LATER CELTIC PERIOD.] SCOTLAND 479 serious attacks by the vikings. He had now to meet a more formidable foe, the West Saxons, whose kings, the descendants of Alfred, were steadily moving northwards. In spite of his wars, Constantine found time in the early part of his reign for two important reforms, one eccle- siastical, the other civil. In his sixth year (906) he, along with Cellach, bishop of St Andrews the first of twelve Celtic bishops of Scotland swore on the Hill of Faith at Scone (906) that "the laws and discipline of the faith, and the rights of the churches and the gospel, should be pre- served on an equal footing with the Scots." This obscure notice of the Pictish Chronicle indicates the establishment or restoration of the Scottish Church, which the Pictish kings had oppressed, to an equality with that of the Pictish. As a sign of the union the crozier of St Columba, called Cathbuadth ("victory in battle"), was borne before Con- stantine's armies. Two years later, on the death of Donald, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, Constantine procured the election of his own brother Donald to that kingdom. Though he thus strengthened church and state, Alfred's successors were too powerful for him. The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle records of Edward the Elder, that in 924, having built a fort at Bakewell, in the Peak of Derbyshire, " the king and nation of the Scots, Rognwald the North- umbrian and others, and also the king of the Strath- clyde Welsh and his people, chose him for father and lord." His son Athelstan is related by the same authority to have subjugated all the kings in the island, amongst whom are mentioned by name Howell king of the west Welsh, Constantine king of the Scots, Owen king of Gwent, and Eldred of Bamborough, who "made peace with oaths at Emmet and renounced every kind of idolatry." These entries are not beyond suspicion. The Peak was a distant point for the Scottish king. Rognwald, the Northumbrian, died in 920, according to the Irish Annals. Howell and Constantine were already Christians and could not have then renounced idolatry. If there is any truth in the sub- mission of the Scots to Edward the Elder it did not last, for some years later the Chronicle states that Athelstan went into Scotland with a land and sea force and ravaged a great part of it. A league of the northern kings against Athelstan was dispersed (937) by his great victory at Brunanburgh (? Wendun, between Aldborough and Knares- borough, according to Skene). The forces allied against him were those of Constantino, his son-in-law Olaf, son of Sitric (called also the Red), and another Olaf, son of Godfrey, from Ireland, besides the Strathclyde and north Welsh kings. For Athelstan there fought, in addition to his own West Saxons, the Mercians and some mercenaries from Norway, amongst them Egil, son of Skalagrim, the hero of a famous Icelandic saga. No greater slaughter had been known since the Anglo-Saxons, "proud war-smiths," as their poet calls them, overcame the Welsh and gained England. A son of Constantine was slain, four kings, and seven earls. Constantine himself escaped to Scot- land, where in old age he resigned the crown for the tonsure and became abbot of the Culdees of St Andrews. Athelstan died two years after Brunanburgh, but before his death granted Northumberland to Erik Bloody-Axe, son of Harold Haarfagr, who was almost immediately expelled by the Irish Danes. Athelstan, even after so great a victory, could not annex Northumberland, much less Scotland, to his dominions.
- olm Constantine's successor, Malcolm I. (943-954), son of
Donald II., began his reign by invading Moray and killing Cellach, its chief king. Meantime the Danish kings of Dublin had been endeavouring to maintain their hold on Northumberland with the aid of the Cumbrians, whose country they had already settled, and in this attempt the two Olafs had a temporary success; but Eadmund, the successor of Athelstan, expelled Olaf, son of Sitric, from 914-1014. Northumberland, and in the following year, to prevent the Cumbrians from again aiding the Danes, he "harried Cumberland and gave it all up to Malcolm, king of Scots, on condition that he should be his fellow-worker both on sea and land." This was the same policy which led his father to call in the aid of Erik Bloody-Axe. The kings of Wessex wisely granted what they could not hold to the best northern warrior, Celt or Scandinavian, under con- ditions which acknowledged more or less strictly their supremacy. The Cumbria so granted was the country south of the Solway to the Dee, but it may also have included Strathclyde, for at this period Strathclyde Waelas and Cumbrians are frequently used as equivalent names. Malcolm lent no aid to Erik Bloody -Axe, when in the reign of Eadred he tried (949) to recover Northumberland, but he joined his brother-in-law Olaf, Sitric's son, in an expedition with the same object, when they laid waste the country as far south as the Tees. Three years later Erik again returned, and finally drove Olaf back to Ire- land, where he founded the kingdom of Dublin, which lasted till the battle of Clontarf. Malcolm died fighting either against the men of Mearns or of Moray. Three kings followed (954-971), Indulf, son of Constantine, Duff, son of Malcolm, Colin, son of Indulf ; in the reign of Indulf the Northumbrians evacuated Edinburgh, which thenceforward was Scottish ground. A Saxon burgh, a fort, perhaps a town, was now for the first time within the Celtic kingdom. Kenneth II. (971-995), son of Malcolm, soon after his Kenneth accession made a raid on Northumberland as far south as TI - Cleveland. The statement of two English chroniclers (John of Wallingford and Henry of Huntingdon), that Lothian was ceded to him by Eadgar on condition of homage, and that the people should still use the language of the Angles, is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon or any Scottish chronicle. Nor is it easy to believe the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as amplified by Florence of Worce- ster, that Kenneth was one of the kings who rowed Eadgar on the Dee in sign of homage. At this time, in the north and west, the Orkney earls were all-powerful, and Kenneth was occupied with contests nearer his own territory, especially with the mormaer of Angus, whose grandson, through his daughter Fenella, he slew at Dun- sinane, and in revenge for which he was himself treacher- ously killed at Fettercairn in Mearns by Fenella, whose name is still preserved in the traditions of that district. The foundation of the church at Brechin is attributed to this king. Kenneth was followed, as he had been preceded, by insignificant kings, Constantine, son of Colin, and Ken- neth, son of Duff. His son, Malcolm II. (1005-34), gained Malcolm the throne by the slaughter of his predecessor Duff at n - Monzievaird, and at once turned his arms southwards; but his first attempt to conquer northern Northumberland was repelled by Ethelred, son of Waltheof, its earl, who de- feated him at Durham. About the same time Sigurd, earl of Orkney, having defeated Finlay, mormaer of Moray, became ruler, according to the Norse saga, of "Ross and Moray, Sutherland and the dales " of Caithness. He had conflicts with other Scottish chiefs, but appears to have made terms with the kings of both Norway and Scotland, with Olaf Tryggvason by becoming Christian and with Malcolm by marrying his daughter. He fell at Clontarf (1014), the memorable battle near Dublin, by which Brian Boru and his son Murcadh defeated the Danish kings in Ireland and restored a Celtic dynasty. Malcolm conferred the earldom of Caithness on his grandson Thorfinn, the infant son of Sigurd ; and Sigurd's Orkney earldom fell to tus sons, Someiied, Brusi, and Einar ; while Moray again
