Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/199

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PREFACE.
cxci

cedes an account of the reign of Kenneth Mac Alpin, obviously taken from the same source with the "Pictish Chronicle." In the chronicle preserved in the "Scalachronica," the same account is placed between the last king of the Picts and the reign of Kenneth Mac Alpin. By this account a colony of Scots settled in Galloway, where they were mixed with the Picts, spread from that country into Argyle and the Isles, and in the reign of Drust, the son of Feradac, destroyed the Picts by inviting them to a general council, where they slew the king and the chief nobles. As the chronicle says of Drust, the last king, that he was slain at Scone par traisoun, it is clear that this event falls under the year 850, when Kenneth Mac Alpin obtained possession of Scone; and the "Prophecy of St. Berchan" alludes to the same event as having taken place at Scone. According to these authorities, the Scots whom Kenneth led into Pictland were not the same colony of Scots who had founded the kingdom of Dalriada, but came out of Galloway, where they had lived mixed with the Picts, and spread from thence into Argyle and the Isles. There is, however, in the "Life of St. Cadroe," a very remarkable account of the wanderings of the Scots, which differs from all others. They are there said to have entered Ireland, "to have obtained possession of Cloyne, then Armagh, and the whole country between Loch Earne and Loch Neagh, then Kildare, Cork, and finally to have entered Benchor