The victorious Ungus commenced hostilities against the Dalriads, or
Scoto-Irish, in the year 736, and appears to have got the better
of the latter. The Scots were again worsted in another battle
in 740 by Ungus, who in the same year repulsed an attack of the
Northumbrians under Eadbert. In the year 750 he defeated the Britons
of the Cumbrian kingdom in the battle of Cato or Cath-O, in which
his brother Talorgan was killed. Ungus, who appears to have been
a powerful and able monarch, but whom Bede[95] characterizes as
having conducted himself “with bloody wickedness, a tyrant and an
executioner,” died about 760. A doubtful victory was gained by
Ciniod, or Kenneth, the Pictish king, over Aodh-fin, the Scottish
king, in 767. Constantine, having overcome Conall, the son of Tarla,
in 789, succeeded him in the throne.[96]
Up to this period the Norsemen from Scandinavia, or the _Vikingr_,
_i.e._ men of the voes or bays, as they were termed, had confined
their ravages to the Baltic; but, in the year 787 they for the first
time appeared on the east coast of England. Some years afterwards
they found their way to the Caledonian shores, and in 795 made their
first attack on Iona, which frequently afterwards, along with the
rest of the Hebrides, suffered grievously from their ravages. In 839
the _Vikingr_ entered the Pictish territories. A murderous conflict
ensued between them and the Picts under Uen their king, in which both
he and his only brother Bran, as well as many of the Pictish chiefs,
fell. This event, no doubt, hastened the downfall of the Pictish
monarchy; and as the Picts were unable to resist the arms of Kenneth,
the Scottish king, he carried into execution, in the year 843, a
project he had long entertained, of uniting the Scots and Picts,
and placing both crowns on his head. That anything like a total
extermination of the Picts took place is now generally discredited,
although doubtless there was great slaughter both of princes and
people. Skene[97] asserts indeed that it was only the Southern Picts
who became subject to Kenneth, the Northern Picts remaining for long
afterwards independent of, but sometimes in alliance with, the Scots.
This is substantially the opinion of Mr. E. W. Robertson,[98] who
says, “the modern shires of Perth, Fife, Stirling, and Dumbarton,
with the greater part of the county of Argyle, may be said to have
formed the actual Scottish kingdom to which Kenneth succeeded.” The
Picts were recognised as a distinct people even in the tenth century,
but before the twelfth they lost their characteristic nominal
distinction by being amalgamated with the Scots, their conquerors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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