Confined within the narrow district to the southward of Loch Linne and to the westward of the mountain range of Drumalban, the Dalriad princes exercised but little influence upon the great confederacy of the Picts, their usual opponents being the Britons, and in early times the Angles, against whom both Britons and Dalriads occasionally appear to have united. Their fleet is sometimes mentioned in the Irish annals, a hostile expedition against the Islesmen disclosing the limited extent of their dominion in the western seas.[13] The most prosperous era in the annals of the little kingdom coincides with Columba’s residence in Iona, after Conal, the early patron of the saint, was succeeded by Aidan Mac Gauran, the enterprising and able leader of the clans of Kintyre, the names of whose numerous battles, preserved in the annals and biographies of the period, amply testify to his warlike qualities without throwing much light on the causes of their display. His latest antagonist was the Northumbrian Ethelfrith, [Sidenote: A. D. 603.] from whom he received so severe a check at Degsa’s Stone, that the Angles were allowed henceforth to prosecute their career of conquest over the Britons without interference from the Dalriads, who with the exception of an occasional contest with their neighbours on the Clyde seem to have turned their attention to the opposite coasts of _Uladh_.[14] For a quarter of a century and upwards they were tributaries along with the Picts of the Northumbrian kingdom, regaining their independence after the battle of Nectan’s Mere, though it may be gathered from the words of Adamnan and from certain notices in the annalists, that the predominance in the kingdom passed about this time from Kintyre to the house of Lorn, whose chieftain, Selvach, seems to have rivalled Aidan in the number of his battles, fought generally, as in the case of the latter prince, against the Britons of Strath Clyde. [Sidenote: A. D. 723.] The abdication and death of Selvach were fatal to the supremacy of his house; the authority of his son, Dungal, being quickly confined [Sidenote: A. D. 730.] within the limits of the paternal inheritance, which he was destined a few years later to lose through a wanton outrage upon a connection of the formidable Angus. Bruidi, a son of the Pictish sovereign, appears to have fled for some cause to the island of _Toraic_, [Sidenote: A. D. 733.] where he was followed--or found--by Dungal, who forced him from the sanctuary in which he had taken refuge. The devastation of Lorn in the following year, and the destruction of the two [Sidenote: A. D. 734.] _Raths_ of Dunleven and Dunadd, attest the vigour with which Angus avenged the insult; Dungal and his brother Feredach were carried off in chains in the victor’s train, and two years later the defeat of Muredach, [Sidenote: A. D. 736.] the last known member of the family, upon the shores of Loch Linne, completed the ruin of the house of Lorn. The scanty records