clxxxvi PEEFACE. that, if his father was a Scot, his mother must have been Pictish, and that he had been adopted into her tribe. The case is exactly analogous to that of Tal- lorgan Mac Aiufrid, whose father was a brother of Oswy, king of the Angles, but whose mother was Pictish, through whom he had a Pictish name, and finally succeeded to the Pictish throne. The " Irish " Annals" know of but one Alpin, i.e., the Alpin who succeeded Drust as king of the Picts in 726, and was driven out, and his territories taken from him, by Angus, son of FergTis, king of the Picts, in 728. Neither the " Irish Annals " nor the " Pictish Chro- " nicle " give the name of his father, which raises a suspicion that he was an interloper ; and it is hardly possible to suppose that there should have been an Alpin king of the Picts from 726 to 728, who was expelled, and his territories taken from him, by Angus, son of Fergus, king of the Picts, and whose existence is known to the " Irish Annals," and that there should have been some years afterwards a different person appearing as king of Scottish Dal- riada, who also bore the Pictish name of Alpin, and was expelled from Scottish territories by the same Angus, but whose separate existence was unknown to the " Irish Annals." On the assumption that they were the same person, and that there was but one Alpin, his history becomes clear and consistent. The son of the Scottish king Echach, by a Pictish princess, he became king of the Picts in 726, by the ejection of his predecessor, Drust, while his brother
