themselves; and there seems little reason to question that this settlement was only effected after a fierce and prolonged struggle between the Angles and the native population, by which, after varied fortunes on either side, the latter were eventually either exterminated or driven into the more hilly and barren regions on the west. There were thus formed four distinct kingdoms, which remained independent of each other during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, viz. those of the Picts and of the Cumbrian Britons consisting of the two indigenous races, and those of the Scots of Dalriada and Angles of Bernicia established by two of the intruding peoples; and their mutual boundaries had remained unaltered down to the period when Bede wrote in the eighth century. [Sidenote: Foreign elements introduced into population of Pictish and Cumbrian territories.] It was not till the ninth century that those changes in their relative position commenced which ultimately led to their fusion into one mixed population. A revolution in that century led to a dynasty of kings of Scottish descent being permanently placed on the Pictish throne, and to a Scottish element being largely and to an increasing extent introduced into the Pictish population. The capital of the Pictish kingdom had at this time been Scone, and around this central point the new Scottish monarchy had its chief influence, and in the neighbouring districts the new Scottish population would be most numerous. The province of Fife seems to have been considered as their main seat, and they appear to have spread over the central districts of the region extending from the Forth to the great barrier of the Mounth, while the more independent portion of its Pictish population appear at its two extremities in the _firu Fortren_ or men of Fortren, who had their chief stronghold in Dundurn at the eastern end of Lochearn, and in the _viri de Moerne_ or men of Mearns, whose principal fortress was _Dunfother_ or Dunnottar at Stonehaven. These Scots and Picts, belonging to the same Gaelic race and speaking kindred dialects, would amalgamate readily enough, and they would probably be found at this time established alongside of each other in homesteads some of which would be Scottish and others Pictish,—a state of matters of which we find examples in northern Russia, where the earlier Finnish population and the intruding Slavs occupy respective villages, and in parts of Greece, where the distribution of the Albanian and the Greek population presents the same features. This view of the distribution of the Scottish and Pictish communities in the new kingdom of Alban, to which the name of Scotia was soon applied, will to some extent account for the strange interlacing in this part of the country of the three earliest dioceses of Dunkeld, of Abernethy, afterwards represented by the dioceses of Dunblane and Brechin, and of St. Andrews,—the two former being traditionally connected with the Pictish