Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/56

 xlviii PEEFACE. lists of the Scottish kings which have come down to us. A very slight examination will show that it is made up of two separate chronicles which have been pieced together. The title is " Chronica regum " Scotorum. ccc. et iiij. annorum," and this is fol- lowed by twenty-two kings, reigning from Fergais to Alpin inclusive, whose years, as stated, make up nearly that amount. AVhen added, they amount to 302. Then follows "Kynedus filius Alpini primus " rex Scottorum," which shows the commencement of another chronicle, and then occurs, after the accession of William the Lion, " Ab anno primo " WUlielmi regnum Scottorum anni cccxv.," the period during which the kings from Kenneth Macalpin reigned. The first year of King William the Lion was the year 1 1 6 5, it follows therefore that the era from which the duration of this latter kingdom of the Scots was counted was the year 850. As the years of the reign of William the Lion are left unfilled up, and the duration of the kingdom of the Scots is reckoned to the first year of his reign, the natural inference is that the chronicle was put together in that year. It is followed by a genealogy of King William the Lion. It appears from the terms in which the writer speaks of King David the First, that he was an ardent admirer of that monarch ; and the epithets which he applies to the Cistercian monastery at Melrose, seem to indicate that he was himself a Cistercian monk. It is hardly possible to avoid the