Kings-Queens of Scotland. Constantine II.

Constantine, son of Áed (Medieval Gaelic: Causantín mac Áeda; Modern Gaelic: Còiseam mac Aoidh, known in most modern regnal lists as Constantine II; born no later than 879; died 952) was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine’s lifetime, was situated in modern-day Scotland.

The core of the kingdom was formed by the lands around the River Tay. Its southern limit was the River Forth, northwards it extended towards the Moray Firth and perhaps to Caithness, while its western limits are uncertain. Constantine’s grandfather Kenneth I of Scotland (Cináed mac Ailpín, died 858) was the first of the family recorded as a king, but as king of the Picts. This change of title, from king of the Picts to king of Alba, is part of a broader transformation of Pictland and the origins of the Kingdom of Alba are traced to Constantine’s lifetime.

His reign, like those of his predecessors, was dominated by the actions of Viking rulers in the British Isles, particularly the Uí Ímair (“the grandsons of Ímar”, or Ivar the Boneless). During Constantine’s reign the rulers of the southern kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, later the Kingdom of England, extended their authority northwards into the disputed kingdoms of Northumbria. At first, the southern rulers allied with him against the Vikings, but in 934 Æthelstan, unprovoked, invaded Scotland both by sea and land with a huge retinue that included four Welsh Kings. He ravaged southern Alba but there is no record of any battles. He had withdrawn by September. Three years later in 937, probably in retaliation for the invasion of Alba, King Constantine allied with Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, and Owain, King of Strathclyde, but they were defeated at the battle of Brunanburh. In 943 Constantine abdicated the throne and retired to the Céli Dé (Culdee) monastery of St Andrews where he died in 952. He was succeeded by his predecessor’s son Malcolm I (Máel Coluim mac Domnaill).

Constantine’s reign of 43 years, exceeded in Scotland only by that of King William the Lion before the Union of the Crowns in 1603, is believed to have played a defining part in the gaelicisation of Pictland, in which his patronage of the Irish Céli Dé monastic reformers was a significant factor. During his reign, the words “Scots” and “Scotland” (Old English: Scottas, Scotland) are first used to mean part of what is now Scotland. The earliest evidence for the ecclesiastical and administrative institutions which would last until the Davidian Revolution also appears at this time.

Compared to neighbouring Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, few records of 9th- and 10th-century events in Scotland survive. The main local source from the period is the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, a list of kings from Kenneth MacAlpin (died 858) to Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim, died 995). The list survives in the Poppleton Manuscript, a 13th-century compilation. Originally simply a list of kings with reign lengths, the other details contained in the Poppleton Manuscript version were added in the 10th and 12th centuries. In addition to this, later king lists survive.The earliest genealogical records of the descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin may date from the end of the 10th century, but their value lies more in their context, and the information they provide about the interests of those for whom they were compiled, than in the unreliable claims they contain.

For narrative history the principal sources are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Irish annals. The evidence from charters created in the Kingdom of England provides occasional insight into events in Scotland. While Scandinavian sagas describe events in 10th-century Britain, their value as sources of historical narrative, rather than documents of social history, is disputed. Mainland European sources rarely concern themselves with affairs in any part of the British Isles, and even less commonly with events in Scotland, but the life of Saint Cathróe of Metz, a work of hagiography written in Germany at the end of the 10th century, provides plausible details of the saint’s early life in north Britain.

While the sources for north-eastern Britain, the lands of the kingdom of Northumbria and the former Pictland, are limited and late, those for the areas on the Irish Sea and Atlantic coasts—the modern regions of north-west England and all of northern and western Scotland—are non-existent, and archaeology and toponymy are of primary importance.

Pictland from Constantín mac Fergusa to Constantine 1

The dominant kingdom in eastern Scotland before the Viking Age was the northern Pictish kingdom of Fortriu on the shores of the Moray Firth. By the 9th century, the Gaels of Dál Riata (Dalriada) were subject to the kings of Fortriu of the family of Constantín mac Fergusa (Constantine son of Fergus). Constantín’s family dominated Fortriu after 789 and perhaps, if Constantín was a kinsman of Óengus I of the Picts (Óengus son of Fergus), from around 730. The dominance of Fortriu came to an end in 839 with a defeat by Viking armies reported by the Annals of Ulster in which King Uen of Fortriu and his brother Bran, Constantín’s nephews, together with the king of Dál Riata, Áed mac Boanta, “and others almost innumerable” were killed.^[9] These deaths led to a period of instability lasting a decade as several families attempted to establish their dominance in Pictland. By around 848 Kenneth MacAlpin had emerged as the winner.

Later national myth made Kenneth MacAlpin the creator of the kingdom of Scotland, the founding of which was dated from 843, the year in which he was said to have destroyed the Picts and inaugurated a new era. The historical record for 9th-century Scotland is meagre, but the Irish annals and the 10th-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba agree that Kenneth was a Pictish king, and call him “king of the Picts” at his death. The same style is used of Kenneth’s brother Donald I (Domnall mac Ailpín) and sons Constantine I (Constantín mac Cináeda) and Áed (Áed mac Cináeda).

The kingdom ruled by Kenneth’s descendants—older works used the name House of Alpin to describe them but descent from Kenneth was the defining factor, Irish sources referring to Clann Cináeda meic Ailpín (“the Clan of Kenneth MacAlpin”)—lay to the south of the previously dominant kingdom of Fortriu, centred in the lands around the River Tay. The extent of Kenneth’s nameless kingdom is uncertain, but it certainly extended from the Firth of Forth in the south to the Mounth in the north. Whether it extended beyond the mountainous spine of north Britain—Druim Alban—is unclear. The core of the kingdom was similar to the old counties of Mearns, Forfar, Perth, Fife, and Kinross. Among the chief ecclesiastical centres named in the records are Dunkeld, probably seat of the bishop of the kingdom, and Cell Rígmonaid (modern St Andrews).

Kenneth’s son Constantine died in 876, probably killed fighting against a Viking army that had come north from Northumbria in 874. According to the king lists, he was counted as the 70th and last king of the Picts in later times.

Britain and Ireland at the end of the 9th century

Some locations in northern Britain, late 9th and early 10th centuries. The dotted line marked A represents the southern boundary of the Kingdom of Alba, c. 890–950. The dotted line marked B represents the southern boundary of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, c. 925–945.

In 899 Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, died leaving his son Edward the Elder as ruler of England south of the River Thames and his daughter Æthelflæd and son-in-law Æthelred ruling the western, English part of Mercia. The situation in the Danish kingdoms of eastern England is less clear. King Eohric was probably ruling in East Anglia, but no dates can reliably be assigned to the successors of Guthfrith of York in Northumbria. It is known that Guthfrith was succeeded by Sigurd and Cnut, although whether these men ruled jointly or one after the other is uncertain. Northumbria may have been divided by this time between the Viking kings in York and the local rulers, perhaps represented by Eadulf, based at Bamburgh who controlled the lands from the River Tyne or River Tees to the Forth in the north.

The moot hill at Scone, perhaps the Hill of Belief of 906

In Ireland, Flann Sinna, married to Constantine’s aunt Máel Muire, was dominant. The years around 900 represented a period of weakness among the Vikings and Norse-Gaels of Dublin. They are reported to have been divided between two rival leaders. In 894 one group left Dublin, perhaps settling on the Irish Sea coast of Britain between the River Mersey and the Firth of Clyde. The remaining Dubliners were expelled in 902 by Flann Sinna’s son-in-law Cerball mac Muirecáin, and soon afterwards appeared in western and northern Britain.

To the southwest of Constantine’s lands lay the kingdom of Strathclyde. This extended north into the Lennox, east to the River Forth, and south into the Southern Uplands. In 900 it was probably ruled by King Dyfnwal.

The situation of the Gaelic kingdoms of Dál Riata in western Scotland is uncertain. No kings are known by name after Áed mac Boanta. The Frankish Annales Bertiniani may record the conquest of the Inner Hebrides, the seaward part of Dál Riata, by Northmen in 849. In addition to these, the arrival of new groups of Vikings from northern and western Europe was still commonplace. Whether there were Viking or Norse-Gael kingdoms in the Western Isles or the Northern Isles at this time is debated.

Áed, Constantine’s father, succeeded Constantine’s uncle and namesake Constantine I in 876 but was killed in 878. Áed’s short reign is glossed as being of no importance by most king lists. Although the date of his birth is nowhere recorded, Constantine II cannot have been born any later than the year after his father’s death, i.e., 879. His name may suggest that he was born a few years earlier, during the reign of his uncle Constantine I.

After Áed’s death, there is a two-decade gap until the death of Donald II (Domnall mac Constantín) in 900 during which nothing is reported in the Irish annals. The entry for the reign between Áed and Donald II is corrupt in the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, and in this case, the Chronicle is at variance with every other king list. According to the Chronicle, Áed was followed by Eochaid, a grandson of Kenneth MacAlpin, who is somehow connected with Giric, but all other lists say that Giric ruled after Áed and make great claims for him. Giric is not known to have been a kinsman of Kenneth’s, although it has been suggested that he was related to him by marriage. The major changes in Pictland which began at about this time have been associated by Alex Woolf and Archie Duncan with Giric’s reign.

Woolf suggests that Constantine and his younger brother Donald may have passed Giric’s reign in exile in Ireland where their aunt Máel Muire was wife of two successive High Kings of Ireland, Áed Findliath and Flann Sinna. Giric died in 889. If he had been in exile, Constantine may have returned to Pictland where his cousin Donald II became king. Donald’s reputation is suggested by the epithet dasachtach, a word used of violent madmen and mad bulls, attached to him in the 11th-century writings of Flann Mainistrech, echoed by his description in the Prophecy of Berchan as “the rough one who will think relics and psalms of little worth”. Wars with the Viking kings in Britain and Ireland continued during Donald’s reign and he was probably killed fighting yet more Vikings at Dunnottar in the Mearns in 900. Constantine succeeded him as king.

Vikings and bishops

The cult of Saint Columba and its relics were associated with victory in battle. The Cathbuaid, Columba’s crozier or staff, has been lost but the 8th-century Breccbennach or Monymusk Reliquary shown here, which held relics of Columba, is known to have been carried into battle from the reign of King William the Lion onwards.