isles and inlets and the jagged outline of the larger Scandinavian peninsula. The long narrow lochs of the western coast, like the fiords of Norway, proved convenient harbours for the ships of these pirates. It is towards the close of the eighth century that we first hear of the descents of the Northmen on the Pictish kingdom. It is told how they ravaged all the coast, destroyed the Pictish capital, and haunted the Irish Sea. Their fury was specially directed against churches and religious communities, and Iona did not escape. Again and again it was wasted by fire and sword, its churches plundered, the brethren slain, till at length the abbot was compelled to seek on the mainland a refuge for himself and the relics of the saintly founder. Under Kenneth MacAlpin the supremacy over the Scottish Church was transferred to the monastery of Dunkeld. Under Kenneth's son, Constantine I., a fresh spirit was given to these invasions by the formation of the kingdom of Norway by Harold Harfagra. The petty chiefs displaced by him, who were called Vikings or dwellers on the bays, sought a settlement elsewhere. Several of them founded settlements in Ireland, whence they went to plunder the western shores of Britain. Others took up their quarters in the Orkneys, and the Sudereys or Southern Isles, as the Northmen called those isles that are now known as the Hebrides. Those in the Orkneys were subdued by Harold, who made the islands into an Earldom and gave it to Sigurd, one of his allies. Thorstein, Sigurd's successor, proved a formidable foe to the King of Scots, made himself master of all the north country, pretty nearly answering to the modern counties of Caithness and Sutherland, to which last the Northmen gave its name because it lay south of their island possessions. On Thorstein's death his great earldom fell to pieces. About this time one Cyric or Grig, who is supposed to have been one of the Northern chiefs, seized on the throne and reigned about eighteen years, leaving his name on record as the liberator of the Scottish Church.

12. The Commendation.—Constantine II. (900-943), grandson of Kenneth, who came after Grig, commended himself and his kingdom to Eadward, king of the English, in 924. Constantine chose him as "father and lord," that is, he placed himself under his protection, and acknowledged Eadward as mightier than himself. On this compact were based the subsequent claims of the English to the over-lordship of the Scots. This commendation was renewed to Æthelstan, Eadward's successor. But Constantine soon repented of his submission, and a few years later he and the Welshmen of Strathclyde joined the Danes in their attempt to get back Northumberland, from which Æthelstan had expelled them. The allies were utterly routed in the great battle of Brunanburh, in which Constantine's son was slain, in 937. Six years later Constantine exchanged civil for spiritual rule, and retired as abbot to the Monastery of St. Andrews.

13. Annexation of Strathclyde.—Malcolm I. (943-954) succeeded Constantine, though not his son, but his kinsman, for the Scots did not adhere strictly to the order of succession which is now customary: though they kept to the royal family, they generally preferred the brother to the son of the last king. The great event of this reign was the annexation of Strathclyde, which had been conquered by the English king Eadmund, and was now granted by him to Malcolm as a territorial fief, held on condition of doing military service by land and sea whenever it should be required. Thus Strathclyde became an appanage of the heir apparent to the Scottish crown. Of the six kings after Malcolm, Induff, Duff, Colin, Kenneth II., Constantine III., and Kenneth III., little is known. They passed their lives and met their deaths in struggles with the Welsh or with their own northern subjects. Under Induff the Scots got Edinburgh, which had been founded by Eadwine of Northumberland.

14. Acquisition of Lothian.—Malcolm II., grandson of the first of the name, was the last of the direct line of Kenneth MacAlpin. His reign, which lasted thirty years, is notable from the fact that he managed to get hold of Lothian, the northern part of Northumberland. One of Malcolm's first acts was an invasion of this earldom. Waltheof, the earl, being old and feeble, shut himself up in his castle of Bamborough and let Malcolm advance unresisted. He got as far as Durham, but there he was met and defeated by Uhtred, the vigorous son of the old Earl. Some years later, when his old enemy Uhtred was dead, Malcolm made a second invasion, and took ample revenge for his defeat at Durham in the brilliant victory at Carham, on the banks of the Tweed, in 1018. After this victory the Scots were in possession of Lothian, which Eadulf Cutel, now Earl of Northumberland, was not strong enough to take from them. It has been said that Lothian had been already granted by Eadgar of England to Kenneth III., who petitioned for it on plea of ancient hereditary right. If so, the Scots must have lost it again; but after the victory of Carham they had it and kept it, though their king held it as an English earldom, and did homage for it to the king of the English.

15. Cnut's Invasion.—In 1031 Cnut, the mighty Dane who reigned over Denmark, Norway, and England, came north, and Malcolm met him, acknowledged him as his over-lord, and renewed the agreement which had been made between Constantine and Eadward. Three years after his submission to Cnut, Malcolm died, leaving as his heir Duncan, the son of one of his daughters who had married Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld. There is a tradition that, to secure Duncan's succession, Malcolm had caused the grandson of Kenneth III. to be murdered. If he did so, this crime defeated its own end, for Gruach, sister of the murdered man, was now the wife of Macbeth, the Mormaer of Moray, one of the most powerful chiefs. Duncan came north to make war on some of these turbulent Maers, and Macbeth seized the opportunity thus offered by the presence of the king in his province, attacked and defeated him in battle, and afterwards slew him in a place called Bothgowan, which it is thought means a smith's hut.

16. Macbeth, 1040-1057.—Macbeth must not be looked on as an usurper and murderer. He was the natural supporter of the claims of his wife and Lulach, her son by a former marriage, who, according to the received rule of Gaelic succession, had a better right to the throne than Duncan himself; and no doubt he justified the murder of the young king as lawful revenge for that of his wife's brother. At all events, after he had got the kingdom, he ruled it well and wisely, so that his reign was a time of great national plenty and prosperity, and he and his wife were benefactors of the Church and of the poor, not only at home, but abroad, for it stands on record that they sent alms to the poor at Rome. But he was not left long in peaceable possession, for the father of Duncan, Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, got up a rising in favour of his two grandsons, Malcolm and Donald. About the same time Siward, Earl of Northumberland, brought an army against Macbeth, and drove him from the throne, though he got it back as soon as Siward went away. Some years later Siward, whose kinswoman Duncan had married, again took up the cause of his cousin Malcolm, invaded the kingdom and defeated the king in a great battle; and though Macbeth held out for four years