displacement that was going on, by which the Celts were being driven further and further west before the Teutons. The leaders of the Scots were Fergus MacErc, and Lorn, of the family of the Dalriads, the ruling dynasty in the north of Ireland, and from them this new state founded on the western coast of what is now called Argyle got the name of Dalriada.

6. Introduction of Christianity.—These Scots were not pagans like the Picts of Alba, for Ireland had already been Christianized. The new comers brought the new faith to their adopted country, and through them it spread among the Picts, and also among the English of Northumberland. The great apostle of the Scots was Columba. He was Abbot of Durrow in Ireland, but was obliged to leave his own country, because he had been engaged in a feud with some of his kinsfolk, in which his side was worsted. He came over to the new colony on the coast of Alba, and Conal, who was then King of the Dalriads, welcomed him, and gave him I, or Iona, an islet about a mile and a half long and a mile broad, lying west of the large island of Mull. Here Columba settled with the twelve monks who had come with him, and here they built for the service of God a little wooden church after their simple fashion, and for their own dwelling a few rude huts of wattle, which in after-times was called a monastery, where they passed their days in prayer and study. But their missionary zeal was as great as their piety, and from their head-quarters on Iona they went cruising about among the adjacent islands, extending their circuit to the Orkneys, and even, it is said, as far as Iceland.

7. Conversion of the Picts.—Columba himself undertook the conversion of the Picts. About two years after his arrival at Iona he set out on this important mission, crossed Drumalbyn, sought the court of Brud, the Pictish king, converted him, and founded religious communities on the same plan as that on Iona, on lands granted to him by the king or his dependent chiefs. The Church thus set up was perfectly independent of the Bishop of Rome or of any other See, but it inherited all the peculiarities of the Church of the Irish Scots. The monks had a way of their own of reckoning the time for keeping Easter and of shaving their heads, trifles which were considered important enough to become the subject of a very long quarrel, and it was not till 716 that they agreed to yield to the Roman custom in both matters. According to their system of Church government, the abbots of the monasteries were the chief dignitaries, and had all the power which in the rest of Christendom was held to belong to bishops, while the bishops were held of no account except for ordaining priests, for which purpose there was one at least attached to each monastery. Columba, who was himself of the royal race, had so much influence among the Dalriads that his authority was called in to settle a dispute about the succession to the throne. The abbots of Iona after him continued supreme in all the ecclesiastical affairs of Alba till the middle of the ninth century, while the well-earned reputation for piety and learning enjoyed by the monks of his foundation was widely spread in continental Europe. About this time Kentigern revived among the Welshmen of Strathclyde the dying Christianity which had been planted there in the time of the Roman occupation.

8. Conversion of the English.—The English of Northumberland were still heathens, and, as they were ever fighting with and growing greater at the expense of their neighbours, their state bade fair to become the most powerful in Britain. In the beginning of the seventh century their king Eadwine was supreme over all Britain south of the Forth. But though Eadwine was converted by the preaching of Paullinus, the first Bishop of York, the new doctrine does not seem to have spread much among his people; for one of his successors, Oswald, who in his youth had been an exile at the court of his kinsman the Pictish king, prayed the monks of Iona to send him one of their number to help to make his people Christian. Conan, the first missionary who went, was so much disgusted with the manners of the English that he very soon came back to his brethren. Then Aidan, another of their number, devoted his life to the task which Conan had found so distasteful. He taught and toiled among them with a zeal that was seconded by Oswald, the king, who himself acted as interpreter, making the sermons of the monk intelligible to his English hearers. From Lindisfarne, where the little church of Aidan was founded, like that of Iona, on an islet, Christianity spread to the neighbouring state of Mercia, and many monasteries and schools were founded after the Columban model.

9. English Conquests.—Oswald and his successor Oswiu extended their dominions beyond the Firths, and it is said that they made the Scots and Picts pay tribute to them. The next king, Ecgfrith, marched north and crossed the Tay with a mighty host, but he was routed and slain in a great battle at a place called Nectansmere, the exact position of which is uncertain. From that time the English seem to have kept more to the country south of the Forth, and the Picts were more independent of them. This is about the only event of moment that we know of in the history of that people, of whom no records remain, except a long list of their kings down to 843, at which date they became united with the Scots under one king.

10. Union of Picts and Scots.—This union took place under Kenneth MacAlpin, who was king of the Scots. That he was king of the Picts also is certain: how he came to be so can only be guessed. It is more probable that it was by inheritance than by conquest, though he and the kings after him kept his original title of King of Scots. Over how much land he reigned, and what degree of power he had over his subjects, is not known. It is thought that among the Celts the king was only the head of the dominant tribe among many other tribes or clans, each of which was bound to follow its own chief, and the king's control over those chiefs seems to have been more in name than in fact. The northern districts seem to have been ruled by powerful chiefs called Maers or Mormaers. These chiefs, who it has been supposed were nominally subject to the King of Scots, acted as if they were quite independent of him. They were indeed his most troublesome enemies, and several of the kings lost their lives in battle against them. Moray was the greatest of the Mormaerships. It lay north of the Spey and of the mountains of Argyle, and stretched across the country from the Moray Firth to the opposite ocean.

11. Coming of the Northmen.—Kenneth was followed in turn by Donald, his brother, and Constantine, his son. Their reigns were mainly taken up in fighting with the Northmen, a heathen people of Teutonic race, who infested the seas and plundered the seaboard. From the eighth century downwards they were the scourge alike of English and Celtic Britain, swooping down on the coasts, harrying the lands, and making off with their booty; or, at other times, seizing and settling on great tracts of country. Three countries of modern Europe—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were peopled by the Northmen. But while it was those from Denmark who chiefly harassed and finally conquered the English, the Norwegians seem to have looked upon Scotland as their own especial prey, attracted doubtless by the likeness between its many