Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/127

 PEEFACE. cxix to Bede, in the year 670, and was succeeded by his son Ecgfrid : and in 681, when he divided the diocese of York into four portions, he appointed Trumwin " ad provinciam Pictorum, quae tunc " temporis Anglorum erat imperio subjecta" (Lib. IV. c. xii.) The province of the Picts thus remained still subject to the Angles, but some attempts seem now to have been made to throw off the yoke ; for, in 681, the " Annals of Ulster" record the siege of Dunfother, and in 683, the siege of Dunnat and Dunduirn. Dunfother and Dunduirn were the chief seats of two of the seven provinces of the Picts, and Dunnat was the capital of Dalriada. In 685, Bede records that Ecgfrid led an army " ad vastandum " Pictorum provinciam " (Lib. iv. c. xxvi.), and that having been led by a feigned flight of his enemies in " angustias inaccessorum montium," he was there cut off with his whole anny on the 15th day before the Kalends of June. Tigh- ernac records the same battle as having taken place on Saturday the 20th day of May, which was the 15 th before the Kalends of June, in the year 686, at a place called Dunnechtan, between Ecgfrid Mac Ossu, rex Saxonum, and Brude Mac Bile, rex Fortrenn ; but the 20 th day of May fell on a Satur- day in the previous year, 685, which confirms the date of Bede. Dunnechtan is the modern Dunni- chen, which is situated in a narrow pass in the range of the Sidlaw hills, which separate Strath- more from the plains of Forfarshire. It is obvi-