Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/184

 clxxvi PEEFACE. of this chronicle is obviously taken from the same source as that of the "Chronicle of St. Andrews,", but the order of the different groups of kings is in- verted. It commences with the kings of the Picts, then follows the Scottish kings of Dalriada, who are immediately succeeded by the kings of the later Scottish kingdom, commencing with Kenneth Mac Alpin. That this was an artificial alteration of the one series of chronicles, with a view to bring them into conformity with the other, is apparent enough, because, while the Scottish kings of Dal- riada are placed after the Pictish kings, the ex- pression at the end of the former is retained, " et " tunc translatum est regnum Scotorum in regnum " Pictorum,"— an expression only applicable to a chronicle in which the Scottish kings of Dalriada precede the Pictish kings. This chronicle was followed three years after (1320) by the celebrated letter of the Scottish barons to the Pope, in which they vindicate the independence of Scotland. In this letter the statement is repeated, that the Scots were con- verted to Christianity by St. Andrew ; and the statement is added, that from the arrival of the Scots in Britain, 113 kings had reigned in the kingdom of Scotland. Two forms Such was the shape which the chronicles had by'ronhin. assumed when John of Fordun compiled his history. His object appears to have been to place the antiquity and continuity of the Scottish