Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/128

 cxx PREFACE. ous, from the language of Bede, that the " Provincia " Pictorum " which Ecgfrid devastated, was the same province which was subject to the Angles, and which must have extended at least as far as the Sid- law mountains. Brude, who defeated him, is called king of Fortren, which was one of the seven provinces of the Picts, and lay to the west of the river Tay. Dundurn was its chief seat, as Dunfother was the chief seat of Maghcircin, or the Mearns, and these parts of Pictland probably remained independent, while the part subject to the Angles lay between them, and consisted apparently of Fife, Kinross, Gow- rie, and part of Forfarshire ; in short, very nearly the same district which forms the second province in the second List of seven provinces contained in the " Description," No. xvii. The effect of this defeat upon the four nations is thus described by Bede : Termination of " Ex quo tempore spcs cospit et virtus regni Anglo- ng ic ru e. j< ^^^ fluerc ct rctro sublapsa referri. Nam et Picti " terram possessionis suae quam tenuerunt Angli " et Scoti qui erant in Britannia, Britonum quoque " pars nonnulla, libertatem receperunt, quam et hac- " tenus habent per annos circiter quadraginta et " sex ;" and he adds, that Trumwin retired with his clergy, "qui erant in monasterio Aebbercurnig, " posito quidam in regione Anglorum, sed in vicinia " freti quod Anglorum terras Pictorumque deter- " minat " (Lib. iv. c. xxvi.), which shows still more clearly that the lands of the Picts subject to the Angles lay north of the Firth of Forth. The Irish