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Kenneth Macalpin

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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MacAlpin (d. c. 860), often described as the first king of Scotland (kingdom of Scone), was the son of the Alpin, called king of the Scots, who had been slain by the Picts in 832 or 834, whilst endeavouring to assert his claim to the Pictish throne. On the death of his father, Kenneth is said to have succeeded him in the kingdom of the Scots. The region of his rule is matter of conjecture, though Galloway seems the most probable suggestion, in which case he probably led a piratic host against the Picts. On the father's side he was descended from the Conall Gabhrain of the old Dalriadic Scottish kingdom, and the claims of father and son to the Pictish throne were probably through female descent. Their chief support seems to have been found in Fife. In the seventh year of his reign (839 or 841) he took advantage of the effects of a Danish invasion of the Pictish kingdom to attack the remaining Picts, whom he finally subdued in 844 or 846. In 846 or 848 he transported the relics of St Columba to a church which he had constructed at Scone. He is said also to have carried out six invasions of Northumbria, in the course of which he burnt Dunbar and took Melrose. According to the Scalacronica of Sir Thomas Gray he drove the Angles and Britons over the Tweed, reduced the land as far as that river, and first called his kingdom Scotland. In his reign there appears to have been a serious invasion by Danish pirates, in which Cluny and Dunkeld were burnt. He died in 860 or 862, after a reign of twenty-eight years, at Forteviot and was buried at Iona. The double dates are due to a contest of authorities. Twenty-eight years is the accepted length of his reign, and according to the chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon it began in 832. The Pictish Chronicle, however, gives Tuesday, the 13th of February as the day, and this suits 862 only, in which case his reign would begin in 834.