[56] _Innes_, Ap. 3. The title of _Civitas Regalis_ is given to Scone early in the next reign. The _palatium_, or royal residence of Kenneth, was at Forteviot, the ancient Pictish capital. [57] _Innes_, Ap. 3 and 5. _Wynton_, bk. 6, c. 9. _Fordun_, l. 4, c. 17, 18; l. 11 c. 40, 59. Wynton, Fordun, and the _Chron. Ryth._ at the end of the _Chron. Mel._--the same evidently as that quoted by Wynton--agree in giving eighteen years to Cyric, and placing his death at Dundurn, Dornedeore, or Dunadeer, in the Garioch. The reigns of the three kings extended over twenty-two years, from 878 to 900, the dates in the Ulster annals of the deaths of Aodh and Donald; and as Eocha reigned for eleven years (_Chron._ 5), Donald must have succeeded in 889. The Chron. No. 3 places an eclipse on St. Ciric’s Day (16th June) under the ninth year of Eocha and Cyric. This actually occurred on 16th June 885, in the _eighth_ year of their reign; and allowing for the trifling inaccuracy of a year, it is evidently the eclipse referred to. From confounding St. Ciric with St. Siriac, on whose day (8th August 891) an eclipse also happened, both Pinkerton and Chalmers have misdated all these reigns. [58] _Innes_, Ap. 3, 5. _An. Ult._ 899. _Fordun_, l. 4, c. 20. Either this king, or one of his predecessors, must have been the sufferer at Mundingdene, a mile south of Norham, when the obedience of Guthred, son of Hardicanute (rather a mythical personage), to the dictates of Abbot Edred’s vision, in restoring the lands of St. Cuthbert between Tyne and Wear to the Church, was rewarded by the intervention of the Saint in behalf of the sacred territory, when it was invaded by a band of Scots, who were miraculously engulphed in the yawning earth! _Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun._, l. 2, c. 14. _Leland_, vol. i. p. 329. It is a pity the miracle was not repeated a few years later, when Reginald Hy Ivar divided these very lands amongst his pagan followers. What with the _sac_, _soc_ and _infangthief_, granted by Guthred in the ninth century, the fine of 96 Anglo-Norman pounds, and the near vicinity of the Scots to St. Cuthbert’s territory, the story affords a very fair specimen of the inventions by which the monks occasionally tried to give a title to lands which they often really possessed rightfully, though without legal proof of such right. A miracle or a victory, especially if either were at the expense of the Scots, lent an air of sanctity or authority to the fabrication, which it would have been impious or unpatriotic to doubt. [59] _Innes_, Ap. 3. _An. Ult._ 903. As the annals call the victors “the men of Fortren,” I have rendered the _Sraith Eremi_ of Pinkerton’s version of _Chron._ 3, Strathearn.