by R J M Pugh
In AD 603 Ida’s grandson, King Aethelfrith began to menace the area occupied by the Britons of Strathclyde. Aethelfrith drove the Strathclyde governors from their provinces, planting his own sub-kings in their place. These events were closely monitored by the Dalriadic Scots who knew that if Strathclyde fell they would be next. So with a great army King Aidan mac Gabrian of Dalriada met Aethelfrith at Degsastan, close to the boundary of Bernicia (modern Northumberland). So great was the slaughter of Aidan’s army that no Scottish sub-king dared challenge the Bernicians for the next eight decades.
Little is known of the battle of Degsastan, nor its precise location. The modern historian Professor Michael Lynch believes the battle took place in Northumberland.2 Other accounts3 argue that Degsastan was fought in southern Scotland, either at Jedburgh in the Borders or Dawston in Liddesdale, Roxburghshire. The jury remains undecided on this, although this author believes that Dawston is the likeliest location.
Despite the failed attempt by Dalriada to protect itself from Anglian expansionism and, in the process, safeguard its near neighbours, the Strathclyde Britons, the Dalriadic Scots cast envious eyes on Strathclyde. If they could annex that kingdom the Scots would be better placed against their main rivals for supremacy – the Picts. Matters came to a head in AD 642 when King Domnall Brec of Dalriada attempted to seize territory in Strathclyde. Domnall was confronted by King Owain of Strathclyde who defeated him at the battle of Strathcarron, a battle of which we know practically nothing. However, the battle reinforced the position of Strathclyde as a powerful kingdom, a power which neither the Scots of Dalriada nor the Picts could ignore.
By the seventh century Pictish power south of the Grampians was centred at Fortriu, west Perthshire, Angus and Fife. In AD 685 the main threat to Pictish supremacy did not come from the Dalriadic Scots or the Britons of Strathclyde. It was the growing power of the Angles of Bernicia which challenged the Picts. The Angles, a Germanic people who originated in Schleswig came to Britain, settled in Mercia (south England), Deira (Yorkshire) and Bernicia (Northumberland). It was not long before the Bernician Angles began to plan the expansion of their kingdom across the river Tweed, where there were fertile lands. In this, the seventh century Angles were following their rapacious King Ida – more robber than monarch who founded the Eadwulfing dynasty 4 which would rule Bernicia and south-east Scotland from the seventh to the early eleventh centuries.
At first, the Bernician Angles confined their expansionist policy to Laudonia, as the counties of Berwickshire and East Lothian were then known. This was an area occupied by the warrior tribe known as the Votadini or Gododdin. The Votadini established their capital at Din Eidyn (modern Edinburgh) where their King Mynnydog ‘the Wealthy’ built his power base at Maiden’s Castle (now Edinburgh Castle) on the summit of a volcanic rock which dominated Din Eidyn. The Votadini-Gododdin held out against the Bernician Angles for about sixty years; at one point, in AD 603, they invaded Bernicia-Deira, believing that the Bernicians and Deirans were at odds with each other, which was not the case. At the battle of Catreath (Catterick), the Gododdin faced a united army of Bernician and Deiran Angles. The flower of the Gododdin nobility were slaughtered. There were only two survivors of that conflict – Cynon the Stubborn and Aneirin, the latter a poet who later wrote an epic poem Y Gododdin as a tribute to the fallen heroes.5
By AD 638, the Bernician Angles had conquered the entire south-east as far as Edinburgh, controlling the entire Merse (Berwickshire) and Laudonia (the Lothians, also known as Saxonia). Not content with these gains, the Angles crossed the Firth of Forth, entering southern Pictland. Now it was the turn of the Picts.
As the Anglian army advanced the Picts were discomfited, retreating into the mountain fastnesses until AD 671 when they rallied and drove out one of the Anglian puppet sub-kings appointed by King Ecgfrith or Ecgfrid. An enraged Ecgfrid came north, intent on bringing the southern Picts into submission. In an unidentified encounter in AD 672 many Pictish settlements were burnt and men, women and children slaughtered. Again, the Picts retreated to lick their wounds until Pictish hopes of victory were re-kindled by a new king, Bredei mac Bili who encouraged his embattled people to resist the Anglian yoke. In AD 685 Ecgfrid was angered by news of Pictish resurgence; he was not a man who would allow any challenge to his authority, especially by a race he considered no better than savages. To restore Anglian hegemony and salve his injured pride, King Ecgfrid crossed the Forth at the head of a large army.
Dún Nechtáin or Dunnichen Moss
Once again faced by a formidable force, the Picts appeared to retreat. However, this was part of Bredei mac Bili’s strategy; he lured Ecgfrid ever north into terrain which suited his purpose. It is thought traditionally that Dún Nechtáin took place in Forfar, Angus,6 where on 20 May 685, Bredei turned to face Ecgfrid. The massed, disciplined ranks of Pictish spearmen fell on the Angles, driving them into a loch, butchering them without quarter in the cold waters.7 During the slaughter, Ecgfrid was slain.
Dunnichen, or Dún Nechtáin, is known to the English as Nechtansmere (literally, the mere or loch of Nechtan). However, the site of the battle is disputed, as some historians consider it took place farther north, in the Cairngorm Mountains. The Venerable Bede does not identify the site; he simply wrote that the battle was fought ‘in tight places amid inaccessible mountains’. Recent research8 suggests that while traditionally, Dún Nechtáin took place in Forfar, an alternative site is Dunachton in Badenoch, Inverness-shire, lying on the shores of Loch Insh in terrain which fits Bede’s description. Wherever the battle occurred, it ranks alongside Bannockburn as a major milestone on the long road to Scotland’s independence. By his determination and, it must be said, his ruthlessness, Bredei not only won a spectacular victory but also united the Picts. (For many years, he had waged war on his own people, attacking strongholds like Dunottar, Aberdeen and the hill-fort of Dundurn, Perthshire.)9 Bredei was a man determined to become king; he forged the Picts into a nation, something which had not been achieved since Calgacus at the battle of Mons Graupius, although that unity had lasted briefly. After Dunnichen Moss, the united nation of Pictland ensured the security of northern Britain. Never again would the Angles of Bernicia cross the Firth of Forth.
There is no contemporary written record of Dunnichen Moss, although it is generally believed10 that a pictorial representation of the battle survives on one of a series of five intricately carved Pictish stones, known as the Aberlemno Stones I – V. Aberlemno II (see illustrations) is one of the most beautiful of these, depicting what some historians believe to be a representation of the battle of Dunnnichen Moss. Surmounted on one side by a Celtic Cross, one of its decorated surfaces shows two horsemen, one Pictish chasing a helmeted Anglian who has cast away his shield in flight. (The helmet, with its distinctively long nose-guard is typically Anglian, similar to several found during excavations in Coppersgate, York.) The undocked tail of the horse and its large saddle-blanket suggest that the fleeing warrior is a person of importance – possibly Ecgfrid himself. Other Pictish and Anglian figures are depicted; in one corner, a raven is seen pecking at a dead Anglian soldier.
Carrieblair
In the coming years, the Picts gained the upper hand over their neighbours, the Dalriadic Scots and the Strathclyde Britons, so that by the ninth century, the kingdom of Pictland was the dominant power in north Britain. The Picts’ war with the Bernician Angles, still firmly established south of the Firth of Forth, would continue. The Picts also suffered attacks from Vikings, probably in the north. We know of one possible battle, that at Carrieblair, near Tain, Easter Ross. The date of the battle is uncertain but it probably took place at some point after Dunnichen Moss and before the unification of the Scots and Picts by Kenneth macAlpin (Kenneth I, 844 – 860). Before and after these dates, Picto-Scottish tribes repeatedly raided Anglian settlements in Saxonia.
Athelstaneford
One of the most memorable of these raids occurred in East Lothian or the Merse in the autumn of AD
832. By that year, the Picts and Scots were drawing closer together; in the previous half-century, for brief periods, a Pictish or Scottish king had occasionally ruled both peoples. The raid of AD 832 was unquestionably for plunder as, being harvest-time and given the rich agricultural yields in the area, the Picto-Scots were seeking grain to tide them over the coming winter. The Picts were led by their King Oengus (Angus), the Scots by their King Eochaid. We do not know how deeply the Picto-Scottish army penetrated Saxonia but their incursion brought an Anglian army led by Athelstan, possibly a Bernician under-king. Athelstan pursued the raiders to Markle, a village near East Linton, East Lothian, where the Picto- Scottish army found their escape route barred by the river Peffer, which, given the time of year, may have been in spate. The Anglian army surrounded the Picts and Scots as darkness descended, expecting to engage and defeat them the following morning. That night, King Angus, a Christianized Pict, prayed for a miracle to save his people. According to legend, Saint Andrew appeared to Angus in a dream, promising him that not only would he be saved but that he would be victorious in battle. Angus swore that if these things came to pass, he would adopt Saint Andrew as the patron saint of Pictland.
The next morning, it is said that a white cloud formation appeared in the sky as a saltire, or x-shaped decussate cross on which Saint Andrew had been martyred by the Romans in c. AD 70. The morale of the Picto-Scots thus boosted, the ensuing battle of Athelstaneford brought them a complete victory, with Athelstan being slain. From that day on, the saltire was adopted as the flag of Scotland, Andrew becoming the nation’s patron saint.
After Athelstaneford, events moved quickly towards the unification of the Picts and Scots. In AD 844, Kenneth, son of Alpin, King of Dalriada, became ruler of the Picts and Scots. Kenneth’s accession was achieved by his father’s marriage to a Pictish woman; in Pictland, it was the sons of the mother who inherited the crown. Of kindred blood and common language, the Christian faith brought the two races together; in addition, increasing attacks by Viking pirates forced them into united counsel and action. In the following two centuries, the Picto-Scottish kingdom would annex Strathclyde and that part of Bernicia north of the river Tweed.
Kenneth set himself the task of reclaiming Saxonia; he invaded it no fewer than six times, burning the urbs regis (royal town) of Dunbar in AD 856.11 Kenneth was never strong enough to expel the Angles, despite the anarchy within Bernicia which led to its political collapse. The Angles were also being challenged from the sea by Danish pirates who plundered Northumberland after they took York in AD 867. The threat to Kenneth’s kingdom did not come from the Angles or English but the Norwegians and Danes, known to us as Vikings. At first these Scandinavian peoples were freebooters, raiding the coastlines of Britain for plunder; those that settled in England in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries and against whom Alfred the Great and his descendants waged war were Danes, not Norwegians (Norsemen). The Norsemen who settled in Orkney and Shetland included Danes; from these islands, they migrated into Caithness, spreading along the coast as far south as the Moray Firth. Other bands formed colonies in Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbright and Peebles, part of the kingdom of Strathclyde; Norsemen also populated the Western Isles which for several centuries belonged to the kingdom of Norway.
Dollar and Inverduvat
Kenneth’s son Constantin II (AD863 – 877) struggled to withstand the repeated raids in the north and south of his kingdom. In AD 867 Olaf the White, the Norwegian King of Dublin, landed on the west coast, invading Constantin’s kingdom, raiding for plunder only for a few months. Olaf returned four years later but, on that occasion, Constantin’s kingdom was spared, the Norwegians being preoccupied with capturing Dumbarton, the capital of Strathclyde. However, this respite did not last; in AD 877 a fresh army of Norwegians from Ireland invaded Constantin’s kingdom, inflicting a serious defeat on him at Dollar, near Stirling. Constantin made a final stand against the invaders at Inverduvat, in the parish of Forgan, Fife, where he was slain along with the greater part of his army. Constantin was succeeded by his nephew Eochaid, one of a succession of four kings between 877 and 900 of whom little is known. The Danish-Norwegian presence in the outlying islands would continue for the next four centuries.
When Constantin III (AD900 – 942) ascended the throne, he rigorously attacked the Norsemen, inflicting a severe defeat on them in an unidentified battle in AD 904, driving them from the mainland of Alba, as the new kingdom became known in AD 900. For the moment Alba was secure, although Constantin’s victory did not prevent further Norse invasions. The Norsemen came back in AD 918; Regnwald, the leader of the Irish Norsemen crossed the Irish sea to assist his kinsmen occupying the southern half of Bernicia-Northumberland who were being menaced by Edward the Elder, the West Saxon king. The united Danish-Norse force entered Saxonia, then ruled by Eldred of Northumberland, whose base was at Bamborough. The conquest of Saxonia by the Norsemen would have threatened Constantin’s kingdom, so he joined Eldred to make war on the common enemy. There are obscure and conflicting accounts of the battle which ensued; Constantin and Eldred were beaten, although the Norsemen were unable to follow up their advantage. This was the last Norse attempt to extend a hold on Britain although they continued to raid Alba in the north. Mainland Alba was also threatened by Norwegians from the Hebrides or Western Isles.
It was in the reign of King Indulph (AD 954 – 962) that Edinburgh was finally abandoned by the Bernician Angles. By AD 966, the kingdom of Bernicia had come to an end, its southern half ruled by Oslac, an English earl who was subject to the overlordship of Edgar, King of England (AD 959 – 975). However, the reign of Kenneth II (AD971 – 995) was troubled by unrest as much as had been that of his namesake, Kenneth I.
Luncarty
In about AD 986 a Danish force of rover-pirates invaded middle Alba. The Danish fleet lay off the coast of Angus for several days, then it sailed up the river Esk, capturing Montrose and putting the civilian population to the sword. The Danes then marched inland along the river Tay estuary to invest the ancient town of Perth. Kenneth II was holding court in Stirling; when he learnt of the Danish invasion, he hastily gathered together an army which he drew up in order of battle near the small village of Luncarty, a few miles north of Perth. The Danes marched from Perth to engage the Scots. The battle began well for Kenneth; his army forced the Danes from their strong position on a hill. Then the Danes regrouped and counter-attacked Kenneth, putting to flight the right and left wings of his army, leaving him isolated in the centre. Then, if we can believe Boece’s History of Scotland,12 a dramatic turnabout occurred. According to Boece, a ploughman and his two sons were working in a nearby field and saw Kenneth’s men fleeing from the Danes. These three men decided to stop the rout. Armed with nothing else but their ox-plough yokes, they rallied Kenneth’s men, exhorting them to return and destroy their enemy, which they did, decisively defeating the enemy. (There is a feature near Luncarty known as Turnabout Hill.) Again, in Boece’s account, the ploughman is given the surname Hay, which is highly improbable. The de Haya or Hay family did not arrive in Scotland until the twelfth century; they originated in Cotentin, Normandy and joined the army of William the Conqueror who invaded Britain in 1066.
Whatever the ploughman’s name, Kenneth granted him as much of the fruitful soil of the Carse of Gowrie as a falcon could encompass in a single flight without touching land. (This story has a certain quaint ring of truth about it, given similar tales recorded in the chronicles of the Middle Ages.) From this acreage of land in Errol, the Hay family took its name. According to Burke’s Landed Gentry of Scotland (19th Edition), William de la Haye, butler to Kings Malcolm IV and William I (The Lion) married Eva, the Celtic heiress of Pitmily (which included the Errol estate) and received her lands as dowry, according to custom and law in thirteenth-century Scotland. The rising Hay family became hereditary constables of Scotland; they adopted a coat-of-arms depicting two ‘savages’ bearing ox-plough yokes, with the motto Serua Jugem (Keep the Yoke).
Cullen Fields
Scotland and England continued to be raided by the Danes for the next two decades after the battle of Luncarty. Northumberland was subjected to repeated raids, as well as its satellite in south-east Scotland. Save what is recorded by Buchanan,13 little is known about the battle of Cullen Fields, in Banffshire. Fought in AD 961 during the reign of King Indulfus (AD 954 – 962), the battle was a victory for the Scots. One of Indulfus’s captains was Patrick de Dunbar, also known as Thane (earl) of Lothian, which suggests that Patrick was an Englishman in the service of the Scots.14 At Cullen the Danes were thrown off balance by the timely arrival on the field of a noble known only by the name Graeme (Graham?) who, with Patrick Dunbar, led the Scots to victory.
Mortlach or Mortlake
Of the next four kings, we know most about Malcolm II (1005 – 1034). He began his reign with the usual invasion of Saxonia. Invading northern England as far as Durham in 1005 or 1006, Malcolm was soundly beaten by Earl Uhtred of Northumberland, a reversal so severe that he made no further attempts to annex Saxonia until 1018.
However, further attempts by the Danes to colonize the northern part of his kingdom took Malcolm north in 1005 to Banff to expel the intruders. Again, we learn that one of Malcolm’s captains was a Thane Patrick Dunbar, probably not the same Dunbar who had fought at Cullen Fields in AD 961. There are scant references to the battle of Mortlach, the historic name of Dufftown in the Spey Valley; one account15 states that due to their impetuosity, Thanes Dunbar and Strathearn along with Kenneth of the Isles were slain. Mortlach was perhaps not quite the victory Malcolm had anticipated but he was able to expel the Danes from Morayshire that year.