Early Sources of Scottish History: A.D. 500 to 1286

Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Bibliographical Notes
Calendar Notes
Orthographical Notes
Tables of the Succession of Kings, in Northumbria, Dalriata, Pictland, Scotland, and England

Introduction

I-Establishment of the Kingdoms of Dalriata and Northumbria
II-Christianization of the Picts. Life of Columba
III-Affairs before and after the Council of Druimm-Ceta
IV-Death of Columba
V-Zenith and Decline of Dalriata

VI-Zenith and Decline of Northumbria
VII-Domination of the Picts over Dalriata
VIII-Recovery of Dalriata. Norwegian Invasions. Union of the Kingdoms of the Scots and the Picts
IX-Scandinavian Settlements
X-Harold Fairhair. Orkney and the Hebrides

XI-Iceland and the Hebrides
XII-Ketil Flatnose establishes Scandinavian Rule in the Hebrides
XIII-Thorstein the Red becomes master of Caithness and Sutherland. Turf-Einar in the Orkneys
XIV-Harold Fairhair's Invasion. Reign of Constantine II
XV-Battle of Vin-heath

XVI-End of Constantine's Reign. Reign of Malcolm
XVII-Eric's Sons
XVIII-Reigns of Indulf, Dub, and Culen
XIX-Reign of Kenneth II
XX-Reigns of Constantine III and Kenneth III

XXI-Reign of Malcolm II; and the Danish Conquest
XXII-Reigns of Duncan, Macbeth, and Lulach. History of Northumbria

Preface

The chronicles tell of events; but they show also the successive influences that were at work upon Scotland - Irish, Scandinavian, English, and Norman.

From the time of the Norman Conquest, foreign influences prevailed at the Scottish court. The kings were partly of English blood; the queens were English or French; the nobles were imported from northern France. French manners were cultivated. There was little national spirit, as opposed to tribal or local patriotism, until after the events that followed the competition for the crown. Then the experience of true feudal inferiority galled the people, and diverse native and foreign elements combined to throw off the yoke. Thence- forward the common desire to remain independent was a generally unifying influence among the Scottish peoples; and national spirit arose.

The sphere of the present work is the period of foreign settlements, foreign encroachments, foreign influence, and intermittent submissions to a foreign power: the period also of assimilation of peoples, centralization of government, and, in the end, unification of territory, by which the way to complete independence was prepared. It is not the period of Scotland's greatest...

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