their throne. By Pictish law the crown descended in the maternal line,
which probably facilitated the coronation of Kenneth. To the Scots and
"to all Europe" he was a Scot; to the Picts, as son of a royal Pictish
mother, he was a Pict. With him, at all events, Scots and Picts were
interfused, and there began the _Scottish_ dynasty, supplanting the
Pictish, though it is only in popular tales that the Picts were
exterminated.

Owing to pressure from the Northmen sea-rovers in the west, the capital
and the seat of the chief bishop, under Kenneth MacAlpine (844-860), were
moved eastwards from Iona to Scone, near Perth, and after an interval at
Dunkeld, to St Andrews in Fife.

The line of Kenneth MacAlpine, though disturbed by quarrels over the
succession, and by Northmen in the west, north, and east, none the less
in some way "held a good grip o' the gear" against Vikings, English of
Lothian, and Welsh of Strathclyde. In consequence of a marriage with a
Welsh princess of Strathclyde, or Cumberland, a Scottish prince, Donald,
brother of Constantine II., became king of that realm (908), and his
branch of the family of MacAlpin held Cumbria for a century.



ENGLISH CLAIMS OVER SCOTLAND.


In 924 the first claim by an English king, Edward, to the over-lordship
of Scotland appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The entry contains a
manifest error, and the topic causes war between modern historians,
English and Scottish. In fact, there are several such entries of