scots ± 839-± 877
Máel Muire ni Cináeda ± 860-± 912

Notes about Cináed "Cináed mac Ai..." mac Ailpín King of Scots and Picts

Kenneth I, called MacAlpin (flourished 832-60), traditionally, the founder and first king of Scotland. About 834 he succeeded his father, Alpin (reigned about 832-34), as king of the Gaelic Scots in Galloway. In a series of battles (841-46) he conquered the Pictish Kingdom and, uniting it with his own, called his expanded domains Scotland. The kingdom is sometimes called Scone, after Kenneth's capital. In later years, the king led six invasions of Lothian, southern Scotland, then part of Saxon Northumbria.

King of Pictland, Dalriada, Scotland, Crowned in 844

Descendant of the Picti sh royal family.

Acceded: 839 Died: 859, Forteviot, Perthshire Interred: Isle of Iona, Scotland Notes: Burke calls him Kenneth II. Kings of Picts & Alba. King of Galloway. See Europäisch Stammtafeln Bund II tafel 67.

King of All Scotland, Conqueror of the Picts

"The first sole sovereign of Scotland" who framed the "MacAlpine Laws".

Succeeded father in Galloway, 834; as King of Dalriad Scots, subdued the Picts and became first Scots King of Picts in 843, became King of Alban, 846; removed seat of government from Argyll to Scone; invaded Lothian. Ruled lands north of the Fourth Clyde.

Kenneth 1
Also called KENNETH MACALPIN (d. c. 858, Forteviot, Scot.).
MacAlpin was considered the first king of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts and so of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and Clyde rivers. Ancient Gaelic-speaking people of northern Ireland who settled in Scotland sometime in the 5th century AD. Originally (until the 10th century) "Scotia" denoted Ireland, and the inhabitants of Scotia were Scotti. The area of Argyll and Bute, where the migrant Scots settled, became known as the kingdom of Dalriada, the counterpart to Dalriada in Ireland. St. Columba inaugurated Christianity among them and helped raise Aidan to the kingship of Scottish Dalriada in 574.The Scots then expanded eastward into what came to be known as the Forest of Atholl and Strath Earn (valley of the River Earn) and northward into the area of Elgin. The union of the lands of modern Scotland began in 843, when Kenneth I MacAlpin, king of the Scots (Dalriada), became also king of the Picts and, within a few years, joined "Pict-land" to "Scot-land" to form the kingdom of Alba. By 1034, by inheritanceand warfare, the Scots had secured hegemony over not only Alba but also Lothian, Cumbria, and Strathclyde--roughly the territory of modern mainland Scotland. In 1305 the kingdom was divided into Scotland, Lothian, and Galloway; in the 14th century Scotland came to be the name for the whole land, and all its inhabitants were called Scots, whatevertheir origin.
Little is known about his father Alpin, though tradition credits him with a victory over the Picts who killed him three months later, displaying his severed head at their camp. (c.834). Kenneth succeeded him in Dalriada and ruled in Pictavia also, ruling for 16 years. This period is obscure but the gradual union of the two kingdoms from 843 is nodoubt due to much intermarriage. By the Pictish marriage custom, inheritance passed through the female. Nevertheless, Kenneth probably madesome conquests among the eastern Picts and possibly invaded Lothian and burned Dunbar and Melrose. After attacks on Iona by Vikings he removed relics of St. Columba, probably in 849 or 850, to Dunkeld, which became the headquarters of the Scottish Columban church. He died at Forteviot, not far from Scone in Pictish territory, and was buried on theisland of Iona.
Dalriada
Dalridia is the Gaelic kingdom that, at least from the 5th century AD, extended on both sides of the North Channel and composed the northern part of the present County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and part of the Inner Hebrides and Argyll, in Scotland. In earlier times, Argyll had received extensive immigration from the Irish, known as Scoti, of Northern Ireland and had become an Irish (i.e., "Scottish") area. In the latter half of the 5th century, the ruling family of Irish Dalriadacrossed into Scottish Dalriada and made Dunadd and Dunolly its chief strongholds. Irish Dalriada gradually declined; and after the Viking invasions early in the 9th century, it lost all political identity. Despite heavy onslaughts from the Picts, the Dalriada of the Scottish mainland continued to expand. In the mid-9th century its king Kenneth I MacAlpin brought the Picts permanently under Dalriadic rule, and thereafter the whole country was known as Scotland.
Picts
(from Latin Picti, "painted"). One of an ancient people who lived in what is now Eastern and Northeastern Scotland, from Caithness to Fife.Their name may refer to their custom of body painting or possibly tattooing.
Probably descendants of pre-Celtic Aborigines, the Picts were first noticed in AD 297, when a Roman writer spoke of the "Picts and Irish [Scots] attacking" Hadrian's Wall. Their warfare with the Romans during the occupation was almost continual. Then or soon after, they seem to have developed two kingdoms north of the Firth of Forth, a Southern and a Northern, but by the 7th century there was a united "Pict-land," which already had been penetrated by Christianity. In 843, Kenneth I MacAlpin, king of the Scots (centred in Argyll and Bute), also became king of the Picts, uniting their two lands in a new kingdom of Alba, which evolved into Scotland.
The Pictish kingdom is notable for the stylized but vigorous beauty of its carved memorial stones and crosses. The round stone towers known as Brochs, or "Pictish Towers," and the underground stone houses called Weems, or "Picts' houses," however, both predate the kingdom of Scotland.
Argyll
Also called ARGYLLSHIRE, Gaelic EARRAGHAIDHEAL ("Coastland of the Gael"), former county, western Scotland, since the reorganization of 1975largely in Argyll and Bute district, of Strathclyde region.
In the 2nd century AD Argyll was invaded by Scots (Celts) who came from Ireland, then known as Scotia. The earliest Celtic settlement is assigned to the 3rd century, when a victorious chief, Cairbre Riada, occupied lands in the area later known as Mid Argyll. These lands, calledDalriada, were reinforced from time to time by new bands of immigrants from Celtic Ireland. Dalriada developed gradually as an independentkingdom under ambitious rulers and maintained a separate existence until 843, when one of them, Kenneth I MacAlpin, united the men of Dalriada with the Picts of central Scotland and founded a new hybrid kingdom from which Scotland ultimately emerged. Later, Norsemen obtained control and held sway until 1266, when Argyll was added to the Scottish kingdom. Prior to this, however, semi-independent chiefs of mixed Celtic and Norse ancestry acquired power in Argyll and the Western Isles. One of them, Somerled, really the first lord of the Isles, was killed near Renfrew in 1164 on an expedition against the Scottish king, but the lordship of the Isles was held by his descendants until 1493, when John, the last MacDonald lord of the Isles, was deprived of his vast estates by King James IV. The Campbells of Lochow (now Lochawe) rose onthe ruin of the MacDonalds, and their chiefs became earls of Argyll. The combined prominence of the 9 Campbell earls of Argyll in Scottish history and the subsequent 11 dukes of Argyll in the history of Great Britain is perhaps unsurpassed by any other single Scottish family.
The failure of the second Jacobite rising (1745), in which The peopleof Argyll with few exceptions fought for the Hanoverian George II andagainst the Stuart pretender, was followed by important political andeconomic changes. The abolition of the heritable jurisdictions in 1747, prior to which Highland lords and chiefs had been petty kings over their tenants and followers. The rents of tenants became of greater importance to their masters than the former friendly loyalties. Sentimental ties were broken, and the small farms and holdings that had supported large numbers of occupants on a meagre scale of subsistence had togive way to larger farms stocked with flocks of sheep, immediately but only temporarily more profitable to their owners. Throughout the Highlands, including Argyll, thousands of small tenants were displaced."
Religion played an important role. In religious history, St. Columba and other Celtic Irish missionaries from Iona spread the Gospel throughout the kingdom of Dalriada in the 6th century. During the first Scottish Reformation (1560), the 5th Earl of Argyll played a prominent part as the most influential Protestant layman in Scotland. In subsequent conflicts between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, the latter prevailed and is still the most common form of church government in the Argyll region.
SAINT Columba
Also called COLUM, or COLUMCILLE traditionally credited with the mainrole in the conversion of Scotland to Christianity.
Columba studied under Saints Finnian of Moville and Finnian of Clonard and was ordained priest about 551. He founded churches and the famous monasteries Daire Calgaich, in Derry, and Dair-magh, in Durrow.
Columba and his 12 disciples erected a church and a monastery on the island of Iona as their springboard for the conversion of Scotland to Christianity. It was regarded as the mother house and its Abbots as the Chief Ecclesiastical Rulers even of the Bishops. Columba gave formal benediction and inauguration to Aidan MacGabrain of Dunadd as King of Dalriada.
Columba accompanied Aidan to Ireland (575) and took a leading part ina council held at Druim Cetta, which determined the position of the ruler of Dalriada in relation to the king of Ireland. The last years ofColumba's life appear to have been spent mainly in Iona, where he wasalready revered as a Saint. He and his associates and successors spread the gospel more than any other contemporary group of religious pioneers in Britain.
Three Latin hymns may be attributed to Columba with some degree of certainty. Excavations in 1958
and 1959 revealed Columba's living cell and the outline of the original monastery.
Alba
The kingdom of Alba was formed by the union of the Picts and Scots under Kenneth I MacAlpin in 843. Their territory ranged from modern Argyll and Bute to Caithness, across much of southern and central Scotland. This was one of the few areas in the British Isles to withstand theinvasions of the Vikings. The ancient link with Ireland (from which the Celtic Scots had emigrated) was broken as a cordon of Scandinavian settlements were established in the Western Isles and Ireland. With southern England also conquered by the Norsemen and Danes, Alba was leftisolated. With the withdrawal of the Norsemen, England, under the English, then launched invasions against Alba but were ultimately repelled by Malcolm II at the Battle of Carham (1016/18). When Malcolm's grandson and successor Duncan I came to the throne in 1034, he united Alba with Strathclyde, Cumbria, and Lothian. Thereafter, the name Alba began to fade away, and every king, at least in retrospect, was normally styled "king of Scots." The first recorded use was by Duncan II, the "Rex Scotie," in 1094.
Iona
An Island of the Inner Hebrides, Strathclyde region, Scotland. It is3 miles (5 km) long by 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide, with its highest point just under 330 feet (100 m) above sea level, and is separated by the Sound of Iona (0.7 miles [1.1 km] wide) from the large island of Mull. Most of the island is rough grazing land, but there is some permanent pasture, and sheep and cattle are raised. Tourism and crofting (small-scale farming) are the main economic activities.
Iona was readily accessible by sea from Ireland, and it was here thatSt. Columba landed in AD 563 to begin his Christianization of Scotland. From his monastery on Iona, Columba established the Celtic church and sent missionaries throughout mainland Scotland. He died in 597 and was buried on the island.
During the period from 795 to the late 10th century, the pagan Norsemen repeatedly invaded the island. The original monastery was burned down and the monks murdered. Iona's insecurity led to the transfer in 849 of the relics of St. Columba to the safety of Kells in Ireland. By the 11th century the monastery had been rebuilt and was included by the Norsemen (by now converted to Christianity) in their diocese of Manand the Isles. In 1154 it was put under the archbishop of Trondheim, in Norway, and it retained this status until 1266, when the Hebrides were ceded to Scotland.
Throughout centuries of invasion and warfare, the reputation of the island as a holy place flourished, and it became the burial place of Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings. The monastery was suppressed afterthe Clearances, and in 1693 the island passed into the overlordship of the Campbells of Argyll, until 1899, when the 8th Duke of Argyll presented the ruined abbey to the Church of Scotland. The abbey was gradually rebuilt and was opened again for public worship in 1912.
In 1938 George MacLeod, a Glasgow minister, founded the Iona Community.
SAINT Columba
Also called COLUM, or COLUMCILLE traditionally credited with the mainrole in the conversion of Scotland to Christianity.
Columba studied under Saints Finnian of Moville and Finnian of Clonard and was ordained priest about 551. He founded churches and the famous monasteries Daire Calgaich, in Derry, and Dair-magh, in Durrow.
Columba and his 12 disciples erected a church and a monastery on the island of Iona as their springboard for the conversion of Scotland to Christianity. It was regarded as the mother house and its Abbots as the Chief Ecclesiastical Rulers even of the Bishops. Columba gave formal benediction and inauguration to Aidan MacGabrain of Dunadd as King of Dalriada.
Columba accompanied Aidan to Ireland (575) and took a leading part ina council held at Druim Cetta, which determined the position of the ruler of Dalriada in relation to the king of Ireland. The last years ofColumba's life appear to have been spent mainly in Iona, where he wasalready revered as a Saint. He and his associates and successors spread the gospel more than any other contemporary group of religious pioneers in Britain.
Three Latin hymns may be attributed to Columba with some degree of certainty. Excavations in 1958
and 1959 revealed Columba's living cell and the outline of the original monastery.
The consolidation of the Scottish and Pictish power under one supremechief, enabled these nations not only to repel foreign aggression, but afterwards to enlarge their territories beyond the Forth, which hadhitherto formed, for many ages, the Pictish boundary on the south.
Although the power of the tribes to the north of the Forth was greatly augmented by the union which had taken place, yet all the genius and warlike energy of Kenneth were necessary to protect him and his people from insult. Ragnor Lodbrog (i.e. Ragnor of the Shaggy Bones), with his fierce Danes infested the country round the Tay on the one side, and the Strathclyde Britons on the other, wasted the adjoining territories, and burnt Dunblane. Yet Kenneth overcame these embarrassments, and made frequent incursions into the Saxon territories in Lothian,and caused his foes to tremble. After a brilliant and successful reign, Kenneth died at Forteviot, the Pictish capital, 7 miles S.W. of Perth, on the 6th of February, 859, after a reign of twenty three years. Kenneth, it is said, removed the famous stone which now sustains the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey (now returned to Scotland), from the ancient seat of the Scottish monarchy in Argyle, to Scone. Kenneth(but according to some Constantine, the Pictish king, in 820), builta church at Dunkeld, to which, in 850, he removed the relics of St. Columba from Iona, which at this time was frequently subjected to the ravages of the Norsemen. He is celebrated also as a legislator, but no authentic traces of his laws now appear, the Macalpine laws attributedto the son of Alpin being clearly apocryphal.
The sceptre was assumed by Donald III, son of Alpin. He died in the year 863, after a short reign of four years. It is said he restored thelaws of Aodh-fin, the son of Eocha III. They were probably similar tothe ancient Brehon laws of Ireland.
Constantine, the son of Kenneth, succeeded his uncle Donald, and soonfound himself involved in a dreadful conflict with the Danish pirates. Having, after a contest which lasted half a century, established themselves in Ireland, and obtained secure possession of Dublin, the Vikingr directed their views towards the western coasts of Scotland, which they laid waste. These ravages were afterwards extended to the whole of the eastern coast, and particularly to the shores of the Frith of Forth; but although the invaders were often repulsed, they never ceased to renew their attacks. In the 881, Constantine, in repelling an attack of the pirates, was slain at a place called Merdo-fatha, or Werdo, probably the present Perth, according to Maclauchlan.
Aodh or Hugh, the fair-haired, succeeded his brother Constantine. Hisreign was unfortunate, short and troublesome. Grig, who was Maormor, or chief, of the country between the Dee and the Spey, having become acompetitor for the crown, Aodh endeavoured to put him down, but did not succeed; and having been wounded in a battle fought at Strathallan,(or possibly Strathdon), he was carried to Inverurie, where he died, after lingering two months, having held the sceptre only one year.
Grig now assumed the crown, and, either to secure his possession, or from some other motive, he associated with him in the government Eocha, son of Ku, the British king of Strathclyde, and the grandson, by a daughter, of Kenneth Macalpine. After a reign of eleven years, both Eocha and Grig were forced to abdicate and gace way to Donald IV, who succeeded them in 893.
During his reign the kingdom was infested by the piratical incursionsof the Danes. Although they were defeated by Donald in a bloody action at Collin, said to be on the Tay, near Scone, they returned under Ivar O'Ivar, from Ireland, in the year 904, but were gallantly repulsed, and their leader killed in a threatended attack on Forteviot, by Donald, who unfortunately also perished, after a reign of eleven years. In his reign the kings of Scotland are no longer called reges Pictorumby the Irish Annalists, but Ri Alban, or kings of Alban; and in the Pictish Chronicle Pictavia gives place to Albania.
Constantine III, the son of Aodh, a prince of a warlike and enterprising character, next followed. He had to sustain, during an unusually long reign, the repeated attacks of the Danes. In one invansion they plundered Dunkeld, and in 908, they attempted to obtain the grand objectof their designs, the possession of Forteviot in Strathearn, the Pictish capital; but in this design they were again defeated, and forced to abandon the countrty. The Danes remained quiet for a few years, butin 918 their fleet entered the Clyde, from Ireland, under the commandof Reginald, where they were attacked by the Scots in conjunction with the Northern Saxons, whom the ties of common safety had now united for mutual defence. Reginald is said to have drawn up his Danes in four divisions; the first headed by Godfrey O'Ivar; the secondf by Earis; the third by Chieftains; and the fourth by Reginald himself, as a reserve. The Scots, with Constantine at their head, made a furious attack on the first three divisions, which they forced to retire. Reginald's reserve not being available to turn the scale of victory against the Scots, the Danes retreated during the night, and embarked on board their fleet.
After this defeat of the Danes, Constantine enjoyed many years' repose. A long grudge had existed between him and AEthelstane, son of Edward, the elder, which at last came to an open rupture. Having formed an alliance with several princes, and particularly with Anlaf, king of Dublin as well as of Northumberland, and son-in-law of Constantine, the latter collected a large fleet in the year 937, with which he entered the Humber. The hope of plunder had attracted many of the Vikingr to Constantine's standard, and the sceptre of AEthelstane seemed now to tremble in his hand. But that monarch was fully prepared for the dangerswith which he was threatened, and resolved to meet his enemies in battle. After a long, bloody, and obstinate contest at Brunanburg, near the southern shore of the Humber, victory declared for AEthelstane. Prodigies of valour were displayed on both sides, especially by Turketel,the Chancellor of England; by Anlaf, and by the son of Constantine, who lost his life. The confederates, after sustaining a heavy loss, sought for safety in their ships. This, and after misfortunes, possibly disgusted Constantine with the vanities of this world, for, in the fortieth year of his reign, he put into practice a resolution which he hadformed of resigning his crown and embracing a monastic life. He became Abbot of the Monastry of St. Andrews in 943, and thus ended a long and chequered, but vigorous, and, on the whole, successful reign in a cloister, like Charles V. Towards the end of this reign the term Scotland was applied to this kingdom by the Saxons, a term which before hadbeen given by them to Ireland. Constantine died in 952.

Cináed mac Ailpín (after 800–13 February 858) (Anglicised Kenneth MacAlpin) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots. Cináed's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. If he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 King of Scots?
* 2 Background
* 3 Reign
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links
* 7 Further reading
* 8 See also

[edit] King of Scots?

Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba

The Cináed of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Cináed died. In the reign of Cináed mac Máil Coluim, when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:

So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata.

In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:

Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre!

When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Cináed's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Cináed avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.

Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Cináed was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[1]

Modern historians would reject parts of the Cináed produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:

The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[2]

Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[3]
[edit] Background

Cináed's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Cináed's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Cináed:

... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[4]

Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.

Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Cináed's father Alpín is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Cináed:

Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the nobl
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,

It is supposed that these kings are the Caustantín son of Fergus and his brother Óengus, who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Eóganán, as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Cináed were king there.[5]

The idea that Cináed was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Cináed as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Cináed as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Cináed could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[6] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[7] Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through Pictland in the centuries before Cináed. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland".

[edit] Reign

Compared with the many questions on his origins, Cináed's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Cináed's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Eógan son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.

Cináed's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Cináed had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[8] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Cináed, although what should be made of the report is unclear:

Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Cináed mac Ailpín.[9]

Cináed died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Cináed's grandsons, Domnall and Causantín. The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Cináed's death:

Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[10]

Cináed left at least two sons, Causantín and Áed, who were later kings, and and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Cináed's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Áed Finnliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.

In the early middle ages, Scotland consisted of four separate kingdoms:
Dalriada inhabitated by Scots,
Strathclyde inhabited by Britons,
The Kingdom of the Picts,
Northumbria inhabited by Angles.
Scottish and Pictish families began intermarrying in the 8th century, and their kingdoms were often ruled by the same king. The monarchy of Scotland evolved from this union, known as the Kingdom of Alba. By the late 9th century, the Kingdom of Alba began absorbing the kingdoms of the Britons and Angles. Thus, through intermarriage and conquest, the Scottish Kings of Dalriada emerged as the overall Kings of Scotland.

The Scots of Dalriada claimed a legendary antiquity beginning with Gaythelos, son of a King of Greece who went to Egypt during the time of Moses where he married the eponymous Scoti, daughter of the Pharaoh. Gaythelos, Scoti, and their family emigrated to Spain and eventually several groups of their descendants emigrated to Ireland; the final group under Simon Brek, whose grandson led a colony from Ireland to northern Britain and named it "Scotia". In the year 330 BC, these Scots elected as their king Fergus, son of Ferehard; and they remained in Scotland until 360 AD when they were driven back to Ireland by the Picts and Britons. In the 5th century, they returned to Scotia under the leadership of Fergus, son of Erc. Or so the story goes.
History knows nothing of the Scots earlier than about 500 AD, but at this point, the name of Fergus MorMacErc (Fergus, son of Erc) emerges from the mists of legend as the King of Scots in Dalriada.

It should be noted that in early mediæval Scotland, it was the eldest and/or ablest male of the royal house, and not the heir of line, that inherited the throne. This meant that any energetic male connected with the royal line could assert a claim to the throne. Thus, Kenneth (I) MacAlpin (838 - 858) was followed as king by his brother Donald (I) (858 - 862). Kenneth's son Constantine (I) did not become king until 862.

by the year 843, thanks to the determined efforts of Kenneth
MacAlpin, King of the Scots of Dalriada, who claimed the throne of the
Picts after he had defeated them in battle. He created his capital at
Forteviot, in Pictish territory; moved his religious center to
Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, where he
transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.

According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, MacAlpin "was the first of
the Scots to
obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called
Scotia."
From that time on, the Picts, the tattooed or painted people, have
remained a
shadowy, poorly documented race. It is a pity that no Pictish
literature has
survived. All we have are the sculptured stones with their remarkable
designs
incised that show warriors, huntsmen and churchmen.

At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from
the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's
Dyke, MacAlpin was
creating a kingdom of Scotland. His successes in part were due to the
threat
coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The
seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harold Fairhair caused
many of previously independent Jarls to look for new lands
to establish themselves.
One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command
of
the sea was that Scotland became surrounded and isolated. The old link
with
Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England
and
the Continent. Thus, the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was
thrown
in upon itself and united against a common foe.

Acceded: 839
Died: 859, Forteviot, Perthshire
Interred: Isle of Iona, Scotland

Burke calls him Kenneth II. Kings of Picts & Alba. King of
Galloway.
See EuropSisch Stammtafeln Bund II tafel 67.

Kenneth MacAlpin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kenneth MacAlpin
(Cináed mac Ailpín)
King of the Picts

Reign 843–858
Died 13 February 858
Cinnbelachoir
Buried Iona
Predecessor See text
Successor Donald I (Domnall mac Ailpín)
Issue Constantine I (Causantín mac Cináeda)
Áed
Máel Muire ingen Cináeda
perhaps others
Royal House Alpin
Father Alpín mac Echdach

Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.

Contents [hide]
1 King of Scots?
2 Background
3 Reign
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
7 Further reading
8 See also

[edit] King of Scots?
Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
The Kenneth of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Kenneth died. In the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:

“ So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata. ”

In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:

“ Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre! ”

When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Kenneth's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Kenneth avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.

Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[3]

Modern historians would reject parts of the Kenneth produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:

“ The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[4] ”

Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[5]

[edit] Background
Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Malcolm II of Scotland. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Kenneth:

... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[6]

Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.

Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Kenneth:

Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,

It is supposed that these kings are the Constantine son of Fergus and his brother Óengus II (Angus II), who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Uen (Eóganán), as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Kenneth were king there.[7]

The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus I (Angus I) son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[8] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[9]

Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through western Pictland in the centuries before Kenneth. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland", and Argyll derives from Oir-Ghàidheal, the land of the "eastern Gaels".

[edit] Reign
Compared with the many questions on his origins, Kenneth's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Kenneth's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Uen son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.

Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[10] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Kenneth, although what should be made of the report is unclear:

Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Kenneth MacAlpin.[11]

The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. The Shetlands, the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called kings neither of the Gaels or the Scots but of Alba.[12]

Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons, Donald II (Domnall mac Causantín) and Constantine II (Constantín mac Áeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death:

Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.[13]

Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.

[edit] Notes
^ Cináed mac Ailpín is the Mediaeval Gaelic form. A more accurate rendering in modern Gaelic would be Cionaodh mac Ailpein, since Coinneach is historically a separate name. However, in the modern language, both names have converged.
^ Skene, Chronicles, p. 83.
^ That the Pictish succession was matrilineal is doubted. Bede in the Ecclesiastical History, I, i, writes: "when any question should arise, they should choose a king from the female royal race, rather than the male: which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this day." Bridei and Nechtan, the sons of Der-Ilei, were the Pictish kings in Bede's time, and are presumed to have claimed the throne through maternal descent. Maternal descent, "when any question should arise" brought several kings of Alba and the Scots to the throne, including John Balliol, Robert Bruce and Robert II, the first of the Stewart kings.
^ Johnston, Ian. "First king of the Scots? Actually he was a Pict". The Scotsman, October 2, 2004.
^ For example, Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 107–108; Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin"; Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100", pp. 28–32; Duncan, Kingship of the Scots, pp. 8–10. Woolf was selected to write the relevant volume of the new Edinburgh History of Scotland, to replace that written by Duncan in 1975.
^ Rawlinson B.502 ¶1696 Genelach Ríg n-Alban.
^ See Broun, Pictish Kings, for a discussion of this question.
^ For the descendants of the first Óengus son of Fergus, again see Broun, Pictish Kings.
^ Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp.95–96; Fergus would appear as Uurgu(i)st in a Pictish form.
^ Regarding Dál Riata, see Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin"; Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 111–112.
^ Annals of the Four Master, for the year 835 (probably c. 839). The history of Dál Riata in this period is simply not known, or even if there was any sort of Dál Riata to have a history. Ó Corráin's "Vikings in Ireland and Scotland", available as etext, and Woolf, "Kingdom of the Isles", may be helpful.
^ Lynch, Michael, A New History of Scotland
^ Fragmentary Annals, FA 285.

[edit] References
For primary sources see under External links below.

John Bannerman, "The Scottish Takeover of Pictland" in Dauvit Broun & Thomas Owen Clancy (eds.) Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots. Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland. T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1999. ISBN 0-567-08682-8
Dauvit Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin" in Michael Lynch (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford: Oxford UP, ISBN 0-19-211696-7
Dauvit Broun, "Pictish Kings 761-839: Integration with Dál Riata or Separate Development" in Sally Foster (ed.) The St Andrews Sarcophagus Dublin: Four Courts Press, ISBN 1-85182-414-6
Dauvit Broun, "Dunkeld and the origins of Scottish Identity" in Dauvit Broun and Thomas Owen Clancy (eds), op. cit.
Thomas Owen Clancy, "Caustantín son of Fergus" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
A.A.M. Duncan,The Kingship of the Scots 842–1292: Succession and Independence. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-7486-1626-8
Katherine Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100" in Jenny Wormald (ed.) Scotland: A History. Oxford: Oxford UP, ISBN 0-19-820615-1
Sally Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland. London: Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-8874-3
Máire Herbert, "Ri Éirenn, Ri Alban: kingship and identity in the ninth and tenth centuries" in Simon Taylor (ed.), Kings, clerics and chronicles in Scotland 500–1297. Dublin: Fourt Courts Press, ISBN 1-85182-516-9
Donnchadh Ó Corráin, "Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the ninth century" in Peritia 12 (1998), pp. 296–339. Etext (pdf)
Alex Woolf, "Constantine II" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
Alex Woolf, "Kingdom of the Isles" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.

[edit] External links
Annals of Ulster, part 1, at CELT (translated)
Annals of Tigernach, at CELT (no translation presently available)
Annals of the Four Masters, part 1, at CELT (translated)
Duan Albanach, at CELT (translated)
Genealogies from Rawlinson B.502, at CELT (no translation presently available)
The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba
The Pictish Chronicle
Scotland Royalty

[edit] Further reading
For background on Early Historic Scotland, Sally Foster's, Picts, Gaels and Scots (revised edition, 2005) offers a broad and accessible introduction, while Leslie Alcock's Society of Antiquaries of Scotland monograph Kings and Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests in Northern Britain AD 550–750 (2003) offers more detail. Alex Woolf's Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789–1070, in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series, was published in 2007. The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (2001) contains valuable articles by expert contributors, but is very poorly organised.

For a well-researched, fictional interpretation of Kenneth's life, see the book Kenneth by Nigel Tranter.

[edit] See also
Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
Scotland in the High Middle Ages
MacAlpin's Treason
Kenneth MacAlpin
House of Alpin
Born: after 800 Died: 13 February 858
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Drest X King of Picts
(traditionally King of Scots)
848-858 Succeeded by
Donald (Domnall) I

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
King of Dalriada 841 - 844. King of the Picts (844) as Kenneth III. King of Scots 844 - 859. Kenneth was the first to unite the kingdoms of Dalriada and the Picts, thus becoming the first King of Scots. Source: RoyaList. Burke calls him Kenneth II. Kings of Picts & Alba. King of Galloway. See *Europaeische Stammtafeln Bund II, Tafel 67. Source: Brian Tompsett

by the year 843, thanks to the determined efforts of Kenneth
MacAlpin, King of the Scots of Dalriada, who claimed the throne of the
Picts after he had defeated them in battle. He created his capital at
Forteviot, in Pictish territory; moved his religious center to
Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, where he
transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.

According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, MacAlpin "was the first of
the Scots to
obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called
Scotia."
From that time on, the Picts, the tattooed or painted people, have
remained a
shadowy, poorly documented race. It is a pity that no Pictish
literature has
survived. All we have are the sculptured stones with their remarkable
designs
incised that show warriors, huntsmen and churchmen.

At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from
the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's
Dyke, MacAlpin was
creating a kingdom of Scotland. His successes in part were due to the
threat
coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The
seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harold Fairhair caused
many of previously independent Jarls to look for new lands
to establish themselves.
One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command
of
the sea was that Scotland became surrounded and isolated. The old link
with
Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England
and
the Continent. Thus, the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was
thrown
in upon itself and united against a common foe.

Acceded: 839
Died: 859, Forteviot, Perthshire
Interred: Isle of Iona, Scotland

Burke calls him Kenneth II. Kings of Picts & Alba. King of
Galloway.
See EuropSisch Stammtafeln Bund II tafel 67.

King of Scots 844-859 Invaded Lothian six times, burned Dunbar, took posession of Melrose Died of a fistula. He is said to have called a Parliament. "844. Kenneth the son of Alpin, first of the Scots, ruled happily Pictland (Scotland) for 16 years."

by the year 843, thanks to the determined efforts of Kenneth
MacAlpin, King of the Scots of Dalriada, who claimed the throne of the
Picts after he had defeated them in battle. He created his capital at
Forteviot, in Pictish territory; moved his religious center to
Dunkeld, on the River Tay, in present-day Perthshire, where he
transferred the remains of St. Columba from Iona.

According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, MacAlpin "was the first of
the Scots to
obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called
Scotia."
From that time on, the Picts, the tattooed or painted people, have
remained a
shadowy, poorly documented race. It is a pity that no Pictish
literature has
survived. All we have are the sculptured stones with their remarkable
designs
incised that show warriors, huntsmen and churchmen.

At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from
the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's
Dyke, MacAlpin was
creating a kingdom of Scotland. His successes in part were due to the
threat
coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The
seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harold Fairhair caused
many of previously independent Jarls to look for new lands
to establish themselves.
One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes with their command
of
the sea was that Scotland became surrounded and isolated. The old link
with
Ireland was broken; the country was now cut off from southern England
and
the Continent. Thus, the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was
thrown
in upon itself and united against a common foe.

Acceded: 839
Died: 859, Forteviot, Perthshire
Interred: Isle of Iona, Scotland

Burke calls him Kenneth II. Kings of Picts & Alba. King of
Galloway.
See EuropSisch Stammtafeln Bund II tafel 67.

At an assembly at Scone, he invited his rival, the Pictish King Drostan and all of his nobles to a banquet and after wining and dining them very well, he had the bolts holding the floorboards up beneath the benches they were sitting on withdrawn. The benches and their occupants fell through, and in the confusion, the Scots fell upon the Picts and slaughtered them. Kenneth then declared himself the King of the Scots and the Picts. He was also King of Galloway.

["The British Monarchy"]
Kenneth, son of Alpin, King of Scotia succeeded his father in 843. He defeated the Picts about 843, uniting them with the Scots in the new kingdom of Alba, which comprised a large part of present day Scotland. Sources for the period disagree about the exact date of his victory, but Kenneth features as a notable warrior who reputedly invaded Northumbria six times and fought off attacks by the Britons of Strathclyde as well as by the Norsemen. Using dynastic marriage to solve the problem, Kenneth married his daughter to Rhun, the Strathclyde king. Because of the Norse threat to Iona, the burial place of St Columba (an Irish Scot who brought Christianity to Alba), he removed the saint's relics to a new church which he founded in Pictland at Dunkeld, Perthshire. However, Iona continued to be the burial place of Scottish kings even after St Columba's relics were moved, until the eleventh century. Kenneth died in 858 at Forteviot, near Perth, probably of a tumour.

[From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_I_of_Scotland]
Cináed mac Ailpín (after 800-13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots as Kenneth I of Scotland. Cináed's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him, and indeed, if he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he can be regarded as the father of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.

King of Scots ?
The Cináed of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Cináed died. In the reign of Cináed mac Máil Coluim, when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:

So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata.

In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:

Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned,
Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out.
Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre !

When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Cináed's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Cináed avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.

Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Cináed was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.[1]

Modern historians would reject parts of the Cináed produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:

The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it?s about 1210, 1220 that that?s first talked about. There?s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he?s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[2]

Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.[3]

Background
Cináed's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Cináed's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Cináed:

... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...[4]

Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.

Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Cináed's father Alpín is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Cináed:

Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain, The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain, The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin, The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin. And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh, The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,

It is supposed that these kings are the Caustantín son of Fergus and his brother Óengus, who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Eóganán, as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Cináed were king there.[5]

The idea that Cináed was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Cináed as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Cináed as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Cináed could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.[6] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.[7] Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through Pictland in the centuries before Cináed. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland"

Reign
Compared with the many questions on his origins, Cináed's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Cináed's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Eógan son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.

Cináed's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Cináed had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.[8] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Cináed, although what should be made of the report is unclear:

Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Cináed mac Ailpín.[9]

Cináed died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Cináed's grandsons, Domnall and Causantín.

Cináed left at least two sons, Causantín and Áed, who were later kings, and and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Cináed's daughter Máel-Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Áed Finnliath of the Cenél nEógan. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel-Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, no usual thing for the mysogynistic chronicles of the age.

Notes
1 That the Pictish succession was matrilineal is doubted. Bede in the Ecclesiastical History, I, i, writes: "when any question should arise, they should choose a king from the female royal race, rather than the male: which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this day." Bridei and Nechtan, the sons of Der-Ilei, were the Pictish kings in Bede's time, and are presumed to have claimed the throne through maternal descent. Maternal descent, "when any question should arise" brought several kings of Alba and the Scots to the throne, including John Balliol, Robert Bruce and Robert II, the first of the Stewart kings.
2 The Scotsman, 2 October, 2004, "First king of the Scots ? Actually he was a Pict."
3 For example, Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 107?108; Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin"; Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100", pp. 28?32; Duncan, Kingship of the Scots, pp. 8?10. Woolf was selected to write the relevant volume of the new Edinburgh History of Scotland, to replace that written by Duncan in 1975.
4 Rawlinson B.502 ¶1696 Genelach Ríg n-Alban.
5 See Broun, Pictish Kings, for a discussion of this question.
6 For the descendants of the first Óengus son of Fergus, again see Broun, Pictish Kings.
7 Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp.95?96; Fergus would appear as Uurgu(i)st in a Pictish form.
8 Regarding Dál Riata, see Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin"; Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots, pp. 111?112.
9 Annals of the Four Master, for the year 835 (probably c. 839). The history of Dál Riata in this period is simply not known, or even if there was any sort of Dál Riata to have a history. Ó Corráin's "Vikings in Ireland and Scotland", available as etext, and Woolf, "Kingdom of the Isles", may be helpful.

References

-John Bannerman, "The Scottish Takeover of Pictland" in Dauvit Broun & Thomas Owen Clancy (eds.) Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots. Saint Columba, Iona and Scotland. T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1999. ISBN 0-567-08682-2
-Dauvit Broun, "Kenneth mac Alpin" in Michael Lynch (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford: Oxford UP, ISBN 0-19-211696-7
-Dauvit Broun, "Pictish Kings 761-839: Integration with Dál Riata or Separate Development" in Sally Foster (ed.) The St Andrews Sarcophagus Dublin: Four Courts Press, ISBN 1-85182-414-6
-Dauvit Broun, "Dunkeld and the origins of Scottish Identity" in Dauvit Broun and Thomas Owen Clancy (eds), op. cit.
-Thomas Owen Clancy, "Caustantín son of Fergus" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
-A.A.M. Duncan,The Kingship of the Scots 842?1292: Succession and Independence. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-7486-1626-8
-Katherine Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100" in Jenny Wormald (ed.) Scotland: A History. Oxford: Oxford UP, ISBN 0-19-820615-1
-Sally Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland. London: Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-8874-3
-Máire Herbert, "Ri Éirenn, Ri Alban: kingship and identity in the ninth and tenth centuries" in Simon Taylor (ed.), Kings, clerics and chronicles in Scotland 500?1297. -Dublin: Fourt Courts Press, ISBN 1-85182-516-9
-Donnchadh Ó Corráin, "Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the in the ninth century" in Peritia 12 (1998), pp. 296?339. Etext (pdf)
-Alex Woolf, "Constantine II" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.
-Alex Woolf, "Kingdom of the Isles" in Lynch (ed.), op. cit.

Further reading
For background on Early Historic Scotland, Sally Foster's, Picts, Gaels and Scots (revised edition, 2005) offers a broad and accessible introduction, while Leslie Alcock's Society of Antiquaries of Scotland monograph Kings and Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests in Northern Britain AD 550?750 (2003) offers more detail. No recent history of Early Historic Scotland is available; Alex Woolf's Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789?1070, in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series, is to be published in 2007. The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (2001) contains valuable articles by expert contributors, but is very poorly organised.

Kenneth I, died 858, traditional founder of the kingdom of Scotland. He u nited about 843 the thrones of Dalriada and the Picts.7
Kenneth was the son of Alpin who may or may not have been King of Dal Ria ta. Royal or not by birth, Kenneth mac Alpin, won his way by his abilitie s as a warrior. Scholarly opinion seems to regard reign as two years, 841 -843, in Dal Riata followed by sixteen, 843-58 in Pictland. He became kin g of Scone by force, that is, that is, probably of Fortriu, and entered o n a four or five years struggle to master the other provinces of Picts wh ose kings are recorded in the Picts king-lists. By 850 he was king of th e Picts, king of what the Irish called Alba and free to range with his ba nds to Dumbar and Melrose for booty.12
In 839, the Danes invaded the territories of the Picts and defeated them . Two years later Kenneth McAlpin obtained the small Kingdomm of the Scot s in Argyle; and in 844, he mounted the throne of the Picts at Scone. Th e actual Kingdom which Kenneth McAlpin obtained only comprised a limite d part of modern Scotland; it consisted of Argyle, the counties of Perth , Fife, and parts of Forfar, Dumbarton and Sterling with Scone, the Moun t of Belief and Royalty, as its chief seat. After the establishment of th e historic monarchy under McAlpin, the reigning monarchs were called Kin g of Picts, then Kings of Alban. Not until the tenth century was any par t of the country called Scotland.14
Kenneth mac Alpin was reputed to have taken some of the relics of Columb a to a church built by him, presumably at Dunkeld, and to have raided Nor thumbria six times, burning Dunbar and Melrose.12
Kenneth was succeeded by his brother Donald who reigned from 858-862. HI s son Constantine ruled from then to ca 877.
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.

Kenneth I (Kenneth mac Alpin), d. 858, traditional founder of the kingdo m of Scotland. He succeeded his father, Alpin, as king of Dalriada (the k ingdom of the Gaelic Scots in W Scotland) and c. 843 obtained the Pictis h throne, thus establishing the nucleus of the kingdom of Scotland. Becau se of continual depredations by the Danes from the Irish coast, Kenneth m oved his capital eastward to Scone.
Reign of Kenneth mac Alpin
The Scandinavian threat dominated the first three-quarters of the mac Alp in dynasty, but it was not a united front and that could be exploited. Ju st as Kenneth mac Alpin may have allied himself with a Viking king of th e Hebrides against his rivals in Dalriada in the 830s, and as Constantin e I (862 - 77) almost certainly connived at the Norse siege of Dumbarto n in 870, so their successors were at times also able to play off Norwegi an Dublin against Danish York. The risks were considerable, for it was a s likely that they might be caught up in squabbles between Dublin and Yor k, and such seems to have been the fate of Constantine in 877. The mean s of self-preservation were predictable for a dynasty, which was still in secure, if surprising to those fed on a diet of a story of unrelenting ho stility between Scandinavians and the other peoples of the Scottish mainl and. One of Kenneth's daughters was married to a Norse king of Dublin som etime in the reign of his second son, Constantine I. The precedent for ap peasement by marriage was established by Constantine II, but he was the s hrewdest practitioner of it: This Gaelic king, who shared with his uncl e and predecessor the name of the first Christian emperor and would end h is days in a house of Céli Dé at St Andrews, did not scruple to marry hi s daughter off to a heathen King of Dublin, Olaf III.
The battle fought in Strathearn in 903 marked the last of the Scandinavia n invasions of the mac Alpin realm. But the safety of the realm from exte rnal threat and the stability of the dynasty were in jeopardy for fully a nother century. Just as the threat from Danish kings of York receded, kin gs of Scots (for such they were all called from Donald II (889- 900) onwa rds were involved in a dangerous tussle for control of Northumbria betwee n Dublin and the kingdom of Wessex after Sitric, a Dublin nominee, died i n 927. Constantine, faced with the prospect of having a West Saxon aggres sor on his southern rather than a Danish one, became involved in a danger ous game of propping up a Danish buffer state. The policy was complicate d by revived internal fissures within the York kingdom, which put at ris k its control over Northumbria. The next invasion of Constantine's kingdo m came in 934 in the shape of determined effort by Athelstan, King of bot h Wessex and kingdom of Strathclyde, and Dublin - an alliance that had pe rhaps been marked by the marriage of Constantine's daughter to Olaf of Du blin. This was probably a more damaging expedition than any of the extend ed Viking Raids that had been inflicted on the Scottish kingdom over th e previous century. A combined army and fleet 'laid waste' to the east co ast as far north as Dunnottar, the gateway to the Mounth; and Athelstan m et with little organized resistance fro he returned 'without any great vi ctory', but the scene was set for one of the most decisive battles in Sco ttish history, the defeat suffered by Constantine and his allies at Bruna nburh, somewhere near the Humber in 937
KENNETH I (r. 843-58)
Kenneth, son of Alpin, King of Scotia succeeded his father in 843. He def eated the Picts about 843, uniting them with the Scots in the new kingdo m of Alba, which comprised a large part of present day Scotland. Source s for the period disagree about the exact date of his victory, but Kennet h features as a notable warrior who reputedly invaded Northumbria six tim es and fought off attacks by the Britons of Strathclyde as well as by th e Norsemen. Using dynastic marriage to solve the problem, Kenneth marrie d his daughter to Rhun, the Strathclyde king. Because of the Norse threa t to Iona, the burial place of St Columba (an Irish Scot who brought Chri stianity to Alba), he removed the saint's relics to a new church which h e founded in Pictland at Dunkeld, Perthshire. However, Iona continued t o be the burial place of Scottish kings even after St Columba's relics we re moved, until the eleventh century. Kenneth died in 858 at Forteviot, n ear Perth, probably of a tumour.

AFN: 9G9N-60

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KENNETH I
"KENNETH MacALPIN" KING OF SCOTLAND,

He died 859, Forteviot, Perthshire. He acceded to the throne 839. "firstking of the united S cots of Dalriada and the Picts and so of Scotlandnorth of a line between the Forth and Clyd e rivers. Of his father, Alpin,little is known, though tradition credits him with a signal vi ctory overthe Picts by whom he was killed three months later (c. 834). Kennethsucceeded him i n Dalriada and ruled in Pictavia also, ruling for 16years. The period is obscure. The gradua l union of the two kingdoms from843 doubtless owes much to intermarriage. By the Pictish marr iage custom,inheritance passed through the female. Nevertheless, Kenneth probablymade some co nquests among the eastern Picts and possibly invaded Lothianand burned Dunbar and Melrose. Af ter attacks on Iona by Vikings heremoved relics of St. Columba, probably in 849 or 850, to Du nkeld, whichbecame the headquarters of the Scottish Columban church. He died atForteviot, no t far from Scone in Pictish territory, and was buried on theisland of Iona." Britannica Onlin e

[3074] COLVER31.TXT file
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, fl. 832-60, founder & first king of Scotland

united Picts and Scots 843

"Bloodline ...", p 274, King of Picts & Scots 844-859

EDWARD3.DOC b

"Chambers Biog Dict" p 820 also called Kenneth I; succeeded his father in 841

Rootsweb Feldman
URL: http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:3044567&id=I18191
# ID: I18191
# Name: Kenneth MacAlpin King of SCOTLAND 1 2 3 4 5
# Sex: M
# Birth: 782 in Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland 1 2 3 4 5
# Death: 13 FEB 858/59 in Forteviot, Perthshire, Scotland 1 2 3 4 5
# Change Date: 15 JAN 2004 5
# Change Date: 27 SEP 2001 2 3 4 5
# Note:

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

2 SOUR S332582
3 DATA
4 TEXT Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004

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Kenneth ruled from 840-858. He was able to defeat the Picts, already weakened by Viking raids, and permanently united the kingdom of Scotland (Alba or Albany).[Spare.FTW]

Father: Alpin Of KINTYRE b: 778 in Fordoun, Kincardineshire, Scotland
Mother: Princess Of ARGYLLSHIRE b: ABT 792 in Scotland

Marriage 1 of the Isles MACDONALD b: 814 in Garvelloch Isles, Firth of Lorne, Scotland

* Married: 830 in Iona, Argyllshire, Scotland 1 2 3 4 5

Children

1. Has Children Aedh (Ethus) Swift-Foot King of SCOTS b: 820
2. Has Children King Of Scotland CONSTANTINE I b: 836 in Fordoun, Kincardineshire, Scotland

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Alba is the ancient and modern Gaelic name for the country of Scotland.
Kenneth MacAlpin (c. 810 - 858; Cinaed mac Ailpin) was king of the Picts and the first king of Scotland.
The myth called 'MacAlpin's Treason' tells how Alba was born when the Dalriadan Kenneth MacAlpin conquered the Picts. However, modern studies dispute Kenneth's Dalriadan roots and consider Kenneth and his successors to be Pictish Kings. Kenneth's son Constantine had the 'Series Longoir' written to show his family's claim to the throne of a united Pictland. The triumph of Gaelic over Pictish and the change from Pictland to Alba is placed in the half-century reign of Constantine mac Aeda. The reasons are not known. After his father's death, Kenneth took up his standard and occupied the Pictish strongholds of Fortriu and Forteviot in Perthshire. The Picts were engaged in fighting the invading Vikings, who had previously killed the Pictish king, Eagan and after victory in battle Kenneth became accepted as King of the Picts also. He was made King on the Moot Hill at Scone, ( pronounced skoon) seated upon the famous Stone of Scone At a banquet at Scone, Kenneth murdered the seven Earls of the Scot's kingdom of Dalriada, who might have lead opposition to his claim to be King of Scots and Picts, marking what was hoped to be the end of the conflict. The murder is popularly known as 'MacAlpin's treason'. Although his father Alpin had been a Dalraid Scot, Kenneth had a Pictish mother and since the Pictish law of inheritance passed through the Matrilineal line, he claimed to be the rightful representative of the Pictish line of Kings. Kenneth married the daughter of his second cousin, Constantine.
Kenneth itself was a Pictish name. The name Picts had been coined by the Romans, who referred to the inhabitants of Scotland as 'Picti' or painted men, due to their practice of dying their bodies with woad before going into battle. The Pictish language and culture was gradually taken over by that of the Scots.
Kenneth I sought repeatedly to conquer the Angles of Lothian, but did not meet with success in this area. He engaged in a long war against the Bernicans, who themselves were struggling against the Viking threat, crossing the Forth, then the boundary between the two countries, burning and looting Saxon villages, but made no significant territorial gains. The first King of Scots placed his capital at Dunkeld in Perthshire.
After a seventeen year reign Kenneth I died at Forteviot, Perthshire, possibly of cancer, he was buried on the island of Iona. He was succeeded by his brother, Donald I.
At first this new kingdom corresponded to Scotland north of the Rivers Forth and Clyde. Southwest Scotland remained under the control of the Strathclyde Britons. Southeast Scotland was under the control from around 638 CE of the proto-English kingdom of Bernicia, then of the Kingdom of Northumbria. This portion of Scotland was contested from the time of Constantine II and finally fell into Scottish hands in 1018, when Malcolm II pushed the border as far south as the River Tweed. This remains the south-eastern border to this day (except around Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Click here for http://www.darkisle.com/i/iona/iona.html">Photo of IonaAbbey (use browser back arrow to return)

King of Scotland 843-858
******************
Kenneth I the Hardy (c. 810 ? 858; Cináed mac Ailpín) succeeded his father, Alpin II, to the throne of Dalriada. He soon obtained the Pictish throne in 843 and became the first king to rule the Picts of Pictavia and the Scots of Dalriada. It is possible that intermarriage with the Picts helped secure Kenneth's throne. The joint kingdom was known as Alba from the Gaelic name for the area. He was the first king of the House of Alpin.

Recalling the peculiarity of a matrilineal succession which governed Pictish crowns, it is evident that Kenneth Mac Alpin grounded his claims to the Pictish crown from his mother's bloodlines. In 839, the Picts suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Vikings. The Norsemen had conquered and settled Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and as far south as the mouth of the Clyde. Caithness, Sutherland and even Dalriada were being attacked and harassed by the long boats. The brutalizing defeat at the hands of the Vikings in 839 killed most of the Pictish nobility, including the King of Picts and Scots Uven Mac Angus II, his brother Bran, and "numberless others". This opened Mac Alpin's claim to the vacant Pictish throne (via his mother who was a Pictish princess). The Pictish kingdoms had been severely weakened by attacks from the Vikings and were in no condition to dispute his claim.

His claim to the crown of Dalriada came from his father, who was a member of clan Gabhran, which had produced most Scottish kings, such as his ancestors King Eachaidh, King Alpin Mac Eachaidh, King Aed, and King Fergus. His Pictish mother was descended from the royal house of Fortrenn, and his great-grand uncle, Alpin Mac Eachaidh had actually reigned as King of Picts until deposed by Oengus I. It is thus that Kenneth Mac Alpin was one of several nobles with a claim to the crown of Picts and Scots.

The sources for facts of how Kenneth Mac Alpin, the avenging son of the slain Alpin, became King of Picts and Scots are few and suspect. Two such sources, The Prophecy of St. Berchan, and De Instructione Principus note that in 841 Mac Alpin attacked the remnants of the Pictish army and defeated them (he is lauded as "the raven feeder"). Mac Alpin then invites the Pictish king, Drust IX, and the remaining Pictish nobles to Scone, Perthshire to perhaps settle the issue of Dalriada's freedom or MacAlpin's claim to the Dalriadic crown. Faced with a recently victorious MacAlpin in the south and a devastated army in the north, Drust, as well as all claimants to the Pictish throne from the seven royal houses attend this meeting at Scone. Legend has it that the Scots came secretly armed to Scone, where Drust and the Pictish nobles were killed. This event has come to be known as MacAlpin's Treason.

Although their king and royal houses had been murdered and their armies wiped out in the north by the Vikings and decimated in the south by the Scots, the Picts nonetheless resist Scottish domination and as late as the 12th year of MacAlpin's reign The Chronicle of Huntington tells us that Mac Alpin "fought successfully against the Picts seven times in one day" (perhaps wiping out the last remnants of an independent Pictish armed force).

By the year 843, he had created a semblance of unity among the warring societies of the Picts, Scots, Britons, and Angles after he had defeated the Picts in battle. MacAlpin created his capital at Forteviot, also called Scone, in Pictish territory. He then moved his religious center to Dunkeld on the River Tay in present-day Perthshire, to where he transferred the remains of St. Columba from the Isle of Iona.

At roughly the same time that the people of Wales were separated from the invading Saxons by the artificial boundary of Offa's Dyke, MacAlpin was creating a kingdom of Scotland. MacAlpin's successes in part were due to the threat coming from the raids of the Vikings, many of whom became settlers. The seizure of control over all Norway in 872 by Harald Fairhair caused many of the previously independent Jarls to look for new lands to establish themselves.

One result of the coming of the Norsemen and Danes, with their command of the sea, was that the kingdom of Scotland became surrounded and isolated. The old link with Ireland was broken, the country was now cut off from southern England and the Continent, thus, the kingdom of Alba established by MacAlpin was thrown in upon itself and united against a common foe. According to the Huntingdon Chronicle, he "was the first of the Scots to obtain the monarchy of the whole of Albania, which is now called Scotia."

Kenneth is thought to have died of a tumor after reigning for sixteen years. He died at Forteviot in 858 and was buried on the Isle of Iona. His brother, Donald I, succeeded him, as was the custom.

Throughout this whole period, the dominion of the Scottish kings was essentially limited to Fortrenn, the Mearns and Dalriada, as the rest of the Pictish lands were under the yoke of the Vikings. Nonetheless, within a few generations, the Pictish language was forgotten, the Pictish Church taken over by the Scottish Columban Church, and most vestiges of Pictish culture assimilated.

Furthermore, the seat of Kings was eventually moved to Scone, sacred heart of the Pictish land. The sons of Mac Alpin accepted the crown over the land of Picts and Scots seated on a slab of stone known as the Stone of Scone. Scottish myth tells us the Stone was carried by the Celtic tribes since their origins in Spain, brought to Tara in Ireland, built into the wall of Dunstaffnage Castle and then brought to Scone.
(from Wikipedia)

Kenneth I (843-58)
Kenneth, son of Alpin, King of Scotia succeeded his father in 843. He defeated the Picts about 843, uniting them with the Scots in the new kingdom of Alba, which comprised a large part of present day Scotland. Sources for the period disagree about the exact date of his victory, but Kenneth features as a notable warrior who reputedly invaded Northumbria six times and fought off attacks by the Britons of Strathclyde as well as by the Norsemen. Using dynastic marriage to solve the problem, Kenneth married his daughter to Rhun, the Strathclyde king. Because of the Norse threat to Iona, the burial place of St Columba (an Irish Scot who brought Christianity to Alba), he removed the saint's relics to a new church which he founded in Pictland at Dunkeld, Perthshire. However, Iona continued to be the burial place of Scottish kings even after St Columba's relics were moved, until the eleventh century. Kenneth died in 858 at Forteviot, near Perth, probably of a tumour.

Source: Official Website of the British Government

[MAGNUS.FTW]

Den første som forente piktere og skotter. Slo den siste sydpiktiske kongen
i året 839.

[Kopi av ROYALS.FTW]

Reign: 839-860

Reign: 839-860

#Générale##Générale#descend des rois de Dalriada
s:ds02.88

#Générale#Profession : Roi d'Ecosse de 843 à 860.
Décès : entre 858 et 860

{geni:occupation} FIRST KING OF SCOTLAND

{geni:about_me} Kenneth I (a.k.a.Cináed mac Ailpín, Kenneth Mac Alpin, and Kenneth the Hardy) lived from 810 to 858 and was arguably the first King of the Kingdom of Scotland, which he ruled from 843 to 858. At the time he was referred to as King of the Picts. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

He was son of King Alpin II of Dalriada and succeeded his father to the crown of Dalriada in 839. This effectively made him King of the Scots, whose territory roughly covered modern-day Argyll. Meanwhile, also in 839, the Picts, who until then had controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll, suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Vikings. Most of the Pictish nobility was wiped out in the defeat, including King Bridei VI.

Kenneth Mac Alpin had a claim to the Pictish crown through his mother. But his claim was disputed by surviving members of the seven royal houses of the Picts, and Drust X succeeded to the Pictish Crown. Kenneth defeated the Picts in battle in 841: and squeezed between the Scots on one side and the rampaging Vikings on the other, the Picts agreed to a meeting with Mac Alpin at Scone, attended by all claimants to the Pictish Crown.
SOURCE.
UNDISCOVERED SCOTLAND, http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/monarchs/kennethi.html.

The alcohol flowed freely at the meeting. Then, in what has since been referred to as Mac Alpin's treason, Drust and the Pictish nobles were all killed by the Scots: allegedly (and improbably) by having their booby-trapped benches collapsed so Kenneth's rivals plunged into pits in the floor and impaled themselves on spikes set there for the purpose.

Suddenly there was only one claimant for the Pictish Crown, and Kenneth was crowned King of the Picts and the Scots in 843. He was the first King of the House of Alpin, the dynasty named after his father. Kenneth made his capital at Forteviot, a small village 5 miles south west of today's Perth. He also moved the religious focus of his kingdom from Iona to Dunkeld, and had St Columba's remains moved there in 849, perhaps for safe keeping from the continuing Vikings raids.

Mac Alpin continued to fight against Picts who challenged his right to hold their crown, but by 855 his grip on those parts of modern Scotland north of the Clyde and Forth not under the control of the Vikings was relatively secure. He had also created some sort of stability in his relations with the Britons and the Angles who held the lands to the south.

Over time his combined Kingdom of the Picts and Scots came to be referred to as Alba: later know by medieval scholars (rather confusingly) as Albania.

Kenneth I died at Forteviot in 858. apparently of natural causes. He was then buried on the Isle of Iona. He was succeeded by his brother, Donald I.

Kenneth MacAlpin
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Kenneth MacAlpin
(Cináed mac Ailpín)
King of the Picts
Image:History-kenneth.jpg
Reign 843–858
Died 13 February 858
Place of death Cinnbelachoir
Buried Iona
Predecessor See text
Successor Donald I (Domnall mac Ailpín)
Offspring Constantine I (Causantín mac Cináeda)
Áed
Máel Muire ingen Cináeda
perhaps others
Royal House Alpin
Father Alpín mac Echdach

Cináed mac Ailpín (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein)[1], commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I (died 13 February 858) was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror".[2] Kenneth's undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.

Kenneth I of Scotland
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=image&guid=1be74788-3fb8-4ed4-ba2a-05c9d7706f47&tid=7053141&pid=-1146462007

1 UID 0BA30D0F1821AA4CA0B3E7C41FAB19CBA52E

Founder of the Kingdom of Scotland

King Kenneth I
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=document&guid=d0a3ba25-81a3-4821-be38-e2c76250d3d6&tid=7053141&pid=-1145799933

Source: THE RUFUS PARKS PEDIGREE by Brian J.L. Berry. Chart: page 45.

Page 44:

14. Kenneth I MacAlpin (Cinaed the Hardy), d. 858; came to the throne of Dalriada of the Scots 843 when the land was still made up of small kingdoms whose people were Scots, Picts, Angles and Britons. He united Dalriada and Pictland 844 in a partnership never broken thereafter. He himself was of Scottish-Pictish descent. The new union was well timed, as the Norse incursions were becoming a serious threat. Kenneth invaded Lothian of the Angles six times, burning Dunbar and taking possessions of Melrose. He is said to have called a Parliament. About 850 he brought relics of St. Columba from Iona to Dunkeld, which was made the head church of his kingdom. He d. of a fistula at Forteviot, near Perth. His brother ruled as Domnall I until 862.

!Availability: The libraries of Ken, Karen, Kristen, Kevin, Brian, Amie, Adam and FAL

Source: "Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists" by Frederick Lewis Weis.

Page 145 line (170-13):

13. Cinaed. This is the famous Kenneth Mac Alpin, King of the Picts and Scots, 843-d. 858. (For more details on generations 1-13, see also H. Pirie-Gordon "Succession of the Kingdom of Strathclyde" The Armorial vol. I pp. 35-40, 79-87, 143-148, 192-196; vol. II 9-14,92-102, with cited authorities. This reference also provides the descent to Kenneth MacAlpin of the lines of the Kings of Strathclyde and of the Picts.)

From Genealogical Library book "House of Adam".

[large-G675.FTW]

See Europäisch Stammtafeln Bund II tafel 67.

!SOURCES:
1. Burke's Peerage 99th Ed (GS #942 D22bup prefix p. 285-86)
2. Dict of Nat'l Biog (GS #920.042 D561n vol 30 p. 437-38)
3. A Vindication of Macbeth (GS #929.2706 Ma88c p. 14)
4. Also searched without positive results: Scots Peerage, The Complete Peerage, Royal Dau of Engl, and Queens of Sctl and English Princes

Known as Kinneth MacAlpin.

From Genealogical Library book "House of Adam".

King of Picts and Alba, King of Galloway. Acceded to the throne839.[FAVthomas.FTW]

Reign: 839-860. Burke calls him Kenneth II. Kings of Picts and Alba.King of Galloway. See Europäisch Stammtafeln Bund II tafel 67.
Within a year after the death of his cousins in 839, it appears thatKenneth seized the kingship of Dal Riata. There is little historicalrecord for the next eight years, but it appears that Kenneth followed inthe footsteps of his cousins, and made a bid for the kingship of thePicts. He was resisted, ineffectualy, by a short-lived dynasty bearingPictish names. Later legends suggest that Kenneth achieved his successthrough treachery; slaying his Pictish guests at a feast. Whatever hismeans, Kenneth defeated his last Pictish rival by 848, and in thefollowing year, he celebrated his victory by building a church dedicatedto St. Columba in his new Pictish lands. It is recorded that Kennethraided England no fewer than six times. He was succeeded by his brotherDonald I.

Kenneth I mac Alpin (født ca. 810, død 858) var konge av Dalriada fra 834 og konge av hele Skottland fra 846. Han regnes som den første konge av et samlet Skottland, etter at han underla seg pikterne, og han var første konge fra huset Alpin.

Den piktiske tronen hadde en særegen arverekkefølge, da den gikk i kvinnelige ledd. Kenneth hadde gjennom sitt mor mulighet til å kreve tronen, og da pikterne led et kraftig nederlag for vikingene i 839 ble de sterkt svekket. Nordmenn tok kontroll over Shetland, de Ytre Hebridene og fastlandet ned til Firth of Clyde. Caithness, Sutherland og Dalriada ble angrepet av vikinger, og for Kenneth var det ikke bare ønskelig å ta kontroll over pikternes område, men også nødvendig for å styrke motstanden mot nordmennene. Mesteparten av den piktiske adelen hadde falt i 839, inkludert kong Uven Mac Angus II og hans bror Bran.

Kenneths krav på tronen i Dalriada kom gjennom hans far, Alpin II av Dalriada. Han var der en av flere som hadde rettmessig krav på tronen.

Kildene til hvordan han samlet Skottland er mangelfulle og usikre. I 841 skal han ha angrepet restene av den piktiske arméen og slått dem, noe som gav ham tilnavnet ?Ravnemateren?. Han skal så ha invitert den nye piktiske kongen, Drust, til Scone, antagelig under påskudd av å ville diskutere sitt krav på tronen. Alle de piktiske tronkreverne kom til møtet, hvor skottene skal ha møtt med skjulte våpen og drept alle. Hendelsen har gått inn i legendene som ?MacAlpins forræderi?.

Selv om hele den piktiske adelen nå var utslettet av vikinger og skotter nektet pikterne å underkaste seg, og de kjempet videre. Først i 846 sto de siste trefningene, ifølge Henry av Huntingdon, syv trefninger på samme dag.

Kenneth la sin hovedstad til Scone, som dengang også kaltes Forteviot. Han flyttet også nasjonens religiøse sentrum til Dunkeld i Perthshire, og fikk blant annet overført relikviene til St. Columba dit fra Iona.

Han skal ha dødd i Forteviot av i 858, og ble gravlagt på Iona. Han ble etterfulgt av sin bror Donald I.

Hans datter Maolmuire skal ha vært gift med den irske overkongen Áed Finliath. En av hans døtre var gift med kong Olav Kvite i Dublin.

MacAlpins forræderi er en middelaldersk myte som forsøker å forklare hvorfor det piktiske språk og kultur ble erstattet av skotsk-gælisk språk og kultur på 800-tallet og 900-tallet.

Myten forteller om det påståtte mordet på Oictavias (Piktland) adel i oldtidens nordlige Britannia (det som er dagens Skottland). Kenneth MacAlphins mor stammet sannsynligvis fra det kongelige huset av Fortriu og hans onkel til hans stamfar, Alpin II av pikterne, hadde regjert som pikternes konge inntil han ble avsatt av Óengus I av pikterne i år 728 e.Kr. Kenneth MacAlpin var derfor en av flere adelige som hadde et krav til tronen til pikterne og skottene.

Kildene til de fakta om hvordan Kenneth MacAlpin ble konge over pikterne og skottene er svært få og tvilsomme. To slike kilder, Bercháns profeti, og De Instructione Principus, slår fast at i 841 angrep MacAlpin restene av den piktiske hæren og beseiret den. MacAlpin inviterte deretter den piktiske kongen, Drest, og de øvrige piktiske adelskapet til Scone for å avgjøre spørsmålet om Dál Riatas frihet eller MacAlphins krav til Dál Riatas krone. I møte med nylige seirerike MacAlpin i sør og den ødelagte hærstyrken i nord møtte Drest og alle de andre som hadde krav på den piktiske tronen fra de syv kongelige husene til møtet i Scone. Legenden vil ha til at skotten kom med våpene skjult til Scone og deretter slaktet ned og drepte Drest og de andre adelige.

Det er Giraldus Cambrensis (eller Gerald av Wales) i De Instructione Principus som har skrevet ned om hvordan en stor festmiddag ble holdt i Scone, og hvordan den piktiske kongen og hans adelige ble gitt sterke drikker og de ble ganske fulle. Da pikterne var fulle nok skal skottene ha dratt vekk bolter fra benkene slik at pikterne ble fanget i skjulte gravhull under benkene, og i tillegg var det skarpe spyd stikkende opp av gravene slik at de fallende pikterne ble spiddet til døde.

Bercháns profeti forteller at

?MacAlpin stupte dem jordgraven, dekket med dødelige knivblader. Fanget og uten muligheter til å forsvare seg selv ble de overlevende pikterne deretter myrdet ovenifra og deres kropper, klær og utsmykninger ble plyndret.?
Etter denne hendelsen, sies det, ble Kenneth MacAlpin konge over begge kongeriker, kunngjorde at han på morssiden hadde krav på tronen til Pictavia og arvet Dál Riada fra sin far. Han smeltet sammen de to rikene til ett rike under navnet Alba.

Kenneth I, called MacAlpin (flourished 832-60), traditionally, the founder
and first king of Scotland. About 834 he succeeded his father, Alpin
(reigned about 832-34), as king of the Gaelic Scots in Galloway. In a
series of battles (841-46) he conquered the Pictish Kingdom and, uniting
it with his own, called his expanded domains Scotland. The kingdom is
sometimes called Scone, after Kenneth's capital. In later years, the king
led six invasions of Lothian, southern Scotland, then part of Saxon
Northumbria.

OR "CINAED""MACALPIN"; FOUNDER OF KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND (FIRST TO RULE BOTH SCOTS
AND PICTS); RULED 839-859

36th great grandfather

First king of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts and so of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and Clyde rivers.

Of his father, Alpin, little is known, though tradition credits him with a signal victory over the Picts by whom he was killed three months later (c. 834). Kenneth succeeded him in Dalriada and ruled in Pictavia also, ruling for 16 years. The period is obscure. The gradual union of the two kingdoms from 843 doubtless owes much to intermarriage. By the Pictish marriage custom, inheritance passed through the female. Nevertheless, Kenneth probably made some conquests among the eastern Picts and possibly invaded Lothian and burned Dunbar and Melrose. After attacks on Iona by Vikings he removed relics of St. Columba, probably in 849 or 850, to Dunkeld, which became the headquarters of the Scottish Columban church. He died at Forteviot, not far from Scone in Pictish territory, and was buried on the island of Iona.

Another name for Kenneth was Kenneth Macalpin.

Acceded: King of Scotland, 842.

!SOURCES:
1. Burke's Peerage 99th Ed (GS #942 D22bup prefix p. 285-86)
2. Dict of Nat'l Biog (GS #920.042 D561n vol 30 p. 437-38)
3. A Vindication of Macbeth (GS #929.2706 Ma88c p. 14)
4. Also searched without positive results: Scots Peerage, The Complete Peerage, Royal Dau of Engl, and Queens of Sctl and English Princes

First King of Scotland
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=document&guid=819e6d60-69c3-4a85-8873-7317e4b38869&tid=10145763&pid=-466718599

74th Ard Righ Albann. He succeeded his Father and brought together the Crowns of Dalriada and Caledonia in 844 to become the First King of Scots. He was succeeded by his brother Donald. {Burke�s Peerage} [GADD.GED]

Also have death as 860. [The Timetables of History]
King of the Picts & Scots and all Alba. United both nations with his Pictish Royal blood

* REMARKS:
1st King of Scots (or King of Alba)

* BIOGRAPHY
Kenneth was born about 800, the son of Alpin, king of Kintyre. Kenneth was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous epithet 'An Ferbasach' ('The Conqueror'). His undisputed legacy was to produce a dynasty of rulers who claimed descent from him. Even though he cannot be regarded as the father of Scotland, he was the founder of the dynasty which ruled that country for much of the medieval period.

Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts of Dál Riata (the Gaelic over-kingdom on the western seaboard of Scotland with some territory on the northern coasts of Ireland). Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Kenneth's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata.

Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Kenneth's father Alpin is not listed as among the kings in the _Duan Albanach_ (Song of the Scots), the Middle Gaelic poem found with the _Lebor Bretnach,_ a Gaelic version of the _Historia Brittonum_ attributed to Nennius. The idea that Kenneth was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Kenneth as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Kenneth as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Kenneth could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei, son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Oengus I (Angus I), son of Fergus and his presumed descendants, were all at least partly Gaelicised. The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription _Custantin filius Fircus(sa),_ the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantin, son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.

Kenneth's rise to power can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu (an ancient Pictish kingdom, often used synonymously with Pictland in general) for two or four generations. This followed the death of King Uen, son of Oengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Aed mac Boanta and many others in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle's king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.

Kenneth's reign is dated from 843, but it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The _Pictish Chronicle_ claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Kenneth had relics of St. Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other than these are bare facts, the _Chronicle of the Kings of Alba_ reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.

The reign of Kenneth also saw an increased degree of Norse settlement in the outlying areas of modern Scotland. The Shetlands, the Orkneys, Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, and part of Ross were settled; the links between Kenneth's kingdom and Ireland were weakened, those with southern England and the continent almost broken. In the face of this, Kenneth and his successors were forced to consolidate their position in their kingdom, and the union between the Picts and the Gaels, already progressing for several centuries, began to strengthen. By the time of Donald II, the kings would be called neither of the Gaels nor of the Scots, but of Alba.

Kenneth died from a tumour on 13 February 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the 'king of the Picts', not the 'king of Alba'. The title 'king of Alba' is not used until the time of Kenneth's grandsons Donald II (Domnall mac Causatin) and Constantine II (Constantin mac Aeda). The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Kenneth's death: Because Cináerd with many troops lives no longer there is weeping in every house; there is no king of his worth under heaven as far as the borders of Rome.

Kenneth left at least two sons, Constantine and Aed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, and Eochaid mac Run, king of the Picts, resulted from this marriage. Kenneth's daughter Máerl Muire married two important Irish kings. Her first husband was Aed Finliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin.

Most lists of kings of Scots begin with him. Indeed, it is from him that the modern British monarchy traces its descent.He reigned from 842 to 858, although his final victory over Pictish opposition came as late as 847. He built a cathedral in Dunkeld honoring St. Columba and had her relics moved there. His reign was a time of almost constant warfare, including devastating Viking raids.He was succeeded by his younger brother, Domnall.

Coinneach en gaélique (erse) moderne. Rìgh nan Gaidheal, Rìgh nan Cruithneach : Roi des Scots, Roi des Pictes.
Chronique Picte :
Kinadius igitur filius Alpini, primus Scottorum, rexit feliciter istam annis xvi. Pictaviam. Pictavia autem a Pictis est nominata; quos, ut diximus, Cinadius delevit. Deus enim eos pro merito suae malitiae alienos ac otiosos hereditate dignitatus est facere: quia illi non solum Domini missam ac preceptum spreverunt; sed et in jure aequitatis aliis aequi parari (n)voluerunt. Iste vero, biennio antequam veniret Pictaviam, Dalrietae regnum suscepit. Septimo anno regni sui, reliquias Sancti Columbae transportavit ad ecclesiam quam construxit, et invasit sexies Saxoniam; et concremavit Dunbarre atque Marlos usurpata. Britanni autem concremaverunt Dubblain, atque Danari vastaverunt Pictaviam, ad Cluanan et Duncalden. Mortuus est tandem tumore ante diem ? idus Februarii feria tertia in palacio Fothuirtabaicht.

!SOURCES:
1. Burke's Peerage 99th Ed (GS #942 D22bup prefix p. 285-86)
2. Dict of Nat'l Biog (GS #920.042 D561n vol 30 p. 437-38)
3. A Vindication of Macbeth (GS #929.2706 Ma88c p. 14)
4. Also searched without positive results: Scots Peerage, The Complete Peerage, Royal Dau of Engl, and Queens of Sctl and English Princes

King of Scotland
Reign: 839-860

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Ancestors (and descendant) of Cináed mac Ailpín

Eochaid IV The Venomous mac Áeda Find
± 760-± 781

Fergusia Of Dalriada of the Picts
± 755-± 834

Father of Constantin

Alpín mac Eochaid
± 781-834

sister of Constantine king of the Picts
± 782-????

Cináed mac Ailpín
± 810-859

± 830

Mrs Kenneth I Scotland
± 814-± 914



				Constantine King of Picts and Scots King of Picts and Scots ± 839-± 877		Máel Muire ni Cináeda ± 860-± 912

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Martin Jonathon Swann the True King of England

Historical events

Christening day October 17, 1893

Christening day October 17, 1893

The temperature on October 17, 1893 was about 12.9 °C. The airpressure was 76 cm mercury. The atmospheric humidity was 96%. Source: KNMI
Koningin Wilhelmina (Huis van Oranje-Nassau) was from 1890 till 1948 sovereign of the Netherlands (also known as Koninkrijk der Nederlanden)
Regentes Emma (Huis van Oranje-Nassau) was from 1890 till 1898 sovereign of the Netherlands (also known as Koninkrijk der Nederlanden)
In The Netherlands , there was from August 21, 1891 to May 9, 1894 the cabinet Van Tienhoven, with Mr. G. van Tienhoven (unie-liberaal) as prime minister.
In the year 1893: Source: Wikipedia
- The Netherlands had about 5.1 million citizens.
- January 6 » The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
- January 13 » The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom holds its first meeting.
- January 13 » U.S. Marines land in Honolulu, Hawaii from the USSBoston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
- July 22 » Katharine Lee Bates writes "America the Beautiful" after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- September 16 » Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma.
- September 19 » In New Zealand, the Electoral Act of 1893 is consented to by the governor, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote.

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Christening day October 17, 1893

About the surname Mac Ailpín