• General Notes

  [SUSANNA KEENE.FTW]
  
  Acceded: 839.  United the Scots & the Picts.
  Burke calls him Kenneth II, King of the Picts & Alba.
  
  United the Pictish kingdom with that of the Scots.
  
  In 839, an interesting battle took place. Some Picts were
  fighting the rebellious Scots under Alpin of Gabhran's house, a
  large army of Norsemen came upon their rear. Though Alpin was
  killed, and his head impaled by the Picts -- the Pictish army
  now turned to face the Norsemen and were destroyed in a wild
  pitched battle. The Picts not only lost to the Norsemen, they
  were "destroyed almost to their very number". Eoghann, the last
  King of Picts, died with them and now there was no Pictish
  leader to oppose the Scots. Why the Norsemen took part in a
  battle between Picts and Scots, that did not involve the
  Norsemen, is really easily explained. The Norsemen believed to
  die in battle was a sure way of entering Vahala, the great
  warriors reward in "Asgaard", and because of this pagan belief,
  the Vikings showed or had no fear of dying in combat. They
  happened upon the battle between the Picts and Scots, which the
  Scots were losing, and promptly attacked the winners -- the
  Picts. Besides the last of the Pictish Kings dying in the
  battle, so did Scots King Alpin. Kenneth the Hardy, son of
  Scots slain King Alpin, avenged his fathers death by taking the
  remaining territory of the Picts. His ascendency to King of
  Scots and Picts, was not a peaceful one though. The first king
  of Scots and Picts, (southern Picts), MacAlpin, it is said,
  murdered seven Earls of Dalriada, kinsmen who might have
  disputed his claim to King of Scots and Picts, all this took
  place during a celebration banquet at Scone. The ascendency of
  Kings was a bloody & treacherous affair -- not for the faint of
  heart, (or stomach in this case).One would think that after a
  history making battle such as the one above described would be
  a dramatic turning point and famous in all history books.
  Curiously this didn't happen, and the reason is, most likely,
  that it actually took another century, and more battles, before
  the union was a stable union of Pict and Scot. In time,
  however, it did become stable and the Scots gained tremendous
  lands, wealth, and access to expert horsemanship, as well as
  countless more Scottish subjects, from the fall of the Picts.
  The two peoples had been locked in ferocious combat for so long
  that the bonds of war had actually helped unite the people, as
  two metals in a great flame, they became fused and then were
  tempered by a cooling hand of Christianity. Kenneth MacAlpin
  was the first King of Picts and Scots, the same title given to
  the brother and then the son who succeeded him. The Picts pass
  from history as most unknown races do, and also with them, the
  Kingdom of Dalriada, though the evocative memory of that would
  last for a thousand years among the western Clans. By the
  middle of the 9th century the Norsemen had moved into the
  Pictish Kingdom. In the west they attacked the Scots of the
  Kingdom of Dalriada, who had expanded north into Argyll and
  Uist. The Scots/Picts capital near Dunstafnage near Oban, was
  threatened and under the leadership of Kenneth MacAlpin, the
  Scots moved inland, towards Scone on the East coast. The
  Vikings helped the Scots and southern Picts create an enlarged
  Kingdom called Alba, with Scone (pronounced Skun or Skoon), as
  its capital. On the Stone of Scone, Kenneth MacAlpin, already
  king of Scots, was  made King of Picts. The famous stone had
  very religious and ceremonial ancestory to the Scots dating
  back to the 6th - 7th century when the stone was brought by
  Fergus to Dalriada to crown the Kings of Scots. (This stone was
  stolen from the Scots by Edward I "Longshanks" of England in
  1296).  At this point in time, circa mid 9th century, the Scots
  themselves only represented 1/10 (10%) of Scotland's people.
  They became dominate through battle and marriage. The Celtic
  (pronounced Keltic) Scots passed Kingship down through the male
  line. The Celtic Picts, by way of the female. Therefore, Scots
  marriages, over time, to Picts put and end to the Pictish
  system and they became part of Scottish society. The Picts
  were, due to their own rules of lineage, in essence, married
  out of existence as a named race. Obviously, they were still
  around, just called Scots now. All this was due to the male
  lineage taking precedence of Kingship from the Celtic Scots.
  But this does not mean the Picts disappeared, just assimilated
  into Scots and Viking society.

Details of Kenneth II's family