Lords of Alba

by Ian W. Walker

  It seems likely that this defeat of the Danes ensured the consolidation of Olaf’s authority over all or most of the independent Viking groups. A brief period of recovery and reorganisation probably followed this since the Irish sources record no further significant Viking activity until 856. In that year the Irish High-king Mael Sechnaill attacked them with the support of a mixed Norse-Irish force under a man called Ketill. Olaf and Ivar subsequently defeated Ketill and his force in Munster in the following year, 857. This further period of internal warfare appears to have drawn Olaf and his men into Irish internal politics for the next few years and effectively protected distant northern Britain from their attentions.

  In northern Britain, meanwhile, in spite of the absence of Viking attacks, the period following the defeat of Eoganan in 839 was clearly one of crisis for the brand-new Picto-Scottish kingdom. The later king-lists record a number of rulers with very short reigns and give little indication of the extent or security of their rule. There was undoubtedly some form of power vacuum which a series of local warlords sought to fill, only to be ousted by their rivals. This ushered in a decade which featured a confused succession of short reigns: Ferat, Bruide, Kenneth MacAlpin, Bruide, Drust, Kenneth MacAlpin again until after 848. The breathing space from outside attack provided by the Viking preoccupation with Ireland, allowed Kenneth I MacAlpin or Cinaed mac Alpin to emerge from this confusion and establish and secure his position as ruler of the Picto-Scottish kingdom in the decade from 848 to 858.

  It is surprising just how little is known about this pivotal figure in Scottish history. He is generally identified as the son of a man called Alpin, who is recorded in later sources as an apparently independent king of Dalriada from 839–41. It is assumed that Kenneth succeeded his father as ruler of Dalriada, although there is only late evidence for this. He is said to have launched a series of attacks against the Picts during their period of decline after 839. He then assumed direct rule over them, probably following the death of Drust, the last of Ferat’s short-lived dynasty in 848. It is usually at this point that he is supposed in later legend to have destroyed the Picts, as related at the opening of this chapter. He almost certainly defeated or subdued any Pictish opposition, including any supporters of rival claimants such as Ferat, Bruide and Drust.

  In around 849, according to some of the first entries in the native Scottish Chronicle, he installed the relics of St Columba in a new church he had built at Dunkeld. In 849 the Ulster annals record the arrival in Ireland of Indrechtach, Abbot of Iona, who brought the relics of St Columba to Ireland, perhaps after leaving some with King Kenneth at Dunkeld. What does this signify? It seems that King Constantine, son of Fergus had already built a church here, so it was not a new foundation. This act by King Kenneth I was rather an important sign of the consolidation of the new united realm of the Picts and Scots. He placed the relics of St Columba, who was an important saint to both peoples but especially to the Scots, at the heart of the new united kingdom. He thus transformed Dunkeld into the head church of the new kingdom and irrevocably positioned the primary focus of Scottish religious devotion squarely within it. He had cut the umbilical cord that connected them to Iona and the west coastlands. In 865 the Annals of Ulster report the death of Tuathal, son of Artgus, chief Bishop of Fortriu and Abbot of Dunkeld, which confirms this transformation.

  The Vikings appear to have remained largely quiescent for much of Kenneth’s reign. They were probably preoccupied with their activities in Ireland. It is true that the Scottish Chronicle includes mention of a single Viking raid on his kingdom, but it is not easy to place this event in the chronology of the period. The Chronicle lists a whole series of events which supposedly occurred after the seventh year of his reign, or 849, but with no further indication of their dates. The events include no less than six invasions of England by Kenneth, encompassing the burning of Dunbar and Melrose, the burning of Dunblane by the Britons of Strathclyde and the wasting of the ‘land of the Picts’ as far as Clunie and Dunkeld by ‘Danes’ who were almost certainly Norwegians Vikings from Ireland. There is no way of telling exactly when any of this occurred and no independent confirmation that it occurred at all.

  It is an outside possibility that the Scottish Chronicle means that all these events took place in Kenneth’s seventh year of 849. If so – and this is a big assumption – it may be that Olaf of Norway’s first foray into British politics was not his intervention in Ireland but an attack on the Picto-Scottish kingdom. It is in this year that the Annals of Ulster first record the appearance of a northern fleet intent on subjugating the Vikings in Ireland and Britain, although it is only later that they record Olaf as its leader. This new force is just the sort of group that would be powerful enough to challenge Kenneth on its way to Ireland. If this was the case it might provide the context for a subsequently noticed marriage between Olaf and a daughter of Kenneth. This marriage admittedly appears only in later Irish sources with some legendary accretions. It might, however, provide an explanation for the relative lack of Viking intervention in Kenneth’s kingdom.

  The record, such as it is, appears to confirm Kenneth’s reputation as a significant warlord of the period. He had made good use of Viking preoccupation with Ireland to establish his authority across the Picto-Scottish kingdom. He established a new religious focus for the kingdom at Dunkeld and turned it into the head church of the chief bishop of Fortriu. He finally died peacefully on 13 February 858 in his palace of Forteviot in Strathearn as the acknowledged King of Picts and Scots. The later ‘Fragmentary Annals of Ireland’ preserve a praise poem about him:

  Because Kenneth with many troops lives no longer There is weeping in every house; There is no king of his worth under heaven As far as the borders of Rome.3

  In the best demonstration of his transformation of the chaotic situation since 839, Kenneth was succeeded peacefully by his brother, King Donald I or Domnall mac Alpin, as ruler of the same combined kingdom of Fortriu. King Donald was also fortunate in that Viking attention remained focused on Ireland during his brief and relatively uneventful reign of four years. The Scottish Chronicle records that Donald ‘made the rights and laws of the kingship of Aed son of Eochaid’ at Forteviot. It is not clear what this signifies, but it may mean that Donald imposed the Gaelic succession system on the Picts or that he introduced Gaelic laws more generally. This was almost certainly an important stage in their absorption into the increasingly Gaelic culture of the new kingdom. Donald died peacefully in the palace of Cinnbelathoir at Rathinveralmond, which is unknown but may be the modern Scone, in 862.

  It would be during the reign of Donald’s nephew and successor, King Constantine I, son of Kenneth or Castantin mac Cineada, that the Vikings would once again resume their activities in Scottish territory. They did so in a new and more deadly form than ever before. The Viking forces were now larger and more united and led by senior political figures. The new Viking leaders had an agenda, which might easily extend beyond mere pillage. In 866, according to the reliable Annals of Ulster, ‘Olaf and Audgisl went into Fortriu with the foreigners of Ireland and Scotland and they raided all the land of the Picts and took hostages from them.’ This event is also mentioned in the Scottish Chronicle, misdated to 865, which adds that the Vikings spent a period of almost eleven weeks from 1 January to 17 March 866 plundering the Picto-Scottish kingdom. The later Fragmentary Annals also record this event: ‘The Norwegians laid waste and plundered Fortriu and they took many hostages with them as pledges for tribute; for a long time afterwards they continued to pay them tribute.’

  It may be significant that this major Viking assault on northern Britain by Olaf and Audgisl took place in exactly the same year of 866 as the major assault on East Anglia. The ‘great army’ that descended on East Anglia was apparently commanded by three men, Halfdan, Ubbe and Ivar, the last a colleague of Olaf in Ireland during the 850s and 860s. This great army subsequently destroyed the East Anglian and Northumbrian kingdoms and severely battered Mercia and Wessex. If Olaf
had achieved the same in northern Britain and destroyed the new realm of the Picts and Scots, it would have placed the Vikings in control of much of Britain. It is surely not beyond the realms of possibility that they could have organised such a strategy. It was certainly an ambitious scheme but it actually came very close to success.

  In 867 the Viking leaders appear to have fallen out, since the Annals of Ulster announce that ‘Audgisl, one of three kings of the heathens was killed by his kinsmen in guile and parricide.’ The common description of Viking leaders as ‘kinsmen’ should not necessarily be taken as a reference to a genetic relationship in every case. It may have been used by the Irish to describe a relationship that was perhaps closer to that of ‘sworn-brothers’ or partners in a raiding enterprise. The conflict of 867 was therefore probably more of a dispute between partners. They may have fallen out over the spoils of their recent raid or about strategy. They may have disagreed about whether to concentrate on their Irish base or to extend their activities more widely across Britain. The Fragmentary Annals, which often seek to find good motivation for events whether real or not, attribute the murder of Audgisl by Olaf to jealousy about military prowess and to rivalry over a woman. This woman was, of course, no less a person than Kenneth MacAlpin’s daughter and Olaf’s wife. If there is any truth in this, it may suggest perhaps that the dispute centred on whether to settle for tribute from Constantine or to depose him and conquer his kingdom. Whatever the case, this internal dispute, combined with Irish successes, including the conquest of Clondalkin near Dublin in 867, probably prevented further raids on Scottish targets. On this occasion the Vikings settled for tribute or taxes from King Constantine I and there was no Viking conquest. It may even have been now that Olaf actually married the daughter of Kenneth MacAlpin and sister of Constantine as part of the treaty arrangements.

  In 870 the Viking attacks on northern Britain resumed with a spectacular combined raid against the Britons of Strathclyde at Dumbarton. This expedition involved a large combined force led by the partners Olaf and Ivar, who were once again working together. Ivar had probably travelled north from York with his followers and spoils, including prisoners, leaving his colleague Halfdan in charge of the rest of Viking army based there. This would certainly account for the presence of Englishmen among the Viking prisoners mentioned in the following year. It also raises the interesting possibility that the attack on Dumbarton consisted of a two-pronged assault from east and west. In any case the two Viking leaders and their forces combined to besiege the capital of Strathclyde at Dumbarton. The Fragmentary Annals report that ‘The Norwegian kings besieged Strathclyde of the Britons, camping against them for 4 months; finally, having subdued the people inside by hunger and thirst – the well that they had inside having dried up in a remarkable way – they attacked them. First they took all the goods that were inside. A great host was taken out into captivity’. This marked a defining moment in the history of the kingdom of Strathclyde. It would no longer be a significant player in the politics of northern Britain. It is also possible that the Vikings retained control of Strathclyde in the aftermath of this invasion, perhaps through a puppet king, possibly Arthgal, on the model of Northumbria or East Anglia.

  The two Viking leaders appear to have followed up this major victory, probably using their newly acquired base at Dumbarton on the Clyde, with an invasion of the kingdom of Fortriu in 870 or 871. This is nowhere recorded in our surviving sources but it is implied. In 871 the Annals of Ulster record that ‘Olaf and Ivar returned to Dublin from Alba with 200 ships bringing away with them in captivity to Ireland a great prey of English and Britons and Picts.’ The British prisoners may have included Arthgal, King of Strathclyde. The Britons were taken at Dumbarton; the English were presumably brought from York or captured en route by Ivar; where the ‘Picts’ came from is unrecorded but it can only have been from a new attack on the kingdom of Fortriu.

  In 872, according to the Ulster annals, ‘Arthgal King of the Britons was killed at the instigation of Constantine, son of Kenneth’. It has been suggested that Arthgal was a prisoner and that this refers to a failure by Constantine to deliver a ransom for his release. This might imply that Arthgal was a sub-king who had acknowledged the hegemony of Constantine and that the latter therefore had an obligation to assist him. This is certainly a possibility but it does not appear to be supported by any contemporary sources. The annals might equally be implying that Constantine reached an arrangement with the Vikings to dispose of this rival or that Arthgal was a Viking puppet whom Constantine deposed. This would fit with the suggestion above that the Vikings had set up a puppet regime. If this was the case, Constantine would naturally have wished to support his own candidate to rule the Britons of Strathclyde. Rhun, the son of Arthgal, would later be, or perhaps already was, Constantine’s son-in-law. Constantine perhaps intended him to become a sub-king, acknowledging his overlordship on the model created by King Offa in other English kingdoms in the 790s.

  In 873, the Viking leader Ivar died, acknowledged by the Irish annals as ‘King of the Norsemen of all Ireland and Britain’. It would seem from this that his partner Olaf may have predeceased him although, if so, there is no similar report of Olaf’s death. He is last mentioned in 871 on his return with Ivar to Dublin from their successful joint raid on northern Britain. The Scottish Chronicle claims that King Constantine I killed a man called Olaf ‘while taking tribute’ in the thirteenth year of his reign, i.e. 874 or 875. It seems unlikely, at first, that this could refer to the Irish-based Olaf who died before 873. This source is, however, a little imprecise and even inaccurate in its dating of events. It is difficult to resolve these apparently contradictory sources. It may simply be the case that Ivar predeceased Olaf but was endowed with an over-inflated or flattering title by the Irish annalist. This would allow Olaf to survive him and be killed by Constantine during a tribute-taking expedition in 874 or 875. If this is the case, Constantine was perhaps seeking to exploit the recent death of Ivar to strike at the weakened Vikings.

  In 875 ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ records that the Viking leader Halfdan, who had left the great army at Repton in Mercia a year earlier and had led his forces north into Northumbria, emerged from his winter quarters on the Tyne. He had temporarily subdued the rest of Northumbria but now led raids north into Strathclyde and the lands of the Picts. He may have hoped to secure control of the tribute from these regions lost following the death of Olaf. It was presumably during this raid that King Constantine fought the battle at Dollar against Halfdan, which is recorded in the Scottish Chronicle. The king had perhaps hoped to repeat his earlier success in killing Olaf but instead he was defeated with ‘great slaughter’ and subsequently withdrew into Atholl to escape the Viking pursuit. The victorious Halfdan is then reported to have occupied the kingdom, or at least the lowland parts of it, for a whole year after this. It appeared that Fortriu had followed Northumbria, East Anglia, Strathclyde and a significant part of Mercia into Viking control.

  In the same year, Halfdan may have followed up this success in northern Britain by crossing to Ireland in pursuit of control over the Vikings there. In the Annals of Ulster, it is recorded that a man called Halfdan was reported to have deceitfully killed Haesten, son of Olaf, in 875. It seems that Halfdan had temporarily achieved his ambition to control the entire Viking forces in northern Britain and Ireland and that he also dominated the kingdom of Fortriu. In 876 he returned to northern England and ‘shared out the land of the Northumbrians’ among his victorious but exhausted army which settled in the area around York. The Vikings proceeded, in the words of the chronicler, ‘to plough and support themselves’ although it is likely that their English slaves performed such menial tasks for them. Halfdan, however, would not enjoy this extensive hegemony for long and in 877 the Annals of Ulster report that Halfdan was killed in a skirmish with other Vikings at Loch Cuan in Ireland. The withdrawal of Halfdan to York in 876 and his death the following year must have released Constantine and his kingdom from
Viking subjection.

  In 876 the unlucky Constantine I, died as ‘King of the Picts’, according to the Annals of Ulster. The later Scottish king-lists imply that Constantine was killed by Vikings at Inverdovat but the Ulster annalist appears to believe he died of natural causes. He had had a rather undistinguished reign which featured a series of defeats at the hands of the Vikings. In spite of this, he had managed, like King Alfred, to survive and, in so doing, to preserve his kingdom in some shape or form. This was more than the rulers of Strathclyde, East Anglia, Mercia or Northumbria had managed. Constantine was succeeded as ‘King of the Picts’ by his brother Aed, son of Kenneth or Aed mac Cineada.

  In 878, the Irish annals report that ‘the shrine of Columba and his other relics arrived in Ireland having been taken in flight to escape the foreigners.’ Unfortunately, there is no further explanation of the circumstances of this crisis. It seems too late to be connected with the disastrous events of Halfdan’s conquest and it may simply have been an internal Viking dispute in the Western Isles. In this same year, King Aed fell victim to dynastic rivals after a reign of little more than a year. According to surviving sources, King Aed was killed at the monastery of Rossie in Strathallan by his ‘own associates’. Later sources name these associates and declare that Aed was killed by his cousin Giric, son of Donald. The exact meaning of the surviving accounts is unclear but there is at least a hint of treachery.

  The precise details of the succession to King Aed are complex. The sources report two rulers of the kingdom after Aed: Giric son of Donald I or Giric mac Domnaill, who had killed him and came from the royal lineage, and Eochaid, son of Rhun of Strathclyde and a daughter of Kenneth MacAlpin, who was Giric’s nephew but possibly also the contemporary ruler of Strathclyde or his son. This arrangement, involving two co-rulers, if such indeed it is, appears to be unique in the history of the kingdom and it may mean that Giric was too weak to rule on his own and relied on support from the remnants of Strathclyde. Alternatively, it may be intended to indicate that Strathclyde had escaped from its recent dependence on its larger northern neighbour. The lack of reliable evidence makes it impossible to be certain about any of this. It was King Giric, according to the Scottish king-lists, who was ‘the first to free the Scottish church which was in servitude up to that time after the custom and fashion of the Picts.’ It is not at all clear what this means but it may have involved exempting the Church from certain customary tributes. If this is the case, it may reflect an insecure monarch seeking to secure the support of the Church by making concessions.