These fair prospects, however, were soon to be overcast, for his old enemy Penda, the pagan king of the Mercians, having resolved to renew the struggle and make a second attempt to crush the Christian kingdom of the Northumbrians, Osuald appears to have anticipated the attack, and was killed in a great battle with the Mercians, which was fought at a place called by Bede Maserfelth, but to which the continuator of Nennius gives the name of Cocboy, on the 8th day of August in the year 642. It is believed to have taken place at Oswestry, formerly Oswaldstree, in Shropshire. Thus perished a king who was looked upon as the greatest and most Christian ruler of the Northumbrians, in the ninth year of his reign and the thirty-eighth of his age.[321]
Osuald was succeeded by his brother Osuiu, then only about thirty years old, and during the first twelve years of his reign he had to maintain a struggle for very existence with the victorious king of the Mercians, who appears, as on the former occasion, to have combined with the Britons, as Tighernac records a battle between Osuiu and the Britons early in his reign.[322] Bede tells us that he was also exposed to much trouble by his own son, Alchfrid, and also by Oidiluald, the son of his brother Osuald, who may have thought he had a better right to the throne. Osuiu placed governors over the province of Deira, the first being Osuini, son of that Osric who had reigned a few months over Deira after the death of Aeduin, and restricted his own immediate rule to his hereditary province of Bernicia, where he had trouble enough to maintain himself; for we find during the episcopate of Aidan, who died in 651, the army of the Mercians, under Penda, ravaging the country of the Northumbrians far and near, and attacking the royal city of Bamborough, and not being able to take it either by assault or by siege, Penda encompassed it on the land side with the materials of the wooden houses in the neighbourhood, which he had broken up and set on fire with a view to burn the town; and Bede tells us that Aidan, who was in one of the Farne Islands, perceived the flames and smoke blown by the wind above the city walls, and by his prayers produced a change of wind, which blew them back on the besiegers, and obliged them to raise the siege.[323] On another occasion, some years after Aidan’s death, we find Penda again coming into this part of Bernicia with his hostile army, destroying all he could with fire and sword, and burning the village and church in which Aidan died, and which was a royal residence not far from Bamborough.[324] It is plain from these incidental notices that Penda and his army had Bernicia very much at their mercy, and were continually in the occupation of the country; and their irruptions became so intolerable at last, that Osuiu offered him a very large gift of royal ornaments and money to purchase peace if he would cease to ravage and destroy the provinces of his kingdom, but Penda refused to grant his request, and resolved to destroy and extirpate all his nation;[325] and so desperate became his position, that he appears to have taken refuge in the insular city of Giudi in the Firth of Forth. Penda followed him with his army, composed both of Mercians and of Britons, and Osuiu was compelled to ransom the city by giving Penda all the riches which were in it and in the neighbouring region as far as Manau, which he distributed among the kings of the Britons who were with him; but having raised a small army, and the enemy, who enormously outnumbered them, probably not anticipating an attack, and being in a false security, Osuiu fell upon them unexpectedly in the night and entirely defeated them; Penda himself and the thirty royal commanders who were with him being slain, and Catgabail, king of Guenedotia or North Wales, alone escaping. Bede tells us that this battle took place on the 15th of November in the thirteenth year of King Oswiu’s reign, that is in the year 654, and that it was fought near the river Winuaed, which overflowed its banks so that many more were drowned in the flight than were destroyed by the sword, and that the war was thus brought to a conclusion in the region of Loidis; on the other hand, the continuator of Nennius says that Penda was slain in the plain of Gai, and that it was called the slaughter of the plain of Gai, and places it evidently between the city Judeu, by which Bede’s insular city of Giudi on the Firth of Forth can alone be meant, and Manau, which lay between the Pentlands and the Roman wall. There is no doubt that on the only other occasion on which Bede mentions the region of Loidis[326] he means Leeds, but it is equally certain that Lothian was likewise called the province of Loidis; and if we suppose that Bede here means the northern province of Lothian and not the district of Leeds, it at once reconciles the two accounts. That this is the probable view we may gather from this, that Leeds was in Deira, and a battle fought there is inconsistent with the extent to which it is evident Penda had invaded the kingdom. On the other hand, Florence of Worcester tells us that Penda’s attack was upon Bernicia. It was here that we find Penda from time to time ravaging the country, and it was this kingdom which was more immediately under the rule of Osuiu.[327] The word Winuaed means Battleford, and the river meant by it is probably the Avon, which divides the province of ‘Loidis’ from the district of ‘Calatria,’ called in the Irish Annals ‘Calathros,’ and by the Britons ‘Catraeth’—a district comprehending the parishes of Falkirk, Muiravonside, and Polmont; and traces of the name may still be found in the Fechtin’ Ford about a mile above Manuel, and the Red Ford half a mile farther up.
The result of this great and unexpected victory was, Bede tells us, that Osuiu both delivered his own people from the hostile depredations of the pagans, and, having cut off their wicked head, converted the nation of the Mercians and the adjacent provinces to the Christian faith.
Bede ranks Osuiu as the seventh king of the nations of the Angles who possessed imperial power, and sums up the result of his reign by saying that ‘he held nearly the same dominions for some time as his predecessors, and subdued and made tributary the greater part of the nations of the Picts and Scots which possess the northern part of Britain.’[328] He thus not only freed his own kingdom from the incursions of the Mercians, and found himself at last in the full and quiet possession of it, but he materially added to his dominions. In the south he obtained possession of Mercia for three years, and in the north extended his sway not only over the Britons but over the Picts and Scots; and thus commenced the dominion of the Angles over the Britons of Alclyde, the Scots of Dalriada, and the southern Picts, which was destined to last for thirty years. By the fall of Penda and the defeat and slaughter of his British allies, the Britons of Alclyde naturally fell under his sway. Tighernac records the death of no king of Alclyde during this period till the year 694, and the Ulster Annals, after recording in 658 the death of Gureit or Gwriad, king of Alclyde,[329] have also a blank during the same time. The Scots of Dalriada naturally fell under his dominion along with the Britons, and we have the testimony of Adamnan that they were trodden down by strangers during the same period. But while these nations became tributary to the Angles during this period of thirty years, the mode in which the king of Northumbria dealt with the Picts shows that their dominion over them was of a different kind, and that they viewed that part of the nation which was subject to them as now forming part of the Northumbrian kingdom. The way for this was prepared by the accession of Talorcan, son of Ainfrit, to the throne of the Picts on the death of Talore, son of Wid, or Ectolairg mac Foith, as Tighernac calls him, in 653.[330] Talorcan was obviously the son of that Ainfrait, the son of Aedilfrid, and elder brother of Osuald, who on his father’s death had taken refuge with the Picts, and his son Talorcan must have succeeded to the throne through a Pictish mother. At the time, then, when Osuiu thus extended his sway over the Britons and Scots there was a king of the Anglic race by paternal descent actually reigning over the Picts. Tighernac records his death in 657,[331] and Bede tells us that within three years after he had slain King Penda, Osuiu subjected the greater part of the Picts to the dominion of the Angles.[332] It is probable, therefore, that he claimed their submission to himself as the cousin and heir on the paternal side of their king Talorcan, and enforced his claim by force of arms. How far his dominion extended it is difficult to say, but it certainly embraced, as we shall see, what Bede calls the province of the Picts on the north side of the Firth of Forth, and, nominally at least, may have included the whole territory of the southern Picts; while Gartnaid, the son of Donnell or Domhnaill, who appears in the Pictish Chronicle as his successor, and who from the form of his father’s name must have been of pure Gaelic race, ruled over those who remained independent.
But while Osuiu’s dominion now remained on the whole free from all disturbance from hostile invasion or internal revolt, it was not destined to continue long without being shaken by dissensions from another quarter, and one of those great ecclesiastical questions soon arose, which, in its results, materially affected the current of our history. The Church which Osuald had established in Northumbria, and which had now existed as the national form of religion for thirty years, was an offshoot from the Scottish Church which owned the monastery of Hii or Iona as its head, and followed the customs and rules of that Church; but the great extension of Christianity from Northumbria over the southern states of the Angles which followed the death of Penda, brought it more directly in contact with the southern Church, which owned Saint Augustine as its founder, and conformed in its customs to the Roman Church from which he had derived his mission.
Colman, who had succeeded Finan in 660 as bishop of Lindisfarne, at this time presided over the Scottish Church of Northumbria. Wilfrid was at the head of the Roman party. The points on which the churches differed were the proper time for keeping Easter, the form of the tonsure, and other questions concerning the rules of ecclesiastical life—questions then thought, and especially the first, as of vital importance. Osuiu, Bede tells us, having been instructed and baptized by the Scots, thought nothing better than what they taught, but his son Alchfrid, who then governed Deira, having been instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had first gone to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfin, archbishop of Gaul, and receiving from him also the coronal tonsure,[333] had given him a monastery which had been founded at Ripon for the Scots, who quitted it rather than alter their customs.
In order to settle this dispute, a great council was held in 664 at Strenaeshhalc, now Whitby, the details of which belong more to the history of the Church. Suffice it to say that it led to Osuiu submitting with his nation to Wilfrid, and conforming to the Roman customs, while Colman withdrew with his Scots and those who adhered to him, and went back to Scotia to consult with his people what was to be done in this case.[334] He went first to Hii or Iona on leaving Lindisfarne in 664, taking with him part of the relics of Saint Aidan, and having the rest interred in the sacristy of the church at Lindisfarne, and in 668 passed over to Ireland accompanied by the sons of Gartnaith, who took with them the people of Skye, that is the Columban clergy there, and returned two years afterwards.[335]
On the departure of the Scots, the episcopal see was removed from Lindisfarne to York, where it had been originally placed by Paulinus, and Wilfrid was made bishop of York, but did not obtain possession of the diocese till 669, when we find him administering the bishopric of York, and of all the Northumbrians, and likewise of the Picts, as far as the dominions of King Osuiu extended,[336] an expression which undoubtedly implies that the Picts were not merely tributary to the Angles, but that their territory formed at this time a constituent part of Osuiu’s dominions.
In the following year, Osuiu the king of the Northumbrians, died, and was succeeded in both Bernicia and Deira by his son Ecgfrid, whose accession was soon followed by an attempt on the part of the Picts to throw off the Anglic yoke. The account of this insurrection is preserved to us alone by Eddi, in his Life of St. Wilfrid, who wrote a few years before Bede compiled his history. |A.D. 672. Revolt of the Picts.| He tells us that ‘in the first years of his reign the bestial people of the Picts, despising their subjection to the Saxons, and threatening to throw off the yoke of servitude, collected together innumerable tribes from the north, on hearing which Ecgfrid assembled an army, and at the head of a smaller body of troops advanced against this great and not easily discovered enemy, who were assembled under a formidable ruler called Bernaeth, and attacking them made so great a slaughter that two rivers were almost filled with their bodies. Those who fled were pursued and cut to pieces, and the people were again reduced to servitude, and remained under subjection during the rest of Ecgfrid’s reign.’[337] Such is Eddi’s account, from which it appears to have been an insurrection of the southern Picts who were under the Anglic yoke, in which they were aided by the northern part of the nation who remained independent. The two rivers may have been either the Forth and the Teith, which join their streams a little above Stirling, or the Tay and the Earn, which unite in the Firth of Tay at Abernethy, having a low-lying plain forming the parish of Rhynd between, and the battle probably took place in the second year of Ecgfrid’s reign, as Tighernac records in that year the expulsion from the kingdom of Drost, who had succeeded his brother Gartnaith as king of the Picts.[338] Eddi then tells us that Ecgfrid attacked and defeated Wlfar, king of the Mercians, and drove him from his kingdom, an event not narrated by Bede, but which must have happened before Wlfar’s death in 675, and adds that ‘Ecgfrid’s kingdom was thus enlarged both in the north and the south, and that, under Bishop Wilfrid, the churches were multiplied both in the south among the Saxons, and in the north among the Britons, Scots, and Picts, Wilfrid having ordained everywhere presbyters and deacons, and governed new churches.’[339] It was probably at this time that the monastery of Aebbercurnig or Abercorn was founded in that part of Lothian which extends from the Esk to the Avon as a central point for the administration of the northern part of his diocese, which included the province of the Picts held by the Angles of Northumbria in subjection.
In 678 Bede tells us that a dissension broke out between King Ecgfrid and Bishop Wilfrid, who was driven from his see. His diocese was divided into two; Bosa was appointed bishop of the province of Deira, having his episcopal seat at York; and Eata over that of the Bernicians, and his seat either in the church of Hagustald or Hexham, or in that of Lindisfarne. Three years afterwards Wilfrid’s diocese was still further divided and two additional bishops added—Tunberct for the church of Hagustald, Eata remaining at Lindisfarne, and Trumuin over the province of the Picts which was subject to the Angles.[340]
On the failure of these great attempts to recover their independence in 672, that part of the Pictish nation which had not been brought under subjection to the Angles appears to have expelled their unsuccessful monarch, Drost, the brother and successor of Gartnaith, son of Domnall, from the kingdom, and to have elected Bredei, son of Bile, to fill the vacant throne.[341] Bredei was paternally a scion of the royal house of Alclyde, his father Bile appearing in the Welsh genealogies annexed to Nennius as the son of Neithon and father of that Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642. His mother was the daughter of Talorcan mac Ainfrait, the last independent king of the Picts before they were subjected by Osuiu.[342] The object in placing him on the throne may have been to put the true successor of Talorcan, according to the law of Pictish succession, in competition with any claim the Anglic monarch may have had as representing him in the male line. Bredei began his reign in the extreme north, as eight years after we find the siege of Dunbaitte or Dunbeath, in Caithness, recorded in 680. In the following year he advanced beyond the range of the Mounth toward the south, as we have in 681 the siege of Dunfoither or Dunnotter, near Stonehaven; and in 682 we are told by Tighernac that the Orkney Islands were laid waste by Bruidhe.[343]
In the meantime the little kingdom of Dalriada was in a state of complete disorganisation. We find no record of any real king over the whole nation of the Scots, but each separate tribe seems to have remained isolated from the rest under its own chief, while the Britons exercised a kind of sway over them, and, along with the Britons, they were under subjection to the Angles. The most northerly part of Dalriada was the small state called Cinel Baedan, or Kinelvadon, which was a part of the larger tribe of the Cinel Eochagh, one of the three subdivisions of the Cinel Loarn, but separated from the rest by the great arm of the sea called Linnhe Loch. The head of this little tribe was at this time Fearchar Fada, or the Tall, the lineal descendant of Baedan, from whom the tribe took its name, who was son of Eochaidh, grandson of Loarn.[344] He appears to have commenced an attempt to throw off the authority of the Britons, and with it that of the Angles, but at first unsuccessfully. The first encounter with the Britons was in 678, when the Dalriads were defeated. At the same time the battles of Dunlocho, Liaccmaelain and Doirad Eilinn were fought, the latter of which can alone be placed with any certainty, Doirad Eilinn being obviously the island of Jura.[345]
Bede tells us that in the year 684 Ecgfrid sent Berct, his general, with an army into Ireland, and laid waste a part of the country, not even sparing the churches or monasteries, in spite of the advice of the most reverend father Ecgberct, an Anglic priest, who had been trained in Ireland, and lived much among the Scots and Picts; and we learn from the Irish Annals that the scene of this devastation was the plain of Breg, or the districts along the eastern shore from Dublin to Drogheda.[347] It seems difficult to suppose that Ecgfrid should have made so wanton an attack upon the Irish without some motive, and it seems probable that he either suspected that the Scots of Dalriada were obtaining help from their countrymen in Ireland, or wishing, by striking this blow, to prevent the Irish from supporting them in their attempt to recover their independence.
Be this as it may, Bede tells us that in the following year King Ecgfrid led an army to ravage the province of the Picts, and that, the enemy feigning a retreat, he was led into the straits of inaccessible mountains and slain with the greatest part of the forces which he had taken with him, on the 20th day of May, in the fortieth year of his age,[348] that is, in the year 685. The continuator of Nennius tells us that Ecgfrid made war against the descendants of his father’s brother, who was king of the Picts, and called Bridei, and fell there with the whole strength of his army, the Picts with their king being victorious, and that from the time of this war it was called the battle of Lingaran. Tighernac places the devastation in Ireland in the year 685, and this battle, which he calls the battle of Duin Nechtain, in the year 686. He agrees with Bede in stating that it took place on the 20th of June, and adds that it was fought on a Saturday, but as the 20th of June fell on a Saturday in the year 685, it is evident that Bede’s date is the correct one. Simeon of Durham says that the battle was fought at a place called Nechtan’s Mere, and the Annals of Ulster add the further fact that Ecgfrid had burnt Tula Aman and Duin Ollaig.[349] Ecgfrid appears therefore to have crossed the Forth at Stirling, and advanced through Perthshire to the Tay, where he burnt the place called Tula Aman at the mouth of the river Almond where it falls into the Tay. He seems at the same time to have sent a detachment from his army into Dalriada, where he burnt Duinollaig, now Dunolly, the chief stronghold of the Cinel Loarn. He then followed the retreating army of the Picts along the level country bounded on the north-west by the range of the Sidlaw hills, and in attempting incautiously to penetrate through the mountain range at Dunnichen was surrounded and defeated, his army being almost entirely cut off and himself slain. There was a lake, now drained, called the Mire of Dunnichen, where the battle was fought, and has left its record in the numerous stone coffins which have been found in the neighbourhood.[350]
An Irish annalist has preserved to us the following lines, attributed to Riagal of Bangor:—
The effect of this crushing defeat of the Anglic army, accompanied by the death of their king, was to enable those who had been under subjection to them at once to recover their independence; and Bede thus sums it up:—‘From that time the hopes and strength of the Anglic kingdom began to fluctuate and to retrograde, for the Picts recovered the territory belonging to them which the Angles had held, and the Scots who were in Britain and a certain part of the Britons regained their liberty, which they have now enjoyed for about forty-six years.’[352]
The difference in the expressions used with regard to the Picts and those employed towards the Scots and Britons shows that while the latter were merely tributary to the Angles, the former had actually been incorporated with their kingdom; but the result secured the full independence of both, which they had retained during the forty-six years which elapsed from the death of Ecgfrid to the termination of Bede’s history; and thus terminated the thirty years’ subjection of the Picts, the Scots of Dalriada, and the Britons of Alclyde, to the Angles; and as, after the defeat of Aedan with his army of Scots and Britons at Dawstane, it was said that no Scot durst after that attack the kingdom of the Angles, so now we are told that the Angles never afterwards were in a position to exact a tribute from the Picts.[353]
Some portion of this period of forty-six years elapsed before the mutual relations of the Angles and Picts on the one hand, and the Scots and Britons on the other, became fixed within definite limits, and their internal government completely reorganised. The Angles by this defeat lost the Pictish territory Osuiu had added to their kingdom thirty years before; but the previous boundaries of the Northumbrian kingdom seem to have been retained, and we are told by Bede that Aldfrid, the successor of Ecgfrid, ‘nobly retrieved the ruined state of the kingdom though within narrower bounds.’[354] The whole Pictish nation north of the Firth of Forth, which Bede terms the Province of the Picts, was now once more independent, but the kingdom of the Angles still extended, nominally at least, to the Avon; and though we are told that ‘among the many Angles who there either fell by the sword or were made slaves, or escaped by flight out of the country of the Picts, the most reverend man of God, Trumuini, who had received the bishopric over them, withdrew with his people that were in the monastery of Aebbercurnig’ or Abercorn, Bede adds that it was ‘seated in the country of the Angles, but close by the arm of the sea which divides the territories of the Angles and the Picts.’[355]
Seven years after the battle of Dunnichen, Bruide, son of Bile, the king of the Picts, died.[356] He is termed by Tighernac king of Fortrenn, from which it would appear that after the re-establishment of the Pictish kingdom in its independence he had made the district of Fortrenn his principal seat, to which he was no doubt led by his paternal connection with the Britons, and this term of Fortrenn now came to be used as synonymous with the kingdom of the Picts.
Adamnan held the abbacy of Hii or Iona at the time that Bruide died, and the Irish Life of Adamnan contains the following strange legend:—‘The body of Bruide, son of Bile, king of the Cruithnigh, was brought to Ia (Iona), and his death was sorrowful and grievous to Adamnan, and he desired that the body of Bruide should be brought to him into the house that night. Adamnan watched by the body till morning. Next day, when the body began to move and open its eyes, a certain devout man came to the door of his house and said, “If Adamnan’s object be to raise the dead, I say he should not do so, for it will be a degradation to every cleric who shall succeed to his place, if he too cannot raise the dead.” “There is somewhat of right in that,” said Adamnan, “therefore, as it is more proper, let us give our blessing to the body and to the soul of Bruide.” Thus Bruide resigned his spirit to heaven again, with the blessing of Adamnan and the congregation of Ia. Then Adamnan said—
He was succeeded by Taran, son of Entefidich, who seems to have belonged to a different section of the Picts, and not to have been generally accepted by the nation, as in the year following his accession we have again a siege of Dun Foither or Dunnotter, and after a short reign of four years he is driven from the throne.[358] Taran was succeeded by Bridei, son of Dereli. In the year following Tighernac records a battle between the Saxons and the Picts, in which Brechtraig, son of Bernith, is slain. Bede in his Chronicle also records that Brerctred, a royal commander of the Northumbrians, was slain by the Picts,[359] and we are told in the Ulster Annals that, a year after, Taran took refuge in Ireland. Brechtraig appears to have been the son of that Bernaeth who headed the insurrection of the Picts in 672, and seems to have made an effort to recover the influence of the Angles over the Picts, which was successfully resisted. Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, died in 705, and was succeeded by his son Osred, a boy of eight years old; and in the following year Tighernac records the death of Brude, son of Dereli,[360] who was succeeded by his brother Nectan, son of Dereli, according to the Pictish law of succession. Five years after his accession, the Picts of the plain of Manann, probably encouraged by the success of the neighbouring kingdom of the Picts in maintaining their independence against the Angles, rose against their Saxon rulers. They were opposed by Berctfrid, the prefect or Alderman of the Northumbrians, whose king was still only in his fourteenth year. The Picts, however, were defeated with great slaughter, and their youthful leader Finguine, son of Deleroith, slain. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that this battle was fought between Hæfe and Cære, by which the rivers Avon and Carron are probably meant, the plain of Manann being situated between these two rivers.[361] These Picts appear to have been so effectually crushed that they did not renew the attempt, and we do not learn of any further collision between the Picts and the Angles during this period.
The Scots of Dalriada and a party of the British nation, we are told, recovered their freedom, the Angles still maintaining the rule over the rest of the Britons. The portion of their kingdom which became independent consisted of those districts extending from the Firth of Clyde to the Solway, embracing the counties of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Lanark, Ayr, and Dumfries, with the stronghold of Alclyde for its capital: but the Angles still retained possession of the district of Galloway with its Pictish population, and Whitehern as their principal seat, as well as of that part of the territory of the Britons which lay between the Solway Firth and the river Derwent, having as its principal seat the town of Carlisle, which Ecgfrid had, in the same year in which he assailed the Picts, given to Saint Cuthbert, who had been made bishop of Lindisfarne in the previous year, that is, in 684.[362]
Eight years after the death of Ecgfrid, Tighernac records the death of Domnal mac Avin, king of Alclyde. He was probably the son of that Oan or Eugein who slew Domnall Breac in 642,[363] and had, on the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, recovered his father’s throne. He was succeeded by Bile, son of Alpin, and grandson of the same Eugein.
Although the Scots of Dalriada had thus obtained entire independence, they did not immediately become united under one king. Their freedom from the yoke of the Britons and Angles was followed by a contest between the chiefs of their two principal tribes, the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran, for the throne of Dalriada. On the death of Domnall Breac, when the Britons obtained a kind of supremacy over the Dalriads, his brother Conall Crandamna, and his sons Mailduin and Domnal Donn, appear to have been at the head of the Cinel Gabhran, but Fearchar Fata, the chief of the principal branch of the Cinel Loarn, had, as we have seen, taken the lead in the attempt to free Dalriada from the rule of strangers. The death of Domnall Donn, the son of Conall Crandamna, is recorded in 696, and that of Fearchar Fata in 697. The former was succeeded by Eocha, the grandson of Domnall Breac, who was slain in the same year, and the latter by his son Ainbhcellaig, who in the following year was expelled from the kingdom, after Duinonlaig or Dunolly had been burnt, and was sent bound to Ireland;[364] but none of these leaders of the Cinel Loarn or the Cinel Gabhran bore the title of king of Dalriada.[365] On the expulsion of Ainbhcellaig we find his brother Sealbach at the head of the Cinel Loarn, and in 701 he destroys Dun Onlaigh, and cuts off the Cinel Cathbath, a rival branch of the tribe of Loarn.[366] Three years after, the slaughter of the Dalriads in Glenlemnae, or the valley of the Leven, is recorded, but whether it was in the valley of the river Leven, which divides Lorn from Lochaber, and flows into Loch Leven there, or whether it was the Leven in Dumbartonshire, cannot be fixed with any certainty. In 707, Becc, grandson of Dunchada, was slain. He was the head of a branch of the Cinel Gabhran, who possessed the south half of Kintyre, and were descended from Conaing, one of the sons of Aidan, to whom it was given as his patrimony.[367]
The Dalriads appear soon after to have carried the war into the British territory, for we have, in 711, a conflict of the Dalriads and Britons at Loirgeclat, by which Loch Arklet, on the east side of Loch Lomond, is probably meant, in which the Britons are defeated. In 712 Sealbach besieges Aberte or Dunaverty, the main stronghold of the south half of Kintyre, the patrimony of the branch of the Cinel Gabhran of which the descendants of Conaing, son of Aidan, were the head. In 714 Dunolly is rebuilt by Sealbach, and three years afterwards there is again a conflict between the Britons and Dalriads, at the stone which is called Minvircc, and the Britons are again defeated.[368] In the valley at the head of Loch Lomond which is called Glenfalloch there is a place called Clach na Breatan, or the stone of the Britons, which is now at the separation of Dumbartonshire from Perthshire, but originally marked the northern boundary of the territory of the Britons, and was probably the scene of this conflict.
During the rest of the period of forty-six years which succeeded the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, no further collision between the Britons and the Dalriads is recorded, and each nation remained within the limits of its own proper kingdom.
283. The oldest of the Latin Chronicles says that Fergus, first king of Dalriada, reigned ‘a monte Drumalban usque ad mare Hibernie et ad Inchegal’ (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 130), apparently excluding the islands; but the tract De Situ Albaniæ, of the same date, has it ‘a monte Brunalban usque ad Mare Hiberniæ,’ and adds, ‘Deinde reges de semine Fergus regnaverunt in Brunalban sive Brunhere’ (Ib. p. 137). Brunalban seems to be the district on the east side of the range now called Breadalban, and Brunhere is probably Bruneire, and meant for the district on the west side of the range. There are two glens both called Glenlochy, the one proceeding from the range eastward to Loch Tay, the other westward to Loch Awe, and the former is called in charters Glenlochy Alban, to distinguish it from the other. We have therefore the term Alban applied to the country beyond the frontier of Dalriada, and the term Eire to Dalriada as being a colony of Scots from Eire. The south part of Morvern was called Kinelvadon or Cinelbhadon, from Badon, a son of Loarn, and therefore belonged to Dalriada. On the shoulder of the hill in Mull called Benmore, which forms the pass from the northern to the southern part of the island and is called Mamchlachaig, there are two cairns. The one on the north is called Carn Cul ri Alban, or the cairn with its back to Alban, and the other Carn Cul ri Erin, or the cairn with its back to Eire. There is a similar cairn on Iona and another on Colonsay, both called Carn Cul ri Eirin, which seem to mark the boundary. If Iona was exactly on the boundary which separated Dalriada from the Picts, it is obvious how Bede’s statement that it was given to Saint Columba by the Picts who inhabit the adjacent districts, is not inconsistent with that of Tighernac, that it was immolated to him by the king of Dalriada. The expression is ‘offeravit.’ See Reeves’s Adamnan, orig. ed., p. 434, for a judicious examination of this point.
284. This account is taken from the Tract ‘On the Men of Alban’ (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 308). The Cinel Comgall, from whom Cowall takes its name, formed properly a fourth tribe, being descended from a brother of Gabran, but they appear to have been incorporated with the Cinel Gabran. The Cinel Loarn consisted of three smaller tribes—the Cinel Fergus Salach, the Cinel Cathbath, and the Cinel Eachadh, to whom the three subdivisions of Lorn—Nether Lorn, Mid-Lorn, and Upper Lorn—may be severally assigned. Dr. O’Donovan identified Dunmonaidh, the traditionary capital of Dalriada, with Dunstaffnage, but evidently upon mere conjecture. Dr. Reeves, in his edition of Adamnan, rightly identifies it with Dunadd.
285. Eis quæ arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis, ab australibus eorum sunt regionibus sequestratæ (B. iii. c. iv.).
Erat autem Columba primus doctor fidei Christianæ transmontanis Pictis ad aquilonem (B. v. c. ix.).
286. Ut, ubi res perveniret in dubium, magis de feminea regum prosapia, quam de masculina regem sibi eligerent; quod usque hodie apud Pictos constat esse servatum.—Bede, B. i. c. 1.
287. Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 40, 45, 126.
288. Ibid. pp. 319, 328, 329.
289. Brude mac Bile and Talorcan mac Ainfrait. This will appear afterwards.
290. M‘Lennan, Primitive Marriage, p. 129.
291. Cæsar says of the Britons of the interior, ‘Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxime fratres cum fratribus, parentesque cum liberis; sed, si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur liberi, quo primum virgo quæque deducta est.’—(B. v. c. 14.) Dio, as reported by Xiphiline, attributes a similar custom to the Caledonians and Mæatæ, when he says that they have wives in common, and rear the whole of their progeny. It is obvious that such a custom must have given rise to the feeling, that the only certainty of a child belonging to a particular family was to look to the mother, not the father, as the link which connected him with it; and that the Pictish system would naturally spring out of it; but it is probable Cæsar and Dio represented a custom as it appeared to them, without understanding it.
292. When the father of the children adopted was king in a nation where male succession prevailed, the eldest son appears to have remained in the father’s tribe, and succeeded to his throne, while the children adopted alone non-Pictish names. We shall find this to be the case where the kings were of foreign race.
293. 584 Mors Bruidhe mac Mailchon Righ Cruithneach.—Tigh.
294. 599 Bas Gartnaidh regis Pictorum.—Tigh.
295. In the Latin lists this king is confounded with the older Nectan, and called the son of Irb and the founder of Abernethy.
296. Bamborough is about sixteen miles south-east of Berwick. The Holy Island is about nine miles from Berwick, and is four miles long and two broad. The channel between it and the mainland is left dry at low water.
297. A.D. 606 Bas Aedhan mac Gabhrain anno xxviii. regni sui, aetatis vero lxxiv.—Tigh.
298. Nectan is said to have reigned 20 years, and Cinioch 19; together 39 years. Tighernac, however, records the death of the previous king Gartnaidh in 599, and of Cinadon in 631, giving an interval of only 32 years. Cinioch therefore began to reign in 612, and as Tighernac does not record the death of Nectan as king of the Picts, he must then have been displaced.
299. Majore potentia cunctis qui Brittaniam incolunt, Anglorum pariter et Brettonum populis, præfuit (B. ii. c. v.). Nemo Anglorum ante eum omnes Britanniæ fines, qua vel ipsorum vel Brettonum provinciæ habitant, sub ditione acceperit (B. ii. c. ix.).
300. In the foundation charter of Holyrood by David I., he called it ‘Ecclesia Sancti Crucis Edwinesburgensis.’ Simeon of Durham calls it Edwinesburch.
301. It is called ‘Lothene’ in the Saxon Chronicle, and appears to be meant by Lethead in the ancient poem in Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 127. Florence of Worcester calls it ‘Provincia Loidis,’ and the Chronicle of Melrose the same. It appears, as we shall see, under the name of ‘Regio Loidis’ in 654. In its limited extent it was the district between the Avon and the Lammermoors. In the foundation charter of Holyrood, David the First grants to its monks the tenth of all the marine animals which might be thrown ashore ‘ab Avon usque ad Colbrandspath,’ with the tenth of his pleas and other dues within the same limits; and in a charter of Rolland, son of Uchtred, some lands in Lauderdale are described as ‘usque ad divisas de Laodonia versus Lambermor.’ This district now consists of the three counties of East, Mid, and West Lothians. Simeon of Durham refers to it in its large extent when he has ‘pervenit apud fluvium Twedam, qui Northymbriam et Loidam disterminat.’—Sym. Dun. Surtees ed., p. 127.
302. A.D. 627 Cath Airdcoraind in Dalriada [Lachtnene mac Toirbene Abbach] victores erant in quo cecidit Fiachna mac Demain la Conadh Cerr Ri Dalriada.—Tigh. The words within brackets belong to another year and have dropped in by mistake.
303. A.D. 629 Cath Fedhaeoin in quo Maelcaith mac Scandail Rex Cruithnin victor erat. Dalriada cecidit. Concad Cer Rex Dalriada cecidit et Dicuill mac Eachach Rex Ceneoil Cruithne cecidit et nepotes Aidan, id est, Regullan mac Conaing et Failbe mac Eachach [et Osseric mac Albruit cum strage maxima suorum]. Eochadh Buidhi mac Aidan victor erat.—Tigh. The words in brackets do not belong to this event. The Ulster Annals add, ‘Mors Eochach Buidhe regis Pictorum filii Aedain, sic in libro Cuanac inveni.’ In the tract on the battle of Magh-Rath we are told that Eochadh Buidhe married the daughter of Eochaidh Aingces Ri Bretain. This is a Gaelic and not a British name, and a king of the Picts of Galloway may be meant, through whose daughter Eochadh Buidhe acquired his right.
304. Bas Cinaetha mac Luchtren regis Pictorum.—Tigh.
305. Quamvis nomen et professionem haberet Christiani, adeo tamen erat animo ac moribus barbarus, ut ne sexui quidem muliebri vel innocuæ parvulorum parceret ætati.—B. ii. c. 20.
306. Viro strenuissimo de regio genere Merciorum.—Ib.
307. Bede, ii. c. 20. The chronicle annexed to Nennius dates this battle in 630, and Tighernac in 631, when he has ‘Cath itir Etuin mac Ailli regis Saxonum, qui totam Britanniam regnavit, in quo victus est a Chon rege Britonum et Panta Saxano;’ but Tighernac dates Anglic events two or three years before Bede.
308. Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iv. c. 1.
309. Adamnan, Vit. Col. Book i. c. 1.
310. 632 Cath la Cathlon et Anfraith qui decollatus est, in quo Osualt mac Etalfraith victor erat et Catlon rex Britonum cecidit.—Tigh.
311. 635 Cath Seghuisse in quo cecidit Lochene mac Nechtain Cennfota et Cumascach mac Aengussa.—Tigh. Bellum Seguse in quo cecidit Lochne mac Nechtain Ceannfotai agus Cumuscach mac Aengusso agus Gartnait mac Oith.—An. Ult.
312. 678 Cath i Calitros in quo victus est Domhnall breacc.—Tigh. The battle is entered under wrong year, being after Domnall Breac’s death; but as Tighernac, who records his death at 642, repeats it at 686, it may be held to have taken place eight years before his death. The cause of these misplaced entries will be afterwards noticed.
313. Iisdem finibus regnum tenuit.—B. ii. c. v.
314. Pink. Vit. SS. p. 30. Adamnan, Vit. S. Col. B. iii. c. vi.
315. An ancient historical romance called the Battle of Magh Rath was published in the original Irish, with a translation and notes, for the Irish Archæological Society, by Dr. O’Donovan, which may be consulted with advantage, but it contains the anachronism of Congal Claen applying to Eochadh Buidhe as the then reigning king of Dalriada, who had died eight years before. Mr. Burton has strangely misrepresented the Dalriadic history, arising probably from a too superficial examination of the Irish Annals, and a want of acquaintance with Irish names and words, which he rarely gives correctly. In vol. i. p. 289, he states of Aidan that by his descent from Riadha he belonged to the race of the Hy Neill, but this is a mistake. The Dalriads belonged to an entirely different branch of the Scots from the Hy Neill. He says that Aidan justified Saint Columba’s prophetic fears by emancipating his territory from dependence on the monarchs of Ireland, but it was Saint Columba himself who effected this emancipation at the Council of Drumceatt. He says that Domnall Brecc contemplated the subjugation of Ireland, and implies that the Dalriadic kings put forward some pretensions to the Irish throne, of which there is not the least trace. The only successor of Domnall Brecc whom Mr. Burton notices is Eocha, or Auchy as he calls him, son of Aodhfin, in 796, a fictitious king who never existed.
316. 638 Cath Glinnemairison in quo mundert Domnall Bricc do teichedh (the people of Domnall Brecc fled) et obsessio Etin.—Tigh. The Ulster Annals have Glenmureson. Glenmoriston in Inverness-shire is of course out of the question, and the only name in a suitable situation is the Mureston Water, in the parishes of West and Mid Calder, on the south bank of the Almond, and between it and the Mureston Water are four barrows or tumuli, near which, according to common tradition, a great battle was fought in early times between the Picts and Scots.—N. S. A. vol. i. p. 373. That Etin here is Edinburgh need not be doubted.
317. 642. Domnall-brecc in cath Srathacauin in fine anni in Decembre interfectus est xv. regni sui ab Ohan rege Britonum.—Tigh. The Annals of Ulster have in the same year ‘Domhnall-breacc in bello Sraith Cairinn in fine anni in Decembre interfectus est ab Hoan rege Britonum.’ The upper part of the Vale of the Carron, through which the river flows after rising in the Fintry hills, is called Strathcarron, but it also bore the name of Strathcawin. Thus in the Morton Chartulary there is a charter by Alexander II., which mentions ‘Dundaf et Strathkawan que fuerunt foresta nostra’ (Ap. to Pref., vol. i. p. xxxiv). Dundaf adjoins Strathcarron. The letter h in Ohan or Hoan is redundant. The name is Oan, a form of Owen, or Eugein. There is in the Welsh poem of the Gododin a stanza which obviously relates to this event. It is repeated in the poem with some verbal variations, but it may be thus rendered:—
The author is indebted to Professor Evans of New York for pointing out that Pentir is the Welsh equivalent of Cindtire, or Kintyre, and for correcting the erroneous rendering of the first lines in the Four Ancient Books of Wales.—See Archæologia Cambrensis for April 1874, p. 122.
Now this Oan who slew Domnall Breacc is evidently the Eugein who appears in the Welsh genealogies attached to Nennius as the ancestor of the later kings of Alclyde—(see Chron. Picts and Scots, Pref. xcv), and who was son of Beli, son of Neithon, who is obviously the Nwython of the poem, and by his men the Strathclyde Britons are meant. The Annals of Ulster have, at 649, ‘Cocat huae Naedain et Gartnait meic Accidain’ (war of the grandson of Naedan and Gartnaidh son of Accidan). The grandson of Naedan was no doubt Oan or Eugein, and his opponent a Pict.
318. Flann Mainistrech and the Albanic Duan place five kings during this period—Conall Crandomna, and Dungall or Dunchad mac Duban, who reign jointly ten years; Domnall Donn thirteen years, Mailduin mac Conall seventeen years, and Fearchan Fada twenty-one years—in all sixty-one years, which brings us to the end of the century; but Tighernac records the death of Conall Crandomna in 660, Mailduin mac Conall Crandomna in 689, and Fearchar Fada in 697, simply, without adding to their names the title Ri Dalriada. Conall Crandomna was brother of Domnall Breacc, and his reigning jointly with Dungall or Dunchad, of another line, shows how the little kingdom was broken up. Domnall Donn and Mailduin were his sons, but Fearchan Fada was of the Cinel Loarn.
319. Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iii. c. iv. Tighernac has at 632 ‘Inis Metgoit fundata est,’ but he antedates Anglic events three years.
320. Denique omnes nationes et provincias Brittaniæ, quæ in quatuor linguas, id est, Brettonum, Pictorum, Scottorum, et Anglorum divisæ sunt, in ditione accepit.—B. iii. c. vi.
321. Tighernac has at 639, recte 642, simply ‘Cath Osuailt contra Panta, in quo Osualt cecidit,’ which rather implies that he was the attacking party.
322. 642, recte 645, Cath Ossueius inimun (between him) et Britones.
323. Bede, B. iii. c. xvi.
324. Ib. c. xvii.
325. Bede, B. iii. c. xxiv.
326. B. ii. c. xiv. There is a slight variation in the expression. In the one case it is ‘regio quæ vocatur Loidis,’ and in this simply ‘regio Loidis.’
327. Bede says that ‘prope fluvium Winuaed pugnatum est,’ and ‘Hoc autem bellum rex Osuiu in regione Loidis tertio decimo regni sui anno, decimo septimo die kal. Decembrium cum magna utriusque populi utilitate confecit.’
The continuator of Nennius, ‘Et ipse (Osguid) occidit Pantha in Campo Gaii et nunc facta est Strages Gai campi et reges Britonum interfecti sunt qui exierant cum rege Pantha in expeditione usque ad urbem quæ vocatur Judeu. Tunc reddidit Osguid omnes divitias quæ erant cum eo in urbe, usque in Manau, Pende et Penda distribuit ea regibus Britonum, id est, Atbret Judeu. Solus autem Catgabail rex Guenedote regionis cum exercitu suo evasit de nocte consurgens; qua propter vocatus est Catgabail Catguommed.’Catguommed.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 13.
It is obvious that the event in the second sentence preceded the first, and that it was a night attack.
Florence of Worcester says that Penda with thirty legions and an equal number of noble chiefs entered Bernicia for the purpose of attacking Oswy.
There is a very ingenious paper by Mr. D. W. Nash, in the Cambrian Journal, vol. iv., Second Series, p. 1, in which, identifying this battle with the battle of Catraeth, which forms the subject of the poem of the Gododin, he was the first to point out the probability of the scene of the battle being in the north. He identifies the town Judeu with Bede’s Giudi, but supposes it to be the same as Jedburgh, and endeavours to show from the poem itself that it relates to this battle. The author concurs with him so far that the battle in which Penda was slain took place in the north, and that by the ‘regio Loidis’ Lothian is meant, and he can hardly doubt that the name ‘Gaius Campus’ is merely a Latin rendering of Catraeth; but he cannot agree in the identification with Jedburgh, because Catraeth was evidently on the sea-shore, and Bede, whose authority cannot be questioned, places Giudi in the Firth of Forth. He can discover no resemblance between the incidents in the poem and this battle, though the locality may be the same. Tighernac has at 656 ‘Cath Pante regis Saxonum in quo ipse cum xxx regibus cecidit. Ossiu victor erat.’ The Chronicle annexed to Nennius has in 656 ‘Strages Gaii Campi,’ and in 657, ‘Pantha occisio,’ thus placing the battle and the death of Penda in two different years, but this is against all authorities.
328. Æqualibus pene terminis regnum nonnullo tempore coercens, Pictorum quoque atque Scottorum gentes, quæ septentrionales Brittanniæ fines tenent, maxima ex parte perdomuit, ac tributarias fecit.—B. ii. c. v.
329. 658. Mors Gureit regis Alocluaithe.—An. Ult.
330. A.D. 653 Bass Ferich mac Totalain et Ectolairg mac Fooith regis Pictorum.—Tigh.
331. A.D. 657 Bas Tolarcain mac Ainfrith Ri Cruithne.—Tigh.
332. Idem autem rex Osuiu tribus annis post occisionem Pendan regis, Mercionum genti, necnon et cæteris australium provinciarum populis præfuit: qui etiam gentem Pictorum maxima ex parte regno Anglorum subjecit.—B. iii. c. xxiv.
333. Bede, B. iii. c. xxv.
334. Ib., B. iii. c. xxvi. His expression is ‘in Scottiam regressus est.’ In another place (B. iv. c. iv.) he says ‘Interea Colmanus, qui de Scottia erat episcopus, relinquens Britanniam, tulit secum omnes quos in Lindisfarnensium insula congregaverat Scottos; sed et de gente Anglorum viros circiter triginta, qui utrique monachicæ conversationis erant studiis imbuti. Et relictis in ecclesia sua fratribus aliquot, primo venit ad insulam Hii, unde erat ad prædicandum verbum Anglorum genti destinatus. Deinde secessit ad insulam quandam parvam, quæ ad occidentalem plagam ab Hibernia procul secreta, sermone Scottico Inisboufinde, id est, insula vitulæ albæ, nuncupatur. In hanc ergo perveniens, construxit monasterium, et monachos inibi, quos de utraque natione collectos adduxerat, collocavit.’ It might be thought that by the expression ‘in Scottiam regressus,’ Bede considered Hii or Iona as being in Scottia, but Bede elsewhere uses Scottia invariably for Ireland, and in narrating Saint Columba’s mission to Iona he says, ‘venit de Hibernia Britanniam.’ He therefore probably, when he says Colman was de ‘Scottia,’ meant that he came from Ireland and returned there eventually, merely visiting Iona on his way.
335. A.D. 668. Navigatio Colman Episcopi cum reliquiis sanctorum ad insulam Vaccæ Albæ in quo fundavit ecclesiam et navigatio filiorum Gartnaith ad Hiberniam cum plebe Scith.—Tigh.
670 Venit gens Gartnait de Hibernia.—Tigh. For the Columban settlements in Skye see Reeves’s Adamnan, edit. 1874, p. 274. Colman’s course to Iona can be traced by the dedications. Menmuir and Fearn in Forfarshire are dedicated to St. Aidan, and he is himself patron saint of Tarbet in Easter Ross.
336. Wilfrido administrante episcopatum Eboracensis ecclesiæ, necnon et omnium Nordanhymbrorum, sed et Pictorum, quousque rex Osuiu imperium protendere poterat.—B. iv. c. iii.
337. Nam in primis annis ejus, tenero adhuc regno, populi bestiales Pictorum feroci animo subjectionem Saxonum despiciebant, et jugum servitutis a se abjicere minabantur, congregantes undique de utribus et folliculis Aquilonis innumeras gentes, quasi formicarum greges in æstate de tumulis ferventes, aggerem contra domum cadentem muniebant. Quo audito Rex Ecgfridus humilis in populis suis, magnanimus in hostes, statim equitatu exercito præparato, tarda molimina nesciens, sicut Judas Maccabæus in Deum confidens, parva manu populi Dei contra enormem et supra invisibilem hostem cum Bernhaeth subaudaci Regulo invasit, stragemque immensam populi subruit, duo flumina cadaveribus mortuorum replens, ita (quod mirum dictu est) ut supra siccis pedibus ambulantes, fugientium turbam occidentes persequebantur, et in servitutem redacti populi, usque ad diem occisionis regis, subjecti jugo captivitatis jacebant.—Eddii Vit. S. Wilf. c. xix. The name Bernhaeth has all the appearance of a Saxon name, and it is hardly possible to avoid the suspicion that he is the same person as the father of ‘Brectred dux regius Norndanhymbrorum,’ who was slain by the Picts in 698, and who is called by Tighernac, filius Bernith. He may have been the Anglic ruler over the subjected Picts who had joined them, and may have provoked the insurrection in order to make himself independent.
338. 672 Expulsio Drosto de regno.—Tigh.
339. Sicut igitur Ecgfrido Rege religioso regnum ad Aquilonem et Austrum per triumphos augebatur: Ita beatæ memoriæ Wilfrido Episcopo ad Austrum super Saxones et Aquilonem super Britones et Scotos, Pictosque regnum ecclesiarum multiplicabatur; omnibus gentibus carus et amabilis, ecclesiastica officia diligenter persolvebat et omnibus locis presbyteros et diaconos sibi adjuvantes abundanter ordinavit, inter seculares undas fluctuantes moderate novas ecclesias gubernabat.—Eddii Vit. S. Wilf. c. xxi.
340. Trumuini ad provinciam Pictorum, quæ tunc temporis Anglorum erat imperio subjecta.—Bede, H. E. B. iv. c. xii. Later writers who knew of no Picts but those of Galloway have made it Trumuin’s diocese, but there can be no doubt that Bede throughout refers to the province of the Picts north of the Firth of Forth.
341. Bredei reigned twenty-one years, and died in 693, which places the beginning of his reign in this year.
342. This is proved by the poem afterwards quoted, attributed to Adamnan, in which he is called ‘the son of the king of Alcluaith;’ and in another poem, attributed to Riagal of Bangor, he is said to fight for the land of his grandfather. The continuator of Nennius calls him the ‘fratruelis’ of Ecgfrid, that is, the son or descendant of his father’s brother; and Anfrait, the father of Talorcan, was the brother of Osuiu, the father of Ecgfrid. It is curious to see how very little of real Pictish blood he had.
343. A.D. 680 Obsessio Duinbaitte.—An. Ult. A.D. 681 Obsessio Duin Foither.—Ib.
A.D. 682 Orcades deletæ sunt la Bruidhe.—Tigh.
344. The genealogy is given in the Tract on the Men of Alban.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 316.
345. A.D. 678 Interfectio generis Loairn itirinn, id est, Feachair fotai et Britones qui victores erant.—Tigh.
In 683, however, he appears to have advanced more successfully, and to have been enabled to act in concert with Bredei, as in that year we have the sieges of Dunatt and Dunduirn recorded.[346] The one was Dunadd, the principal seat of the Dalriads, and a strong fort in the Moss of Crinan. The other was an equally strong position crowning an eminence at the east end of Loch Earn, which was the principal stronghold of the district of Fortrenn. We now find Bredei, called in the Irish Annals king of Fortrenn, and this success seems to have aroused King Ecgfrid of Northumbria to the necessity of once more attacking and subduing the Picts.
Bellum Duinlocho et bellum Liaccmaelain et Doirad Eilinn.—An. Ult.
346. A.D. 683 Obsessio Duinatt et Duinduirn.—An. Ult.
347. Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iv. c. 26. A.D. 685. Saxones Campum Breg vastant et ecclesias plurimas in mense Junii.—An. Ult.
348. Siquidem anno post hunc proximo idem rex, cum temere exercitum ad vastandum Pictorum provinciam duxisset, multum prohibentibus amicis et maxime beatæ memoriæ Cudbercto qui nuper fuerat ordinatus episcopus, introductus est, simulantibus fugam hostibus, in angustias inaccessorum montium, et cum maxima parte copiarum quas secum adduxerat, extinctus anno ætatis suæ quadragesimo, regni autem quinto decimo, die tertiadecima kal. Juniarium.—B. iv. c. 62.
349. 686 Cath Duin Nechtain xxo die mensis Maii Sabbati dei factum est in quo Ecfrit mac Ossu, rex Saxonum, xv anno regni sui consummato magna cum caterva militum suorum interfectus la Bruidhi mac Bile rege Fortrenn.—Tigh. At rex Ecgfridus anno quo fecerat hunc venerabilem patrem ordinari episcopum, cum maxima parte copiarum quas ad devastandam terram Pictorum secum duxerat, secundum prophetiam ejusdem patris Cuthberti extinctus est apud Nechtanesmere, quod est stagnum Nechtani, die xiii. Kal. Juniarum anno regni sui xv. cujus corpus in Hii insula Columbæ sepultum est.—Sim. Dun. de Dun. Ec. B. i. c. ix. Et combussit Tula Aman Duin Ollaigh.—An. Ult.
350. See the N. S. A., vol. ii. p. 146, for the tradition of the battle and a notice of these stone coffins.
351. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 402.
352. Ex quo tempore spes cœpit et virtus regni Anglorum fluere, ac retro sublapsa referri. Nam et Picti terram possessionis suæ quam tenuerunt Angli, et Scotti qui erant in Brittania, Brettonum quoque pars nonnulla, libertatem receperunt, quam et hactenus habent per annos circiter quadraginta sex.—B. iv. c. 26.
353. Et nunquam addiderunt Saxones Ambronum ut a Pictis vectigal exigerent.—Nennius Con. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 11.
354. Distructumque regni statum, quamvis intra fines angustiores, nobiliter recuperavit.—B. iv. c. xxvi.
355. Inter plurimos gentis Anglorum vel interemptos gladio vel servitio addictos, vel de terra Pictorum fuga lapsos, etiam reverendissimus vir Dei Trumuini, qui in eos episcopatum acceperat, recessit cum suis qui erant in monasterio Aebbercurnig, posito quidem in regione Anglorum, sed in vicinia freti quod Anglorum terras, Pictorumque disterminat.—B. iv. c. xxvi. Trumuin appears to have fled himself from the province of the Picts, but, instead of remaining at Abercorn, to have retreated from thence with its monks, as too near the Pictish territory. In fact, as it had been but recently established in connection with the bishopric over the Picts which he had now lost, he had no object in remaining there.
356. A.D. 693 Bruidhe mac Bile rex Fortrend moritur et Alpin mac Nechtain.—Tigh.
357. Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 408.
358. A.D. 694 Obsessio Duin Fother.—An. Ult. A.D. 697 Tarachin ar na scriss as a flaithius (driven from the lordship).—Tigh.
359. A.D. 698 Cath etir Saxones et Pictos ubi cecidit filius Bernith qui dicebatur Brechtraig.—Tigh. 698 Berctred dux regius Nordanhymbrorum a Pictis interfectus.—Bede, Chron. 699 Tarain ad Hiberniam fugit.—An. Ult.
360. 706 Brude mac Derile mortuus est.—Tigh.
361. 711 Strages Pictorum in campo Manand ab Saxonis ubi Findgaine mac Deleroith immatura morte jacuit.—Tigh. 711 Berctfrid præfectus cum Pictis pugnavieum regnatt.—Bede, Chron. 710. In the same year the Aldorman Beorhtfrith fought against the Picts between Hæfe and Cære.—Sax. Chron. in Thorpe’s trans.
362. Bede’s expression in referring to Candida Casa or Whitherne as ‘locus ad provinciam Berniciorum pertinens’ (B. iii. c. iv.), implies that it still belonged to the Northumbrians; and Simeon of Durham, in his history of St. Cuthbert, says that King Ecgfrid gave him in 685 ‘villam quæ vocatur Creca ... et quia videbatur parva terra, adjecit civitatem quæ vocatur Luel, quæ habet in circuitu quindecim milliaria, et in eadem civitate posuit congregationem sanctimonialium, et abbatissam ordinavit et scholas constituit.’‘—Ed. Surtees, p. 141. The Angles would have been entirely separated from Galloway, and could not have communicated with it, if they had not possessed the south shore of the Solway Firth also.
363. 694 Domnall mac Avin rex Alochluaithe moritur.—Tigh.
364. 696 Jugulatio Domhnaill filii Conaill Crandamnai.—An. Ult. 697 Fearchar Fota moritur.—Tigh. Euchu nepos Domhnall jugulatus est.—An. Ult. 698 Combustio Duin Onlaig. Expulsio Ainbhcellaig filii Ferchar de regno et vinctus ad Hiberniam vehitur.—An. Ult.
365. These kings are included in the list of kings of Dalriada in the Synchronisms of Flann Mainistrech, and in the Albanic Duan; but as their joint reigns amount to 64 years, while from the death of Domnall Brecc in 642, to the expulsion of Ainbhcellaig in 698, there are only 56, it is plain that they were not all consecutive reigns, but ruled over different parts of Dalriada at the same time.
366. 701 Destructio Duin Onlaigh apud Sealbach. Jugulatio generis Cathboth.—An. Ult.
367. Tighernac has, in 621, ‘Cath Cindelgthen in quo ceciderunt da mic Libran mic Illaind mic Cerbaill. Conall mac Suibne victor erat et Domnall breacc cum eo. Conaing mac Aedan mic Gabrain diversus est. Bimudine eiceas cecinit.’cecinit.’ The poem may be thus translated:—
In the tract on the Men of Alban the descendants of Conang are called ‘the men of the half portion of Conang, or half of the tuath or barony.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 315.
368. 701 Destructio Duin Onlaigh apud Sealbach. Jugulatio generis Cathboth.—An. Ult. 704 Strages Dalriada in Glenlemnae.—Tigh. 707 Becc nepos Duncadho jugulatur.—An. Ult. 711 Congressio Brittonum et Dalriadha for Loirgeclat ubi Britones devicti.—Tigh. 712 Obsessio Aberte apud Selbacum.—An. Ult. 714 Duin Onlaig construitur apud Selbacum.—Tigh. 717 Congressio Dalriada et Britonum in lapide qui vocatur Minvircc et Britones devicti sunt.—Tigh.