Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/141

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PREFACE.
cxxxiii

doubted; and the result of the comparison of the two lists is, that the compilers of the Latin lists suppressed the conquest of Dalriada by the Angles, by extending the reigns of the early kings till Donald brec is made the immediate predecessor of Ferchar fada, and that they, in like manner, suppressed the conquest of Dalriada by the Picts, and the century of Pictish rule in that kingdom, by placing the reigns of the last four Scottish kings a century later, and interpolating kings before them to fill up the vacant period.

VII.

Substantial agreement of chronicles subsequent to 850.
First four kings—called Kings of the Picts

Such being the variation in the lists of the substantial Pictish kings, and likewise in those of the kings of Dalriada, whether Scottish or Pictish, we find to that in all of these lists Kenneth Mac Alpin appears as their immediate successor; that in him the lines both of the Picts and of the Dalriads unite; and that there is little variation in the accounts given by the different chronicles of his successors. By all he is made a Scot, and is usually termed "Primus Scottorum," and "Primus rex Scottorum." By Flann Mainistreach he is said to have given the kingdom of Scone to the Gael; and by St, Berchan he is called Ferhabach, the besieger, and the first king of the men of Erin; he destroys the Cruithneach at Scone, and dies on the banks of the Earn. The "Pictish Chronicle" places his death at his palace of Forteviot, and the "Irish Annals" record it in the