Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/64

Ivi PEEFACE. of it is " Excerpta qusedam de magno registro prio- " ratus Sanctas Andrese," and then follows the table of contents, beginning with the sentence, " In regis- " tro prioratus Sanctse Andreae sunt," and conclud- ing with the sentence, " et sic finitus registrum, fol. " 121." Then follows the extracts with the title, "A " registro prioratus Sanctse Andrese. fol. 46," and the first extract is the chronicle here printed. It is of course a late copy, and full of inaccuracies. It contains the foUowinoj calculation of the date — " Summa annoruni a Kinat mac Alpin ad regnum " Alexandri 501 annis," and the date of the corona- tion of Alexander as given in the following para- graph is 1251.^ From 850, the era of Kenneth Macalpin, to the year 1251, is exactly 401 years. It is therefore plain that an additional century had now been added to the period of the duration of the kingdom of the Scots founded by Kenneth Macalpin. The Metrical 3 0. ThE METRICAL ChRONICLE, COMMONLY CALLED mon'iy caned"" THE Croxicon Elegiacum. — The Only complete EieMacrm"" ^^^J ^^ ^^^ chrouicle is to be found in a ms. in the Bodleian, of the middle of the fourteenth century (c. IV. 3), and this copy bears to have been composed in the reign of Alexander the Thii'd, from the ex- pression in the last line, " qui modo sceptra tenet." It is inserted in a fragmentary manner in the " Chronicle of Melrose," under the reign of the diflferent kings, to whom the verses refer, terminat- ' The true date of the coronation is 1 249.