Similar motives may possibly have dictated the benefaction to the church of St. Andrews, which has caused the name of Cyric to be handed down in the register of the ancient priory as “the Liberator of the Scottish Church, which had hitherto remained in a dependant and subservient position, according to the prevailing custom of the Picts.” The boon thus vaguely recorded by the grateful monks of the priory appears to have been nothing more than the transfer of the privileges which had latterly belonged to Dunkeld to the monastery endowed by the younger Angus; and St. Andrews, a diocese of the southern Picts, and often known in later days as pre-eminently the “bishopric of the Scots,” owed her primacy over the other Scottish bishoprics to the donation of a prince of the northern provinces.[55] [Sidenote: A. D. 889.] Upon the death of Eocha after an eventless career of eleven years, Donald, the son of Constantine, assumed his cousin’s place, and for seven years shared with Cyric the supreme authority over Scotland, on the same terms, apparently, as his predecessor the British prince. A decisive victory over a body of the Northmen, who were defeated at Collin on the banks of the Tay, signalized the commencement of the new reign, avenging the destruction of the Scottish capital of Forteviot, burnt by the invaders in the course of their inroads; and as the situation of the ruined town must have exposed it to the attacks of the pirates of the western seas, it appears to have been abandoned from this period, and the residence of the sovereign being transferred for security to the eastern bank of the Tay, the dignity of “the Royal City” belonged henceforth to Scone.[56]