Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/129

PEEFACE. cxxi annalists now record Brude, son of Bile, as king of the Picts. He is said in the Irish " Life of St. Adom- " nan" (Ap. No. iv.) to have been the son of the king of Alclyde, so that his right to the Pictish tlirone must have been through his mother ; and Bile ap- pears in the line of the British kings of Strathclyde in the Welsh additions to the " Historia Britonum." He is also said in an old poem, quoted in the " Annals " of MacFirbis," (Ap. No. iii.) to have recovered the kingdom of his grandfather ; and in the Saxon additions to the " Historia Britonum," he and Ecg- frid are said to have been " fratrueles," that is, descended from brothers. His mother must there- fore have been the daughter of Tolargan, son of Ainfred who was the brother of Oswy, the father of Ecgfrid. The death of Brude Mac Bile ri For- tren is recorded in the " Irish Annals," in the year 693, and all the lists agree in his three successors : Taran, son of Entefidich, expelled in 997 ; Brude, son of Derile, whose death is recorded in 706 ; and Nectan, his brother, whose " Clericatus " is men- tioned by the " Irish Annals " in 724. Ferchar fada, or the tall, now appears as king of Dalriada. Prior to the conquest of Oswy, the kings of Dalriada were exclusively of the race of Fergus ; but Ferchar fada was the head of the rival race of Loin, who appear to have taken the lead in recovering the indepen- dence of the Scots. His death is given by the "Irish Annals" in 697. The Latin lists agree in making his successor, Eocha rinamuil, grandson of Tc