Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/182

 chronicles. clxxiv PEEFACE. follows the statement that the Picts, having been destroyed in this manner, Kenneth Mac Alpin reigned over the Scots, and was the first Scottish king after the Picts. This chronicle advances the fable one step further, for it substitutes for Fergus Mac Erch, Fergus son of Ferthard, who appears in the genealogy of William the Lyon as his remote ancestor, and thus suits better the distant period in which he is placed. Two forms of There were thus two forms of the Scottish chronicle : one which seems to have originated in the discussion regarding the independence of the Church, in which the Scottish kings of Dalriada, who reigned historically from 498 to 741, are extended over the interval of a hundred years, between their last king and Kenneth Mac Alpin, by the interpola- tion of fictitious kiugs, so as to bring the last king of the earlier Scottish kingdom in direct contact with the first king of what was the real commencement of the dynasty of the Scottish monarchs ; while the foundation of St. Andrews by Angus Macrergus,king of the Picts, which really took place in the interval between the two Scottish kingdoms, is removed back to an early period, so as to precede the first of them. The second form of the chronicle seems to have been produced by the exigencies of the controversy with England regarding the indejiendence of the Scottish kingdom. In this form of the fable, the Scottish kings of Dak-iada are removed back to a distant period, so as to place the commencement of the