The House of Alpin

Alpin

Children Notes:
Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p208 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
CHRONICLE OF HUNTINGDON
  Anno ab incarnacione Domini octingintesimo tricesimo quarto congressi sunt Scotti cum Pictis in sollempnitate Paschali. Et plures de nobilioribus Pictorum ceciderunt. Sicque Alpinus Rex Scottorum victor extitit, unde in superbiam elatus ab [eis altero conserto] bello tercio decimo Kl. Augusti ejusdem anni a Pictis vincitur atque truncatur.
 This roughly translates as:
  In the year of the incarnation of the Lord, eight hundred and thirty-four, the Scots met with the Picts on the feast of Easter. And many of the noblest of the Picts fell. And so Alpin, King of the Scots, emerged victorious, and when he was lifted up in pride by [another war they had fought], on the thirteenth day before Kalends of August [20 July] of the same year he was defeated and slain by the Picts.

John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation p135 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
  AFTER the death of Dungallus, Alpin, the son of Achay, was at once crowned, and assumed the government of the kingdom, in A.D. 831. He reigned three years. With unflagging exertions, he continued the war against the Picts, which was begun by his predecessors, ravaging them constantly with his armies, or by repeated inroads. Accordingly, in the third year of his reign, during the Easter festival, the Scots came to conflict with the Picts, and many of their nobles fell. Whereupon it came to pass that Alpin, being victorious, was puffed up with pride; and, rashly engaging them in a second battle, the same year, on the 20th of July, he was defeated, taken, and, all ransom being refused, beheaded. He was beyond measure prone to war, and in all his actions too hasty»and impetuous.

Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp306-7 (William F. Skene, 1886)
We find, however, at this time a third competitor, who appears to have asserted his right to rule over the southern Picts. This was Alpin, of Scottish racc by paternal descent, but whose Pictish name shows that his maternal descent was from that race. We are told in the Chronicle of Huntingdon that ‘in the year 834 there was a conflict between the Scots and Picts at Easter, and many of the more noble of the Picts were slain, and Alpin, king of the Scots, remained victorious, but being elated with his success, he was, in another battle fought on the 20th of July in the same year, defeated and decapitated.’
  Alpin seems to have made this attempt at the head of those Scots who were still to be found in the country, and was probably supported by a part of the Pictish nation who were favourable to his cause. Tradition points to the Carse of Gowrie as the scene of his attempt, and Pitalpin, now Pitelpie, near Dundee, as the locality of the battle in which he was defeated and slain; and the occurrence of a place near St. Andrews called Rathalpin or the Fort of Alpin, now Rathelpie, seems to indicate that it was in the province of ‘Fib’ or Fife that he found his support and established himself after his first success.

Dictionary of national biography vol 30 p437 (ed. Sidney Lee, 1892)
  KENNETH I, MACALPINE (d. 860), king of the Scots, was son of Alpin, king of the Dalriad Scots. His father, according to the ‘Chronicle of Huntingdon,’ which Fordoun follows, was slain in battle with the Picts on 20 July 834, and was at once succeeded by Kenneth as king, apparently only in Galloway.

A further account of the life and reign of Alpin can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp195-198 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808).

Death: 20 July 834, slain in battle with the Picts, possibly at Pitalpin, now Pitelpie, near Dundee

Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp197-8 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808)
  King Alpine all this while held himselfe in a castell which stood vpon an hill, a little from Dundée, being now decaied, so that little thereof remaineth to be séene at this day. Vpon the north side of the hill, there lieth a great large plaine, compassed on ech side with mounteins, as then full of woods & launds, but now for the most part bare and without anie trées or bushes. In this plaine were the Scots incamped. Alpine beholding foorth of the castell, how the Picts approched to giue battell, got him into the campe, & exhorting his people to shew themselues valiant, placed them in araie. The Picts no lesse desirous to fight than their gouernors would haue wished them, began the battell before they had commandement, with such violence, that the right wing of the Scots was sore disordered. But Alpine perceiuing that, came spéedilie to their succours, greatlie reproouing them for their faintnesse of courage. To be short, he did so much to imbolden them, that by his means the fight was renewed in most cruell wise: insomuch that those which before were put backe, began to winne ground againe, and to beate downe their enimies verie fiercelie.
  But heerewith did the counterfet troope of horssemen, which was hid in the wood suddenlie come foorth, and shewed themselues vpon thé backe halfe of the Scotishmen, appéering in sight to be an huge number, & farre more than they were in déed: with which sight the Scots being brought into a sudden feare, least they should be compassed about with multitude of enimies, they brake their arraie, threw off their armor, and tooke them to their féet so to escape and saue themselues by flight. Thus few were slaine in the battell, but a great number died in the chase, & were beaten downe on ech side as they were ouertaken by the Picts. Alpine himselfe was taken, and hauing his hands bound behind him, was led to the next towne, and there beheaded. The place beareth the name of him vnto this day, being called Pasalpine. His head also was set vpon a pole, and borne vnto Camelon, and there set vp vpon one of the highest turrets of the wall.

Burial:
Holinshed relates that after his beheading, Alpin's head was displayed on a pole in Camelon, but was later recovered, reunited with his body, and buried, by his son, Kenneth, in a lead coffin in the abbey on Iona.

Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp198-9 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808)
  But whilest he was thus busilie occupied about the same, there were certeine Scots, which sore disdained to vnderstand that the head of their late king should remaine vnburied, in such reprochfull sort amongst their enimies. Wherevpon hauing perfect knowledge of the Pictish toong, they feined themselues to be merchantmen of that countrie, & comming vnto Camelon, watched their time, till they found meanes in the night season to steale to the wals, and secretlie taking awaie the head, escaped with the same home into their owne countrie.
  This act of theirs was not a little commended: and so now the head of king Alpine being recouered, was closed in a ledden coffin, and Kenneth himselfe, hauing in his companie a great number of his nobles, went with it ouer into Colmekill, where he buried it in the abbeie, amongst the sepultures of his elders, togither with the residue of the bodie in verie solemne wise, as apperteined. And further, those persons that had put their liues in aduenture to fetch the same head from the wals of Camelon, were by Kenneth rewarded with rich gifts and lands in perpetuitie, to remaine to them and to their heires for euer.

Sources:

Bethoc

Father: Malcolm II of Scotland

Married: Crinan

Children Notes:
Bethoc, or Beatrice, was the eldest daughter and heir of Malcolm II who died without sons. Her eldest son, Duncan, inherited the Scottish throne when her father died.

Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p152 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
Donchath mac Cran Abbatis de Dunkelden et Bethok filia Malcolm mac Kynnet vi. annis regnavit et interfectus est a Maketh mac Fyngel in Botlingouane et sepultus in Yona insula.
 This roughly translates as:
Donald son of Cran, Abbot of Dunkelden and Bethok, daughter of Malcolm son of Kynnet, reigned for six years and was killed by Maketh son of Fyngel in Botlingouane and buried on the island of Iona.
 
John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp173-4 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
We read that [King Malcolm] had no offspring but an only daughter, named Beatrice, who married Crynyne, Abthane of Dul, and Steward of the Isles, a man of great vigour and power. … Now this Abthane begat, of his wife, a son, named Duncan; who afterwards, on his grandfather’s death, succeeded him on the throne, as will be seen below.

Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 p264 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808)
Malcolme had two daughters, the one which was this Beatrice, being giuen in mariage vnto one Abbanath Crinen, a man of great nobilitie, and thane of the lies and west parts of Scotland, bare of that mariage the foresaid Duncane; the other called Doada, was maried vnto Sinell the thane of Glammis, by whom she had issue one Makbeth.

Scottish kings; a revised chronology of Scottish history, 1005-1625 pp4-6 (Archibald Hamilton Dunbar, 1899)
King Malcolm the Second had three daughters,
  Bethoc, Donada (?), and another:
  (I.) Bethoc, heir of her father King Malcolm II., was married about the year 1000 to Crinan the Thane, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and seneschal of the Isles, who held with other lands the territory called ‘Abthania de Dull,’ in Athol. Crinan was slain in battle at Dunkeld ‘with 9 times 20 heroes’ in 1045.
  Issue, two sons, Duncan and Maldred, and a daughter:
    (1) Duncan, king of the Cumbrians, and after his grandfather’s death king of Scots as Duncan I. from the 25th November 1034 to the 14th August 1040.
    (2) Maldred seems to have succeeded to Cumbria, when his brother Duncan became king of Scots on the death of their maternal grandfather, King Malcolm II., in 1034. He married Ealdgyth, daughter of Uchtred, earl of Northumberland, by his wife Ælgifu, daughter of Æthelred II., king of England. Issue, a son:
      Gospatric, earl of Northumberland, purchased that earldom from William the Conqueror at Christmas in 1067, and was ‘deprived’ in 1072. He had a grant of ‘Dunbar with the adjacent lands in Lothian’ from his kinsman King Malcolm. III. (Ceannmor) in 1072. Earl Gospatric became a monk. His tombstone is now in the crypt of the cathedral at Durham. Issue, three sons, Dolfin, Gospatric, and Waltheof, with Æthelreda, and several other daughters:
        (a) Dolfin, ruler in Cumbria, expelled from Carlisle by William II. (Rufus), king of England, in 1092.
        (b) Gospatric of Dunbar succeeded his father as second earl. He styles himself ‘Gospatric the earl, brother of Dolfin’ in his charter and on his seal. He was the ‘summus dux Lodonie’ who was slain by an arrow in the eye, at the battle of the Standard, 22nd August 1138.
        (c) Waltheof, lord of Allerdale, abbot of Croyland from 1125 until deposed by the legate Alberic, in 1138.
        (d) Æthelreda, married to Duncan II., king of Scots. King Duncan II. was treacherously slain by the mormaer of the Mearns, 12th November 1094.
    (3) —— , daughter of Bethoc, and sister of King Duncan I.
    Issue, a son:
      Moddan, titular earl of Caithness, slain at Thurso in 1040.
Dictionary of national biography vol 16 p157 (ed. Leslie Stephen, 1888)
  DUNCAN I (d. 1040), king of Scotland, succeeded his grandfather, Malcolm Mackenneth (d. 25 Nov. 1034), in the throne of Scotland. His mother’s name, according to a twelfth-century tradition, was Bethoc, the daughter of the latter king; his father was Crinan or Cronan, abbot of Dunkeld (MARIANUS SCOTUS, p. 556; TIGERNACH, pp. 284-8; Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 152). This Cronan must be regarded as a great secular chief and lay abbot of Dunkeld, occupying a position somewhat similar to that of the titular comharbs of Armagh during the same century. According to Mr. Skene, Bethoc was married to Cronan before 1008 A.D., the year in which her younger sister married Sigurd, earl of Orkney.

Further information about Bethoc can be found in wikipedia (Bethóc) and wikitree (Bethóc MacAlpin (973 - 1049)).

Sources:

Constantine I

Constantine I, king of the Picts
Constantine I, king of the Picts, as depicted in an engraving c. 1733 by Richard Cooper, the elder, now in the National Gallery of Scotland
image posted at wikipedia (Causantín_mac_Cináeda)
Constantine I, king of the Picts
Portrait of Constantine I, king of the Picts. This was painted by Jacob de Wet II, a Dutch artist working in Scotland from 1673. It is inscribed CONSTANTINVS.2. 859
image posted at wikipedia
Father: Kenneth MacAlpin

Children Occupation: King of the Picts
Constantine was crowned at Scone in 863 and reigned until his death in 877.

Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 p212 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808)
Constantine the sonne of king Kenneth was crowned king at Scone, in the chaire of marble there, according to the maner then vsed.

Notes:
Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots pp85-6 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
THE PROPHECY OF ST. BERCHAN
Another young king shall possess,
Happy those who are in expectation,
The herd of the cowshed of the cows of the Cruithneach,
The tall fair man, the wine bountiful.3
The hazard thro' which three battles are gained
Against the Gentiles, of pure colour,
The fourth battle, the battle of Luaire,
Against the king of the Britons of green standard.
Happy Alban that shall possess him.
But short the time she enjoyed him.
Five years and a half, of pure vigour.
To the king as king of Alban,
 . . . . .
 . . . . .1
On Thursday, in pools of blood,
On the shore of Inbhir Dubhroda.
  3 The king meant was Constantin mac Kenneth, who reigned, according to the Pictish Chronicle, ten years; but, according to another chronicle, only six years, and was slain at Inverdufatha. The allusion in the third line I am unable to explain.
  1 These two lines left blank in both MSS.
p151
CHRONICLE OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS.
Constantinus mac Kynat xv. annis regnavit et interemptus est a Noruagiensibus in bello de Merdo fatha et sepultus in Iona insula.
 This roughly translates as:
Constantine mac Kynath reigned for fifteen years and was killed by the Norwegians in the battle of Merdo Fatha and buried on the island of Iona.

John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp147-9 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
He was succeeded, in A.D. 858—the third year of the emperor Louis—by his nephew Constantine, son of his brother Kenneth the Great, who reigned sixteen years. During his time, and the whole of that of his predecessors—his father and uncle, to wit—a great fleet of the heathen, Danes, Norwegians, and Frisians, emerged from the east, and disturbed the whole of the British and Belgic seas. … In the second year of this reign, frost set in, over nearly the whole of Europe, on the 30th of November, and ended on the 5th of April.
…  IN the time of the reign of King Constantine, a second fleet of the heathen, larger and more formidable, came from the Danube, and joined the former one; and, combining for no good purpose, but all for warfare and wickedness, they covered the seas—as it were groves planted therein. And thus it came to pass, shortly afterwards, that, landing in both kingdoms, they dwelt there without fear for days and months, as though it were their own home. These, it was now thought, the barbarous Picts, who had not yet been thoroughly tamed, had secretly enticed to Scotland; even as one might not unlikely have suspected from the upshot of the matter. The king had many a time offered them a safe reception among the harbours of his kingdom, and leave to buy provisions to their hearts’ content, if only they would cease from their inroads, and faithfully observe the terms of peace. As, however, they could not be appeased by this means, nor by any other treaty of peace, the king—whether on an appointed day, or by chance, unexpectedly, is not known—gave them battle at a spot named the Black Den, and fell there, with many of his men. And no wonder- for he had rashly brought with him, to battle, like a snake in his bosom, some of the lately conquered Picts. These fled as soon as they closed in battle, thus giving occasion to the others to do the same. So the king was left on the field by a great part of his army, and beset by the enemy and slain. When the enemy, after their victory there, had retreated to their ships, the routed inhabitants returned; and, after searching the field, they found the king’s body, and bore it with deep wailing to the island of Iona, where it was enshrined, with great honours, in his father’s bosom.

Dictionary of national biography vol 12 pp46-7 (ed. Leslie Stephen, 1887)
  CONSTANTINE I (d. 879), son of Kenneth Macalpine, king of Scotland or Alba, the country north of the Forth and Clyde, whose chief seat was Scone, succeeded his uncle Donald in 863. His reign was one of the first when the attacks of the Normans attained a formidable height, threatening the destruction of the Celtic and Saxon kingdoms. Two years after his accession Olaf the White, king of Dublin, wanted the country of the Picts, and occupied it from the Kalends of January to the feast of St. Patrick, i.e. 17 March. According to the Pictish Chronicle, Olaf was slain by Constantine when on a raid in the following year, but the ‘Annals of Ulster’ relate that he destroyed Alrhyth (Dumbarton), after a four months’ siege, in 870, and retired in 871 to Dublin with two hundred ships and a great body of men, Anglo-Britons and Picts. After this he disappears from the Irish annals, so that his death may possibly have been antedated by some years in the account of the Pictish Chronicle. Ivar, another of the Norse Vikings of Dublin, who had fought along with Olaf, died about the same time, but Scotland was still exposed to incursions from other leaders of the same race. Thorstein the Red, a son of Olaf, by Audur, the wealthy daughter of Ketill Flatnore, attacked the northern districts, and, according to the ‘Icelandic Landnamabok,’ conquered ‘Katanes and Suderland, Ross and Norway, and more than half Scotland.’ But his kingdom, which, perhaps, was acquiesced in by Constantine, who had slight hold of the northern parts, was brief, and he was slain by the men of Alba by a stratagem or treachery in 875. In the South Halfdane the Danish leader who led the northern of the two bands (Guthrum, Alfred’s opponent commanded the other), into which the formerly united host of .that people was divided, ravaged the east coast of Britain, laid waste Northumbria, and destroyed the Picts (of Galloway?) and the people of Strathclyde.
  Two years later another band of Danes, the Irish Dubhgall, or Black Strangers, having been driven from Ireland by the Fingall, or White Strangers, made a sudden descent on Scotland by way of the Clyde and, penetrating into the interior, defeated the Scots at Dollar, from which they passed to Inverdovat, in the parish of Forgan in Fife, where Constantine was slain (877). Tradition points to the long black cave, near Crail, as the scene of his death.
  [Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings; Skene’s Celtic Scotland.]      Æ. M. 

Other accounts of the life and reign of Constantine I can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp212-6 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808), Scotland under her early kings vol 1 pp41-8 (E. William Robertson, 1862), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp323-8 (William F. Skene, 1886) and wikipedia (Causantín mac Cináeda).

Constantine's Cave near Crail
Constantine's Cave - the supposed death place of Constantine I, at Balcomie, near Crail, Fife, Scotland
photo by McPhail posted at wikipedia (Causantín_mac_Cináeda)
Black Cave sign
Sign outside Constantine's Cave - the supposed death place of Constantine I, at Balcomie, near Crail, Fife, Scotland
photo by McPhail posted at wikipedia (Causantín_mac_Cináeda) 
Death: 877, killed during a Viking invasion of Fife. By some accounts he was killed on the shore at Inverdufatha, now Inverdovat, in Forgan parish, Fife, and by others to have been captured by a party of the retreating Norsemen, and suffered a cruel death by the “blood eagle” in the  Black Cave near Crail, Fife.

Scotland under her early kings vol 1 p48 (E. William Robertson, 1862)
As his whole reign had been passed in a continual struggle to protect his country from the Northmen, so it was at length closed with honour on the battlefield in repulsing a hostile landing upon the coast of [A. D. 877.] Fife; though tradition has hinted at a darker tale, that after repelling with success the enemy’s attack he was captured by a party of the retreating Norsemen, and sacrificed by a lingering and cruel death in the gloomy recesses of the Black Cave near Crail.*
  * Innes, App. 5. Wynton, bk. 6, c. 8. Fordun, 1. 4, c. 16. Macpherson, in his “Geographical Illustrations of Scottish History,” explains the Werdofatha of the Register of St. Andrews and Wynton to mean Wem-du-fada, “the long black cave,” in which Constantine is supposed to have suffered the cruel death of “the spread eagle.” The period of this reign is easily ascertained. Under the first year the Chronicle No. 3 places the death of Malsechnal, king of Ireland; and as that king died on Tuesday 20th November (A.F.M.), his death must have occurred in 863. The same chronicle records the death of Aodh MacNial, king of Ireland, which happened in 879, under the second year of Eocha and Cyric (Grig), thus placing their accession, and consequently the death of Constantine’s brother Aodh, in 878. As the reign of Aodh lasted for only a year, that of his brother must have begun in 863 and ended in 877.

Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 p327 (William F. Skene, 1886)
  Constantin, however, was doomed himself to fall in the following year under an unexpected onslaught by the Danes. Ever since the Danes, or Dubhgall, first came to Ireland there had been a contest between them and the Norwegians or Fingall for superiority, and in 877 a battle took place between them in which the Norwegians had the victory. The Danes, being for the time driven out of Ireland, went to Alban or Scotland. They appear to have entered the Firth of Clyde, and, penetrating through the country watered by the Teith and Forth, attacked the province of Fife. A battle took place between them and the Scots at Dollar, which must have been unfavourable to the latter, as the Danes are said to have driven and slaughtered them through Fife, as far as the north-east corner, where, at a place called Inverdufatha, now Inverdovet, in the parish of Forgan, they gained a battle over the men of Alban. Constantin was slain and a great multitude with him. The earth is said on this occasion to have burst open under the men of Alban.103
  103 Tract on the Wars of the Gaidhil with the Gaill, p. 232. What the concluding sentence alludes to it is impossible now to say. ‘Paulo post ab eo bello in xiiij ejus facto in Dolair inter Danarios et Scottos. Occisi sunt Scotti co Ach Cochlam.’—Pict. Chron. The notice of Constantin’s reign by St. Berchan is defective, a few lines being lost in the concluding part, but there are still preserved the last two lines, which are significant enough—
  On Thursday, in pools of blood,
  On the shore of Inbhirdubhroda.
The Chronicle of St. Andrews has ‘Interfectus est a Norwegiensibus in bello Inverdufatha,’ which is obviously the same name as Inbhirdubhroda: the one meaning the Inver of the black ford, the other, of the black road. A record of this battle seems preserved in a charter in the Chartulary of St. Andrews, p. 274, where mention is made of the ‘congeries lapidum juxta viam de Inverdoveth versus Sanctum Andream.’ By another chronicle it is corrupted to '‘de Werdofatha,’ and supposing that ‘Wer’ was meant for ‘Wem,’ a cave, the Chronicum Elegiacum translates it Nigra specus, and from this the story that king Constantin was killed in a cave seems to have arisen. But St. Berchan leaves no doubt that Inbhir is the first part of the word, and the ancient Tract on the wars of the Gaidhel with the Gaill is conclusive that Constantin was killed in battle. Cochlam is probably the place called Kathlock, Cathlok, Catholok, between Kilmany and Inverdovat.

Buried: Isle of Iona

Sources:

Donald II

Donald II, king of the Picts
Donald II, king of the Picts, as depicted in an 18th century engraving by Alexander Bannermann
image posted at wikipedia (Donald_II_of_Scotland)
Donald II, king of the Picts
Portrait of Donald II, king of the Picts. This was painted by Jacob de Wet II, a Dutch artist working in Scotland from 1673. It is inscribed DONALDVS.6   904.
image posted at wikipedia
Father: Constantine I

Children
Occupation: King of the Picts
Donald II was crowned at Scone in 889 and reigned until his death in 900.

Notes:
Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p9 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
THE PICTISH CHRONICLE
   Donivaldus filius Constantini tenuit regnum xi. annos. Normanni tunc vastaverunt Pictaviam. In hujus regno bellum est factum Innisibsolian, inter Danarios et Scottos: Scotti habuerunt victoriam. Opidum Fother occisum est a gentibus.
 This roughly translates as:
   Donald, son of Constantine, held the kingdom for eleven years. The Normans then laid waste to the land of the Picts. In his reign a war was fought at Innisibsolian, between the Danes and the Scots: the Scots were victorious. The town of Fother was sacked by the Gentiles.
 p151 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
CHRONICLE OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS.
Donald mac Constantine xi. annis regnavit et mortuus est in Fores et sepultus in Iona insula.
 This roughly translates as:
Donald son of Constantine reigned for 11 years and died in Fores and was buried on the island of Iona.

John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp153-4 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
  WHEN the mourning for the death and burial of Gregory was ended, Donald, who was the son of the above Constantine, son of Kenneth the Great, obtaining the sovereignty of the kingdom, was crowned at Scone in the same year that Gregory died, that is to say, in A.D. 892, the sixth year of the emperor Arnulph. He reigned eleven years, with vigour indeed, but with huge and restless trouble, now in the parts of northern Scotland, now in those of England which had been lately conquered; lest at any time, having grown to pleasure and careless ease, he should ingloriously lose what his predecessor had won by his watchful prudence, and with great trouble. For
    ’Tis no less praise to keep than to acquire.
But the heathen of the Danish nation offered Donald—as they had, formerly, his predecessor Gregory—to enter into a treaty of peace with him against the English, so that these, being assailed on all sides by their combined strength, might the more easily be overcome. Both kings, however, utterly declined this, answering that it would never do for a Christian chief to afford help to unbelieving heathens, or be bound by any sworn treaty with them, against Catholics, even though his enemies. Finally, after some years, a certain Danish king of Northumbria and East Anglia—Gurmund—was, with his followers, baptized by King Alfred, and bound himself to the same by an oath. Nevertheless, he immediately afterwards, by his pressing entreaties, obtained of Gregory, who was then still alive, that the treaty of fealty and friendship he had before desired, should be concluded. After Gurmund’s death, moreover, when his son Ranald, and his kinsman, Sithric, his successors, kept on importuning King Donald for a similar treaty engagement, he granted it quite willingly, although he undoubtedly knew they had, like Gurmund, already plighted their troth to Alfred. About the same time, also, while the king was making a stay in the south, some mischievous robbers began to disturb the country beyond the hills, by frequent secret murders and open rapine. In order, therefore, to put down their outrages, he sent out escorts of soldiers southwards in detachments; and as soon as he had set foot in their borders, he shortly fell sick and died, almost suddenly, in the town of Forres—whether worn out by toil, or poisoned by the treachery of those villains, is uncertain. He was buried in the island of Iona. May he rest in peace for ever, awaiting the last day!

Scotland under her early kings vol 1 pp51-2 (E. William Robertson, 1862)
[A.D. 889]  Upon the death of Eocha after an eventless career of eleven years, Donald, the son of Constantine, assumed his cousin’s place, and for seven years shared with Cyric the supreme authority over Scotland, on the same terms, apparently, as his predecessor the British prince. A decisive victory over a body of the Northmen, who were defeated at Collin on the banks of the Tay, signalized the commencement of the new reign, avenging the destruction of the Scottish capital of Forteviot, burnt by the invaders in the course of their inroads; and .as the situation of the ruined town must have exposed it to the attacks of the pirates of the western seas, it appears to have been abandoned from this period, and the residence of the sovereign being transferred for security to the eastern bank of the Tay, the dignity of “the Royal City” belonged henceforth to Scone.
  The few remaining years of the century passed away without events—none at least have been recorded—Cyric died peacefully at Dunadeer after a [A.D. 896] reign of eighteen years, and it was left for the chroniclers of a later age to encircle his memory with a halo of fabulous glory, and to oppose his triumphs, as the conqueror of England and Ireland, to the pretensions founded by the first Edward upon the exploits of the British Arthur. No successor arose amongst the Northern Picts to emulate the policy of their departed leader, and Scotland, gradually recovering from the shock of Thorstein’s conquests, ceased for ever after the death of Cyric to be subject to a divided authority. Henceforth Donald ruled without a rival during the brief remainder of his reign; but though no competitor appeared from beyond the Grampian range to assert his equality with the representative of Constantine and Kenneth, the recollection of their early independence long survived in full force amongst the northern clans, and a continual struggle between the divisions of the ancient Pictish kingdom can still be traced after the lapse of centuries. The death of [A. D. 900.] Donald, who survived Cyric for only four years, would appear to have been brought about through this inveterate feud, for he is supposed to have been killed in the town of Forres, and he may have lost his life in the hostile province of Moray in attempting to re-establish the royal authority over the revolted districts of the north.

Dictionary of national biography vol 15 p208 (ed. Leslie Stephen, 1888)
  DONALD VI (d. 900), son of Constantine I [q. v.], king of Celtic Scotland, succeeded Eocha and Grig (Gregory), who had reigned jointly, the latter, perhaps, being the representative of the northern Celts or Picts and the former a son of Run of the British race, but by his mother a grandson of Kenneth Macalpin. His reign, when the kings of Scone are first called kings of Alban and no longer of the Picts by the Irish annalists, was during the period of the great Danish Vikings, who now began to settle in instead of ravaging the coasts. Guthorm Athelstan about this period, defeated by Alfred, became a christian and settled in the eastern district called the Danelege. Halfdene, who commanded the northern half of the formerly united Danish host, attacked and settled in Northumbria. The Celts in Ireland succeeded in repelling the Danish invaders till 919, when Sitric, by their defeat at Rathfarnham, laid the foundation of the Danish kingdom of Dublin. Another band of northern Vikings, led by Hrolf (Rollo), sought the more distant shores of Normandy. Meanwhile Harold Harfagr was consolidating the kingdom of Norway, and a little later Gorm the old that of Denmark.
  The less fertile Scotland had a short period of comparative quiet. Donald is said by Fordun to have made peace with Ronald and Sitric, his kinsman, the successors of Guthorm, Danish chiefs not clearly identified (Scotichronicon, iv. 20).
  Sigurd, brother of Ronald, earl of Moire, the second earl of Orkney, indeed invaded northern Scotland and took possession of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray, according to one account, as far as Ekkiallsakki (Burghhead, between the Findhorn and Spey), where he defeated Melbrigda Tönn (the Tooth), but died from a wound of the tooth of his defeated foe’s head slung over his saddle, according to the Norse Saga. But this northeastern part of Scotland had probably never been under the Celtic kings of Scone. According to the narrative of ‘The Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gael’ (TODD’S edit. p. 29) a later attack, led by Sitric, son of Imhair, came further south, defeated the Scots, and (SKENE, i. 338) slew Donald at Dun-fother (Dunottar) in Kincardine. But the Ulster annals, as well as the earliest Scottish historians, ignore this invasion, and record the death of Donald about 900, according to Fordun, at Forres, not in battle but from infirmity, brought on by his labour in reducing the highland robber tribes, though Fordun adds a doubt whether he may not have been poisoned. He was succeeded by Constantine, the son of Aedh the predecessor of Gregory.
  [Wyntoun and Fordun; Wars of the Graedhill and Gael; Annals of Ulster; and for modern accounts see Skene’s Celtic Scotland, i. 335, and Robertson's Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 50.]      Æ. M. 

Other accounts of the life and reign of Donald II can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp225-6 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp335-9 (William F. Skene, 1886) and wikipedia (Donald_II_of_Scotland).

Death: 900, at Forres, Moray

Dictionary of national biography vol 15 p208 (ed. Leslie Stephen, 1888)
According to the narrative of ‘The Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gael’ (TODD’S edit. p. 29) a later attack, led by Sitric, son of Imhair, came further south, defeated the Scots, and (SKENE, i. 338) slew Donald at Dun-fother (Dunottar) in Kincardine. But the Ulster annals, as well as the earliest Scottish historians, ignore this invasion, and record the death of Donald about 900, according to Fordun, at Forres, not in battle but from infirmity, brought on by his labour in reducing the highland robber tribes, though Fordun adds a doubt whether he may not have been poisoned.

Buried: Isle of Iona

Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 p226 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808)
His bodie was buried in Colmekill amongst his ancestors, with a marble toome set ouer his graue, as the manner in those daies was customablie vsed.

Sources:

Kenneth MacAlpin

Kenneth MacAlpin
Kenneth MacAlpin, as depicted in an engraving by Alexander Bannerman (1730-1780), now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
image posted at wikipedia (Kenneth_MacAlpin)
Kenneth MacAlpin
Portrait of Kenneth MacAlpin. This was painted by Jacob de Wet II, a Dutch artist working in Scotland from 1673. It is inscribed KENNETHVS.2. 834
image posted at wikipedia
Father: Alpin

Children Occupation: King of Dalriada and, after his conquest of Pictland, king of the Picts, combining both territories into a kingdom that would become known as Alba.

Notes:
Kenneth succeeded to his father's kingdom on Alpin's death in 834. This kingdom was in what is today southern Scotland, probably in Galloway. Around 838 he also inherited the throne of Dalraida in the west and two years after that he obtained the throne of the Picts. By some accounts this was by vicious conquest of the Picts, who were weakened by Viking invasions, but by others that he claimed the throne through his mother's bloodline. Either way, Kenneth united his ruled lands into a kingdom that would become known first as Alba, and then as Scotland.

Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p8 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
THE PICTISH CHRONICLE.
Kinadius igitur filius Alpini, primus Scottorum, rexit feliciter istam annis xvi. Pictaviam. Pictavia autem a Pictis est nominata; quos, ut diximus, Cinadius delevit. Deus enim eos pro merito sue malitie alienos ac otiosos hereditate dignatus est facere: quia illi non solum Domini missam ac preceptum spreverunt; sed et in jure equitatis aliis equi parari noluerunt. Iste vero, biennio antequam veniret Pictaviam, Dalriete regnum suscepit. Septimo anno regni sui, reliquias Sancti Columbe transportavit ad ecclesiam quam construxit, et invasit sexies Saxoniam; et concremavit Dunbarre atque Marios usurpata. Britanni autem concremaverunt Dubblain, atque Danari vastaverunt Pictaviam, ad Cluanan et Duncalden. Mortuus est tandem tumore ani, idus Februarii feria tertia in palacio Fothuirtabaicht.
 This roughly translates as:
Kenneth, then, the son of Alpin, the first of the Scots, ruled Pictavia happily kingdom for sixteen years. Pictavia was named after the Picts; whom, as we have said, Kenneth destroyed. For God deigned to make them strangers and idle in their inheritance, for the merit of their malice: because they not only despised the message and command of the Lord; but also refused to prepare horses for others in the right of cavalry. But he, two years before he came to Pictavia, assumed the kingdom of Dalriet. In the seventh year of his reign, he transported the relics of Saint Columba to the church which he had built, and invaded Saxony six times; and burned Dunbarre and the usurped Marius. But the Britons burned Dubblain, and the Danes laid waste Pictavia, at Cluan and Duncalden. He finally died of a tumor of the anus, on Tuesday, the Ides of February in the palace of Fochualtabaicht.
p151
CHRONICLE OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS.
Kynat mac Alpin xvi. annis regnavit super Scottos, distructis Pictis et mortuus est et in Fethertauethn et sepultus in Yona insula, ubi tres filii sc. Erc, Fergus, Loaran, Tenagus, sepulti fuerunt. Hic mira caliditate duxit Scotos de Ergadia in terra Pictorum.
 This roughly translates as:
Kynat mac Alpin reigned over the Scots for sixteen years, destroying the Picts, and died in Fethertauethn and was buried on the island of Iona, where the three sons of Erc, namely Fergus, Loaran, and Tenagus, were buried. He led the Scots with wonderful courage from Ergadia into the land of the Picts.
p208
CHRONICLE OF HUNTINGDON
Cujus filius Kynadius [successit in regno patris] sicut qui viio regni sui anno, cum pirate Danorum, occupatis litoribus, Pictos sua defendentes, strage maxima pertrivissent, in reliquos Fictorum terminos transiens, arma vertit, et multis occisis fugere compulit, sicque Monarchiam tocius Albanie, que nunc Scocia dicitur, p[rimus] Scottorum Re[x conquisivit] et in ea primo super Scottos regnavit. Qui anno xiio regni sui septies in una die cum Pictis congreditur multisque pertritis regnum sibi confirmat et regnavit xxviii. annis.
 This roughly translates as:
His son Kenneth [succeeded in his father's kingdom], as he who in the seventh year of his reign, when the Danish pirates, having occupied the coasts, had destroyed the Picts defending their own with great slaughter, crossed over to the remaining borders of the Picts, turned his arms, and having killed many, forced them to flee, and thus he first conquered the monarchy of the whole of Alban, which is now called Scotland, the first King of the Scots, and in it he first reigned over the Scots. Who, in the twelfth year of his reign, fought with the Picts seven times in one day and, having defeated many, confirmed his kingdom for himself and reigned for twenty-eight years.

John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp136-9 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
  KENNETH, the son of Alpin, succeeded to his father’s throne in A.D. 834; and to that of the Picts, when they had been overcome, in A.D. 839 … Kenneth reigned nearly sixteen years as sole monarch of these kingdoms. He was a brave and wise man, of keen insight, and remarkable for the daring with which he carried on his war. This king, by a strange trick, brought the Scots into the Pictish kingdom; the reason whereof was this. In the first year of his reign, while the chiefs were gathered together in council, he made it known that he wished to revenge himself for the cruel murder of his father, and of his kinsmen who had lately been slain in the war, many of whom had been killed by the Picts after they had surrendered. … war was declared against the Picts; and he gathered his forces together, and made his way into their country. So furiously, then, did he rage against not only the men, but even the women and little ones, that he spared neither sex nor holy orders, but destroyed, with fire and sword, every living thing which he did not carry off with him. Afterwards, in the sixth year of his reign, when the Danish pirates had occupied the coast, and, while plundering the seaboard, had, with no small slaughter, crushed the Picts who were defending their lands, Kenneth, likewise, himself also turned his arms against the remaining frontiers of the Picts, and, crossing the mountain range on their borders, to wit, the backbone of Albania, which is called Drumalban in Scottish, he slew many of the Picts, and put the rest to flight; thus acquiring the sole sovereignty over both countries. But the Picts, being somewhat reinforced by the help of the Angles, kept harassing Kenneth for four years. Weakening them subsequently, however, by unforeseen inroads and various massacres, at length, in the twelfth year of his reign, he engaged them seven times in one day, and swept down countless multitudes of the Pictish people. So he established and strengthened his authority thenceforth over the whole country from the river Tyne, beside Northumbria, to the Orkney Isles—as formerly Saint Adamnan, the Abbot of Hy (Iona), had announced in his prophecy. Thus, not only were the kings and leaders of that nation destroyed, but we read that their stock and race, also, along with their language or dialect, were lost; so that whatever of these is found in the writings of the ancients is believed, by most, to be fictitious or apocryphal.
…  KING KENNETH, then, after having, as has been just stated, gained seven victorious battles in one day, overran all the provinces of the Pictish kingdom, and took the unwarlike population under the protection of his peace. Many, nevertheless, disdaining to submit their necks to slavery, and with the hope of resistance, followed a new king they had created. Kenneth, however, shortly afterwards, sent forth some columns of foot soldiers against them, and slew some of them, with their king; while others he compelled to surrender, and took them prisoners. But the remainder long roamed, in robber bands, through the vast solitudes, and would neither altogether surrender nor accept but peace; at length, hard pressed, and having nowhere to hide their heads, they sought relief by fleeing to the Angles and Norwegians. And thus God granted that it should come to pass that Kenneth should be the first of all the kings to take the whole of the north-western end of Albion under his sole sovereignty, thus happily welding the two kingdoms into one. He also framed laws, called the Macalpine Laws, and appointed that they should be observed; whereof some remain to this day, and are in vogue amongst the people. When the kingdom had thus been imbued with law and peace, after the many and countless stormy troubles of so long a time, Kenneth passed away to the Lord, at Forteviot, at the end of full sixteen years and eight months of his reign as sole monarch; and he was, with becoming honours, amid the deepest wailing of the Scots, buried in the island of Iona, where, formerly, were laid in the ground King Fergus, the son of Erth, and his two brothers. Loam and Tenegus — may their souls have peace for ever!

Scotland under her early kings vol 1 pp40-1 (E. William Robertson, 1862)
  Never were the qualities more needed which earned for the first Kenneth the title of “the Hardy,” than during the sixteen years of his turbulent reign; for his kingdom was exposed to hostilities on every side. The Britons of Strath Clyde burnt Dunblane; the Danes carried their ravages to Dunkeld in Atholl, and to Cluny in Stormont, and if Ragnar Lodbroc is not the mere creation of some northern scald, it was probably under the leadership of that renowned sea-king that they destroyed the monastery of the Pictish Constantine. The Scottish king proved equal to the occasion, and six times leading his followers across the “Scots-water,” he repulsed the Britons, harried the Lothians, burnt Dunbar, and seized upon Melrose, stifling any doubts about his claim to the throne in the plunder of the fertile lowlands of “Saxony.”*
  Iona, during the vicissitudes of this stormy era, had been far too much exposed to escape the fury of the northern pirates, and the revered asylum of Columba’s brotherhood, participating in the misfortunes of Lindisfarne, was deserted at an early period under the repeated attacks of the Pagan foe, neither island ever recovering the importance that had once attached to their hallowed shores. The destruction of Dunkeld, which had been destined by its founder to replace both Iona and Abernethy, gave occasion to the solitary peaceful action attributed to the Scottish sovereign, who, collecting the relics of Columba from the localities to which they had been borne for security, enshrined them in a new church at Dunkeld, [A. D. 849.] rebuilding the monastery on the same spot as had been chosen for the original foundation. An alliance with the Britons of Strath Clyde, whose prince, Cu, received the hand of his daughter in marriage, completes the record of Kenneth’s actions; and ten years after the restoration of Dunkeld he died in his capital [A. D. 859.] of Dunfothir or Forteviot, the victim of a painful and lingering disease.*
   * Lodbroka Quida. Str., 12. The epithet of “the Hardy” is applied to Kenneth in the Duan. The old chronicle continues to apply the name of Pictavia to Scotland proper, or Alban, and Saxonia to the Lothians; whilst the Ulster annals call the MacAlpin dynasty “Kings of the Picts” to the close of the century.
  * Innes, App. 3.

Dictionary of national biography vol 30 pp437-9 (ed. Sidney Lee, 1892)
  KENNETH I, MACALPINE (d. 860), king of the Scots, was son of Alpin, king of the Dalriad Scots. His father, according to the ‘Chronicle of Huntingdon,’ which Fordoun follows, was slain in battle with the Picts on 20 July 834, and was at once succeeded by Kenneth as king, apparently only in Galloway. According to the same authority Kenneth became king of the Dalriad Scots about ten years later; in the seventh year after his father’s death, 841 (not 839, as in SKENE, Celtic Scotland, p. 308), he compelled Danish pirates who had seized the Picts’ territory to fly and in the twelfth year of his reign (846) two years after succeeding to the Dalriad monarchy he finally defeated the Picts and confirmed his rule over ‘Alban,’ the name given to the united kingdom of the Scots and Picts. The marauding Danish vikings whom he drove from the coasts were perhaps the followers of Ragnar Lodbrog, called by Irish annalists Vegesius (Wars of the Gaedhill and the Gael, Todd's edition), who founded a Scandinavian kingdom in Dublin about 830 and died 845; but this is doubted by recent Scandinavian scholars. The ‘Chronicle’ adds that he reigned in all twenty-eight years—sixteen years over the Picts and Dalriad Scots together—which would make the end of his reign 862. The ‘Pictish Chronicle,’ which dates only a century and a half after the event, implies that Kenneth’s reign over Dalriada began in 842, and over the Picts in 844. But the difference in the dates between the Huntingdon and Pictish Chronicles is unimportant, and leaves no reasonable doubt on the point, cardinal for Scottish history, that Kenneth united the kingdoms of the Scots and Picts in the middle of the ninth century, a union effected by his conquest of the Picts. Skene points out that Kenneth and one or two of his successors are called in the Irish annals kings of the Picts, and that from his father’s name (Alpin) being Pictish rather than Scottish, he may have had Pictish blood. But the evidence that Kenneth was a Dalriad king is really conclusive.
  The expulsion, or, as the ‘Pictish Chronicle’ calls it, the deletion of the Picts, may be something of an exaggeration, but the almost total disappearance of the Pictish dialect of Gaelic, save in the place-names, the names of the old Pictish kings, and a few other words which puzzle the philologist, indicates either a complete conquest and the superinduction of the Gaelic of the west upon the Pictish Gaelic of central and northern Scotland, or a divergence of dialect so slight that the adoption of the speech of the conquerors by the conquered was almost an imperceptible transition.
  The Scots of Dalriada seem to have found in Kenneth a Scottish Alfred. Besides expelling the Danes and conquering the Picts of the central districts (the men of Fortrenn), Kenneth invaded Saxony, i.e. Lothian, or the northern parts of Northumbria, six times, burning Dunbar and Melrose. By a bold stroke of policy he moved the chief seat of his kingdom from Argyll and the Isles (Dalriada), no longer tenable against the Danes, to Scone, which became the Scottish capital, so far as that word is applicable to the principal royal fort. In 851 he removed some of the relics of Columba still left in Iona to the church which he built at Dunkeld, possibly on the site of an earlier church founded by Constantine MacFergus [see CONSTANTINE], a Pictish king. Dunkeld became the chief ecclesiastical seat of the new kingdom; and this removal of Columba’s relics, taken in connection with the statement of the ‘Pictish Chronicle’ that the Picts were punished by God ‘for despising the mass and precept of the Lord, and also for refusing to acknowledge others as their equals,’ probably indicates that an ecclesiastical revolution was associated with the civil—perhaps the restoration of the Columbite clergy, who had been expelled by the Picts in the beginning of the eighth century. Kenneth died of a tumour in 860 at Forteviot, and was buried at Iona.
  If this be the true reconstruction of this obscure period in the annals of Scotland, it is not wonderful that Kenneth should have been looked back upon as the founder of the Scottish dynasty, and that the verses which Wyntoun quotes as existing in his time (c. 1395) should have been inscribed on his tomb at Iona:
  Primus in Albania fertur regnasse Kynedus
    Filius Alpini prælia multa gerens.
  Expulsis Pictis regnaverat octo bis annis
    Et post Forteviot mortuus ille fuit.
  It was from Scone and Dunkeld that the Scottish monarchy gradually expanded, and the first important step was taken by Kenneth in giving his kingdom a firmer hold on the central highlands, where it was secure from permanent conquest, either by the Danes or the English. The laws which Fordoun ascribed to Kenneth MacAlpine and Hector Boece printed at length, are supposititious, and were ascribed to him because it was thought a great king must be a great lawgiver [see under DONALD V].
  One of Kenneth’s daughters married Cu (E. W. ROBERTSON) or Run (SKENE’s reading of the name in the Pictish Chronicle), a prince of the Strathclyde Britons, an alliance which foreshadowed a later union with the south-western district of Scotland; another married Olaf the White, the Norse king of Dublin; and a third married Ædh Finnliath, king of Ireland (Celtic Scotland, i. 313). Kenneth’s kingdom passed for three years into the hands of his brother Donald V [q. v.], who was succeeded in 863 by his son Constantine I [q. v.] after whose death in 877 Ædh, another son of Kenneth, reigned, or attempted to reign, for a single year, when he was killed by his rival Gregory the Great (d. 889) [q. v.]
  [The Pictish Chronicle in Chronicles of the Picts and Scots; the Ulster and other Irish Annals; the Chronicles of Henry of Huntingdon; Wyntoun, and Fordoun are the principal early sources. Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings and Skene’s Celtic Scotland are the best modern histories.]      Æ. M.   

Other accounts of the life and reign of Kenneth I can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp198-208 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp308-14 (William F. Skene, 1886) and wikipedia (Kenneth_MacAlpin).

Death: 13 February 859(60), at the palace of Forteviot, Strathearn, of anal cancer

Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 p308n (William F. Skene, 1886)
The Chronicle of Huntingdon says Kynadius reigned twenty-eight years, and in order to adjust the chronology of his reign it is necessary to ascertain the true year of his death. This we can fortunately do. The Ulster Annals place it in 858, the Annales Cambriæ in 856, but the Pictish Chronicle tells us that he died on the Ides or thirteenth of February, on a Tuesday. Now the thirteenth of February fell on a Tuesday in the year 860, which is the true year of his death. This gives 832 in place of 834 as the commencement of his reign and the year of his father Alpin’s death, and 839 as his seventh year.

Buried: Isle of Iona

Sources:

Kenneth II of Alba

Kenneth II, king of Scotland
Kenneth, as depicted in an engraving by Isaac Taylor (1759-1829), now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
image posted at wikitree (Cináed mac Máel Coluim (MacAlpin) King of Scots (abt. 932 - 995))
Father: Malcolm I of Alba

Children Occupation: King of Alba
Kenneth II reigned from the death of Culen in 971 until his assassination in 995.

Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 p239 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808)
  AFTER that the bodie of king Culene was once conueied vnto Colmekill, and there buried amongst his elders, the nobles and great péeres assembled togither at Scone, where they proclaimed Kenneth the sonne of Malcolme the first, and brother vnto Duffe, king of the realme.

Notes:
Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p152 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
… Kynnath mac Malcolm xxiiij. annis regnavit ij. mensibus et interfectus es a suis hominibus in Fetherkern per perfidias Finuele filie filie Cunthar comitis de Anguss cujus Finuele unicum filium predictus Kynnet interfecit.
 This roughly translates as:
Kenneth son of Malcolm reigned for twenty-three years and two months and was killed by his men in Fetherkern through the treachery of Fenella, daughter of Cunthar, Earl of Angus, whose only son Finuel, was killed by the aforementioned Kenneth.
 
John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp163-7 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
  CULEN was succeeded, in A.D. 970—the thirty-third year of the Otho so often mentioned—by Kenneth, the son of Malcolm, and brother of King Duff—a brave and prudent man,—the second of that name since the monarchy was established. He reigned, in peace and happiness, twenty-four years and nine months. During the whole time of his reign, he and the English kings, his contemporaries, Edgar and his two sons—the blessed martyr Edward, to wit, and Ethelred—mutually esteeming one another, faithfully preserved the fellowship of the most steadfast peace and friendship. As soon as Kenneth was crowned, Edgar willingly received Malcolm, the son of Duff, as prince of Cumbria, under the usual oath of fealty—for, had he lived, he would have been the next to succeed his father. This covenant of mutual peace and friendship between the kings and the countries (first happily entered into by Malcolm, king of the Scots, and Edmund, king of the English) lasted, without any noisy wrangle, unbroken and continuously for one hundred and twenty years, or more—even until William the Bastard invaded England, and took it.
… Having heard rumours of these changes in the rule of succession. King Kenneth wished that the law of succession of the ancient kings of his country—who had hitherto reigned in entangled disorder—should be abolished; and that, after each king, his offspring of legitimate birth should, in preference to the rest, be decked with the kingly diadem. He himself had an illustrious son, named Malcolm; and he proposed to use every endeavour to have the throne assigned to him. He therefore appointed, with the consent of all his chiefs, with the exception of a few supporters of the old rule of succession, that, thenceforth every king, on his death, should be succeeded by his son or his daughter, his nephew or his niece; or by his brother or sister, in the collateral line; or, in short, by whoever was the nearest survivor in blood to the deceased king, surviving him—even though it were a babe a day old; for it is said, “A king’s age consists in his subjects’ faith;” and no law contrary to this has since prevailed.
  … BUT the chiefs who favoured the other rule of succession, hated King Kenneth and his son, asserting that they were now deprived of the accustomed ancient title to the succession. The principal of these were Constantine the Bald, son of King Culen, and Gryme, son of Kenneth, son of King Duff; and, plotting unceasingly the death of the king and his son, they at length found accomplices for the perpetration of such a crime. The daughter of Cruchne, Earl of Angus, who was named Finele, consented unto their deeds and design, her only son having formerly been ordered to be put to death by the king at Dunsynane, whether by the severity of the law, or for what he had done, or in some other way, I know not. This wily woman, therefore, ardently longing for the king’s death, caused to be made, in an out-of-the-way little cottage, a kind of trap, such as had never before been seen. For the trap had, attached to it on all sides, crossbows always kept bent by their several strings, and fitted with very sharp arrows; and in the middle thereof stood a statue, fashioned like a boy, and cunningly attached to the crossbows; so that if any one were to touch it, and move it ever so little, the bowstrings of the crossbows would suddenly give way, and the arrows would straightway be shot forth, and pierce him through. Having thus completed the preparations for perpetrating the crime, the wretched woman, always presenting a cheerful countenance to the king, at length beguiled him by flattery and treacherous words. The king went forth one day, with a few companions, into the woods, at no great distance from his own abode, to hunt; and while pursuing beasts hither and thither with his dogs, as he hunted, he happened by chance to put up hard by the town of Fettercairn, where the traitress lived. She saw him; and, falling on her knees, she besought him with great importunity to come into her house—“otherwise,” said she, “I shall, without fail, think myself mistrusted by your Majesty’s Grace. But God knows—and thou, my king, shalt soon know—that, although the tattling of the spiteful may repeat many a lie about me, I have always been faithful to thee—and shall be, as long as I live. For, what thou not long ago didst to my most wretched son, I know right well, was justly done, and not without cause;” and tripping up to the king, she whispered in his ear, saying:—“When thou be come with me, I will explain to thee, my lord, who are the accomplices of that accursed son of mine, and the manner of their treachery. For they hoped to get me to join them in their conspiracy to deceive thee; but I straightway refused to countenance their heinous treachery. Nevertheless, they forced me to lay my hand on the Gospel and swear never to betray their secret; but, though I promised them this on my oath, still I should be most false and traitorous towards thee, my lord king—to whom, above all others, steadfast and loyal fealty is due—were I to conceal the danger to thy person. For who knows not that no sworn covenant holds good against the safety of the king’s majesty?”
  THUS that crafty woman cunningly misled the king’s mind, and drew him, alas! too ready of belief, into the house with her, everything speeding her design. Why say more? Why dwell on so sad a tale? After the king had alighted from horseback, she took his hand, and quickly led him, alone, to the house where the trap was concealed. After she had shut the door behind them, as if with the view of revealing the secrets of the traitors, as she had promised, she showed him the statue, which was the lever of the whole trap. He naturally asked what that statue had to do with him; whereupon she answered, smiling—“If the top of the head of this statue, which thou seest, my lord king, be touched and moved, a marvellous and pleasant jest comes of it.” So, unconscious of hidden treachery, he gently, with his hand, drew towards him the head of the machine, thus letting go the levers and handles of the crossbows; and immediately he was shot through by arrows sped from all sides, and fell without uttering another word. The traitress then went hurriedly out by the back-door, and hid herself in the shades of the forest for the time; but, a little after, she safely reached her abettors. The king’s companions, however, after having long awaited his return from the house, wondered why he delayed there. At last, having stood before the gate, and knocked persistently at the door, and hearing nothing, they furiously broke it open; and when they found that he had been murdered, they raised a great outcry, and ran about in all directions, looking for the guilty woman—but in vain: they found her not; and, not knowing what to do, they consumed the town with fire, and reduced it to ashes. Then, taking with them the king’s blood-stained body, they shortly afterwards buried it with his fathers in Iona, as was the custom with the kings. About the twentieth year of this Kenneth, after he had established the statutes respecting the succession, on the death of Malcolm, the son of Duff, Prince of Cumbria, he wished to make his own son, Malcolm, prince of that Lordship; so he sent him to Ethelred, king of the English, who willingly admitted him, under the conditions above touched upon—of fealty and homage.

Dictionary of national biography vol 30 pp439-40 (ed. Sidney Lee, 1892)
  KENNETH II, (d. 995), son of Malcolm I, succeeded to the Scottish Pictish monarchy on the death of Culen [q. v.] in 971. He continued the war with the Britons of Strathclyde, who had slain his predecessor, and the ‘Pictish Chronicle’ records a defeat of his foot-soldiers by the Britons at a place which Skene ingeniously identifies with the Moss of the Cornag, a burn which falls into the Firth at Abercorn. He seems to have been more successful in the raids which, according to the same chronicle, he made on Northumbria, now divided between the two Earls Oslac and Eadulf Evil-child, who ruled from the Tees to the Forth. Kenneth is said to have harried as far as Stanemore, at the head of the Tees; ‘Cliva,’ perhaps Cleveland in Yorkshire; and the pools of ‘Deram’ (Derna?) or Deerham in Cumberland. But as it is added that he fortified the fords of the Forth, it is evident he did not feel secure from attack, either by the Britons or the Angles of Northumbria. Next year he again ravaged Northumbria, and took captive a son of its king, probably Earl Eadulf. With the statement that Kenneth ‘gave the great city of Brechin to the Lord’ the ‘Pictish Chronicle’ closes; and if, as is reasonably conjectured, this chronicle was composed at Brechin in Kenneth’s reign, its brief statements have the value of a contemporary record. In the round tower still standing at Brechin we have perhaps the monument of this donation. Its position indicates what is corroborated by other evidence—that the extension of the Scottish monarchy during his reign was to the north of the Tay rather than to the south of the Forth, where Kenneth, though he made successful raids, was unable to keep more than his predecessors had won. He is stated in the ‘Annals of Ulster’ to have slain in 977, the sixth year of his reign, the son of Indulf, king of Alban; and this may probably have secured to him the fort of Edinburgh, which Indulf had taken from the Angles of Northumbria.
  Kenneth’s relations with Eadgar, the king of Wessex, have been much disputed. The relations between Kenneth’s predecessor Malcolm and Eadgar’s predecessor Eadmund have been represented as those of a feudal baron to his suzerain on account of the grant of Cumberland by the English to the Scottish king [see under MALCOLM I]. Similarly Florence of Worcester, writing in the twelfth century, gives among the dependent kings who rowed Eadgar, king of England, on the Dee at Chester in 972, in sign of homage, the names of ‘Kenneth, king of Scotland, Malcolm, king of the Cumbrians, Maccus, king of the Isles’, and five Welsh chiefs Mr. E. W. Robertson points out that no such king of Cumbria as Malcolm is to be found at this date, and that suspicion attaches to the names of two of the Welsh princes. The names are not given in the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ and the account of Kenneth’s presence at Chester in 972 is inconsistent with the ‘Pictish Chronicle,’ which represents him at the period as making successful raids in Northumbria. Another statement of later English chroniclers, which first appears in a tract on the ‘Arrival of the Saxons,’ and was afterwards expanded in the chronicle of John of Wallingford, or the monk of St. Albans, about 1214, is that Eadgar, at the request of Kenneth, who came to London for the purpose, ceded Lothian to the Scottish king on condition of receiving homage from the latter, and that he should allow its natives to retain their English speech. This is almost certainly an invention to conceal the conquest of Lothian by the victory of Carham in 1018, gained by Malcolm II [q. v.], the son of Kenneth, over Eadulf Cutel, the Northumbrian earl. The probable conclusion is that Kenneth neither did homage to Eadgar on the Dee, nor received from him a grant of Lothian. According to Fordoun, the relations between the Scotch and English kings were peaceable. There is no mention of Kenneth II in the English chronicles of the reign (975-8) of Edward the Martyr [q. v.], or his successor Ethelred the Unready (968?-1016) [q. v.]
  Kenneth’s death seems to have been due to a conflict with the Mormaers or chiefs of Angus, the district now known as the shires of Forfar and Kincardine, or the Mearns, and probably including Gowry, part of the shire of Perth. A Mormaer of Angus called Cunchar or Connachar (perhaps equivalent to Connor), dying without male issue, left his succession to a daughter, Fenella, and Kenneth put to death her only son at Dunsinane, the chief fort of the Angus Mormaers. In revenge Fenella, by a stratagem which left a deep impression on traditionary history, contrived to murder Kenneth at Fettercairn in the Mearns in 995. Tighernac notes that he was slain by his own subjects; the ‘Annals of Ulster’ add, by treachery. A chronicle of the Picts and Scots of 1251, and Wyntoun, writing about 1395, attribute the treachery to Fenella. Fordoun and later annalists tell in various forms the story that she constructed a figure which, on the touch of the king, shot arrows from crossbows which destroyed him; this is probably an invention to give a vivid image of her treachery.
  The real drift of Kenneth’s reign appears to have been the consolidation and defence of the central districts of Scotland from the Forth and Clyde to the Mounth or the Grampians. Cumbria was held at the time by a separate line of princes, and it may be doubted whether Kenneth possessed permanently any territory south of the Forth.
  [The contemporary chronicles have been mentioned above. Freeman’s Norman Conquest gives the modern English, Skene’s Celtic Scotland and E. W. Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings the modern Scottish, version of their scanty statements.]     Æ. M. 

Other accounts of the life and reign of Kenneth II can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp239-49 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808), Scotland under her early kings vol 1 pp79-91 (E. William Robertson, 1862), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp368-81 (William F. Skene, 1886) and wikipedia (Kenneth_II_of_Scotland).

Death: 995, at Fettercain, Kincardineshire, slain by treachery of his own people. The traditional story is that he was assassinated by Fenella, daughter of Cunchar, mormaer of Angus, in revenge for Kenneth having killed her son.

Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp380-1 (William F. Skene, 1886)
Tighernac, in recording his death in 995, merely tells us that he was slain by his own subjects, to which the Ulster Annals add the significant expression ‘by treachery.’59 We have not now the assistance of the Pictish Chronicle, but the later chronicles tell us that he was slain in Fotherkern, now Fettercairn, in the Mearns, by the treachery of Finvela, daughter of Cunchar, earl of Angus, whose only son Kenneth had killed at Dunsinnan; and this is confirmed by St. Berchan, who places his death on the moorland plain at the foot of the Mounth or great chain of the so-called Grampians.
  He will bend his steps, no neighbourly act,
  To Magsliabh at the great Monadh.
  The Gael will shout around his head.
  His death was the end of it.
  59 A.D. 995 Cinaeth mac Malcolaim Ri Alban a suis occisus est. Tigh. (per dohim—An. Ult.)

Buried: Isle of Iona

Sources:

Malcolm I of Alba

Malcolm I, king of Alba
Malcolm, as depicted in an engraving by Miller, now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
image posted at wikitree (Mael Coluim (MacAlpin) King of Scots (954 - abt. 1034))
Malcolm I, king of Alba
Portrait of Malcolm I, king of Scotland. This was painted by Jacob de Wet II, a Dutch artist working in Scotland from 1673. It is inscribed MILCOLVMBVS.I. 943.
image posted at wikipedia
Father: Donald II

Children Occupation: King of Alba
Kenneth II reigned from the abdication of Constantine in 943 until his death in 945.

Notes:
Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p151 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
Malcom mac Donald ix. annis regnavit et interfectus est a Morauiensibus per dolum et sepultus est in Yona insula.
 This roughly translates as:
Malcolm son of Donald reigned for nine years and was killed by the Moravians through deceit and buried on the island of Iona.
 
John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp158-9 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
  IN A.D. 943—the sixth year of Otho—king Constantine, inspired by the grace of God’s mercy, and understanding clearly that all earthly things were subject unto vanity, vacated the throne, as was seen above, and made room for Malcolm, son of Donald, to reign; who accordingly reigned nine years. Furthermore, after the death of Athelstan, the inhabitants of all those lands which he had reduced to his sway by the battle of Brounyngfelde, were restored to their former lords, the Scots and Danes. The Northumbrians, indeed, determined to call back Analaf from Ireland, and set him up as king again. When, therefore, this came to Edmund’s ears, being afraid that, perchance, the people of Cumbria would cleave to the Scots, as the Northumbrians had cleaved to Analaf, he preferred winning a friend in exchange for that country, to a cruel enemy’s holding it, perhaps for ever, in spite of him. So, desirous of having king Malcolm’s help against the Danes, and of conciliating his spirit into close sympathy with his own, he made over to him, for his oath of fealty, the whole of Cumbria, in possession for ever. At this time, says William, the Northumbrians, meditating a renewal of hostilities, broke the treaty they had struck with Athelstan, recalled Analaf from Ireland, and appointed him king over them. Edmund, on the other hand, deeming it wrong not to follow up the results of his brother’s victory, led his troops against the turn-coat Northumbrians. Analaf, to test the king’s disposition, offered to surrender. But his savage mind did not long remain in this resolution: for he violated his oath, and angered the Lord—whereof he paid the penalty by being, the following year, driven into perpetual exile. The province which is called Cumberland, Edmund intrusted to Malcolm, king of the Scots, under fealty of an oath. Such are William's words. So, afterwards, it was straightway agreed between them, and resolved by the councils of both kings, that in future, for the sake of maintaining the peace of both countries. King Malcolm’s next heir, Indulf, and the heirs of the rest of the Scottish kings, for the time being, should do homage for Cumbria, and swear fealty to King Edmund and his successors on the English throne. Furthermore, neither of them was to harbour in his kingdom, in any way shelter, hold out help or favour to, or on any account admit to homage or fealty, that savage and faithless nation of the north. And each king bound himself to the other, by the bond of a sworn covenant, steadfastly to observe all these things for the future. In the fourth year of Malcolm, King Edmund was stabbed with a dagger, in the midst of his soldiers, by a certain robber, whom he had one day reproved in court, for his misdeeds; and, dying, was succeeded by his brother Edred.
  KING Malcolm had peace with Edred, Indulf having first done homage to the latter for Cumbria. Moreover on the Northumbrians conspiring against him, and setting themselves up a new king, Edred, in the fifth year of this reign, supported by succours from King Malcolm, laid them waste with cruel slaughter. This, however, afterwards turned to the great loss of Malcolm’s kingdom. For the Norwegians and Danes, who had formerly long been his friends and allies, were stirred up to molest him and his kingdom exceedingly; and for a long time afterwards kept assailing the harbours, and the country around, on the seaboard. Now he was wont every year, unless hindered by more important matters, to traverse the provinces of his kingdom, executing judgment on robbers, and repressing the lawlessness of freebooters; and, in proportion as in this he pleased the good and the sensible, did he displease the evildoers and the violators of the king’s peace. At length, through a conspiracy of certain persons, and, as recorded in the Annales Chronicœ, by the treachery of the Moravienses, he was killed at Ulrim, after having completed nine years and three months on the throne—and was buried with his fathers in the island of Iona.

Dictionary of national biography vol 35 pp398-9 (ed. Sidney Lee, 1893)
  MALCOLM I (MACDONALD) (d. 954), king of Scotland, son of Donald, succeeded to the crown in 943, when Constantine II [q. v.] became a monk at St. Andrews. He commenced his reign by an expedition beyond the Spey, by which he annexed Moray for the first time to the Scottish kingdom and slew Cellach, probably a district king. In 944 Edmund, the West-Saxon king, brother and successor of Athelstan, subdued Northumbria, expelling the Danish kings Anlaf or Olafe Sitricson, and Reginald Godfrey’s son, and in the following year ravaged Strathclyde, including the land still held by the Cymry, and called by the ‘Saxon Chronicle’ Cumberland. In 945 that chronicle records: ‘King Edmund harried over all Cumberland, and gave it all up to Malcolm, king of the Scots, on the condition that he should be his fellow-worker both by land and sea.’ Whether this word indicates a relation of vassalage or alliance is disputed (FREEMAN, Norman Conquest, i. 136; ROBERTSON, Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 72). Though renewed with Eadred, the successor of Edmund, the pacific relation lasted only five years. In the seventh year of Malcolm (949-50) when Olaf Sitricson made a last attempt to restore the Danish power in Northumbria, the Scots made a foray to the Tees, carrying away captive many men, as well as cattle. Tradition varied whether Malcolm in person led this raid, or whether the old Constantine, whose cowl had not extinguished the warlike spirit, asked back the command ‘for a week, that he might visit the Angles.’ Freeman’s suggestion that Malcolm was unwilling to break his treaty with the West-Saxon king is modern and improbable. The ‘Pictish Chronicle,’ abrupt and obscure as usual, seems to imply that Malcolm really commanded, but made the expedition at the instigation of Constantine, whose son-in-law Olaf was. But the united forces of the north were unable to stay the progress of the West-Saxons, and after a short term of supremacy of the Norsemen under Eric Bloody Axe, Eadred finally united Northumbria to his dominions in 954. In the same year Malcolm was slain. As he fell at a place called by the chronicle of St. Andrews, Fordoun, and by Wyntoun by the mysterious name of Ulrim, but by the Pictish Chronicle Fodresart, which Skene identifies with Fetteresso, in the parish of Fordoun, in the Mearns at the hands of the men of the Mearns (Kincardine), it would seem his own northern border was too disturbed to make him a useful vassal or ally of the West-Saxon kings, although it may have been worth their while to buy off a troublesome neighbour until they had settled accounts with the North Welsh or Cumbrians and the Danes of Ireland and Northumbria. Indulphus [q. v.], the son of Constantine II, succeeded Malcolm, on whose death, or retirement to a monastery, as Skene conjectures, Duff [q. v.], the son of Malcolm, came to the throne.
  [Saxon and Pictish Chronicles;  Skene’s Celtic Scotland; Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings.]      Æ. M. 

Other accounts of the life and reign of Malcolm I can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp229-30 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808), Scotland under her early kings vol 1 pp69-75 (E. William Robertson, 1862), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp360-5 (William F. Skene, 1886) and wikipedia (Malcolm_I_of_Scotland).

Death: 945, slain, probably at Fodresart, parish of Fordoun, Kincardineshire, Alba

Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp364-5 (William F. Skene, 1886)
  In the year 954 the Ulster Annals record that Maelcolam, son of Domnall, king of Alban, was slain. The Pictish Chronicle tells us that the men of Moerne slew him at Fodresach, now Fetteresso, in the parish of Fordun, Kincardineshire; but the later chronicles remove the scene of his death farther north, and state that he was slain at Ulurn by the Moravienses, or people of Moray. St. Berchan, however, places it with the Pictish Chronicle in the parish of Eordun, when he says—
    Nine years to his reign,
    Traversing the borders.
    On the brink of Dun Fother at last
    Will shout the Gael around his grave.

Buried: Isle of Iona

Sources:

Malcolm II of Scotland

Malcolm II, king of Scotland
Malcolm, as depicted in an engraving by Alexander Bannerman (1730-1780), now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
image posted at wikitree (Mael Coluim (MacAlpin) King of Scots (954 - abt. 1034))
Malcolm II, king of Scotland
Portrait of Malcolm II, king of Scotland. This was painted by Jacob de Wet II, a Dutch artist working in Scotland from 1673. It is inscribed MILCOLVMBVS.2 1004.
image posted at wikipedia
Father: Kenneth II of Alba

Children Occupation: King of Scotland
Malcolm II. became king of Scots in Alban after having defeated his kinsman Kenneth III., king of Alban, in battle at Monzievaird, near the banks of the Earn, about the 25th of March 1005.

Notes:
Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots p152 (ed. William F. Skene, 1867)
Malcolm mac Kynnat Eex victoriossissimns xxx. annis regnavit et mortuus est in Glammes et sepultus in Yona.
 This roughly translates as:
Malcolm son of Kenneth, victorious, reigned for thirty years and died in Glammes and was buried in Iona.
 
John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish nation pp167-177 (ed. William F. Skene, 1872)
  About the twentieth year of this Kenneth, after he had established the statutes respecting the succession, on the death of Malcolm, the son of Duff, Prince of Cumbria, he wished to make his own son, Malcolm, prince of that lordship; so he sent him to Ethelred, king of the English, who willingly admitted him, under the conditions above touched upon—of fealty and homage.
  THE next day after the king’s death, Constantine the Bald, son of Culen—of whom mention was made above—came with his supporters, and, despising the State ordinance, usurped the throne; and, backed up by a few of the nobles, he placed the crown of the kingdom on his own head, in A.D. 994
… In those days, likewise, and a little before, the English, in return for peace, gave the Danes tribute—first 10,000, next 16,000, soon after 24,000, and lastly, 30,000 pounds. So King Ethelred wrote, by messenger, to the aforesaid Malcolm, prince of Cumbria, commanding him to compel his Cumbrians to pay the tribute, as the rest of the inhabitants did. He straightway wrote back, disclaiming that his subjects owed any other tax than to be always ready, at the king’s edict, to fight with the rest, whensoever he pleased. For it was more seemly—he said—and far better, to defend one’s liberty with the sword, like a man, than with gold. The king, therefore, carried off a great deal of plunder from Cumbria because of this, and, inasmuch as the prince, in spite of the oath of allegiance he owed to him, sided with the Danes—for so the king asserted in his wrath. Afterwards, however, they soon came to a good understanding in all respects, and were at one, for the future, in steadfast peace.
… But while the quarrel lasted between Malcolm, son of Kenneth—above referred to—and King Gryme, who could fully unfold the losses of the inhabitants of the kingdom, continued through eight years? The people, however, showed more favour to the cause of Malcolm than to that of the king; for, in all knightly deeds, both mimic and in earnest, the former was second renown to hardly any one in the kingdom. Historical annals inform us that he was skilled in brandishing the sword and hurling the spear, and could bear hunger, thirst, cold, and watching, wonderfully long. Roaming, therefore, very often through various districts of the kingdom, and carefully guarding himself against being waylaid by Gryme, he cemented to himself the hearts of many of the aristocracy, and secretly bound them by an oath of fealty to him. Moreover, the common people, who knew him to be endowed with many good qualities, and distinguished for his stalwart and shapely figure, began, with one accord, to extol his name and fame with praises, and declared, even openly, that he was more worthy of the kingship than the rest of men, seeing that he was the strongest. Thus, strengthened by the favour of the people, and at the instigation of some of the chiefs, he forthwith sent to the king, by messenger, bidding him choose one of two things—either that he should vacate the throne, and lay down the crown, which he had, until then, like his predecessor, held unjustly, or that they two should, either accompanied by their warrior hosts, or man to man, if he liked, fight in the open field, and submit it to the just verdict of God, which of them ought, in all lawfulness, to be subject unto the other. Gryme was very indignant at this; for he thought that Malcolm could not withstand him. So, with such of his men as he could trust, he at once set out to give him battle; while Malcolm, on the other hand, with a similar object in view, boldly advanced to meet him, with a small but picked band, and reached a field named Auchnebard—a meet place for a battle. There the two armies engaged one another, and fought a cruel battle, considering their numbers. At length the king was mortally wounded, while fighting bravely, and was straightway led out of the battle by his men; and he died the same night. But when the rest of his party saw this, they all fled; and thus Malcolm was so fortunate as to gain the victory and the kingdom. The day after, however, when he got sure information of the king’s death, he bade his own servants take the body away, without fear, and bury, it in the sepulchre of the kings in the island of Iona.
  NOW after Malcolm had gained the victory, as already described, he did not at once take upon himself the name of king; but, having summoned together the chiefs of the kingdom, he humbly requested them to give him the crown, if the laws allowed it—not otherwise. They, for their part, fully ratified the law of the royal succession which had been made in his father’s days; and at once appointed him king, crowned with the diadem of the kingdom. He began to reign in A.D. 1004—the second year of the oft-mentioned emperor Henry; and he reigned in happiness thirty years, a brave warrior, and the conqueror of every neighbouring nation which ventured to put his daring to the test. We read that he had no offspring but an only daughter, named Beatrice, who married Crynyne, Abthane of Dul, and Steward of the Isles … this Malcolm, by God’s favour, triumphed everywhere with such glorious victories over his vanquished foes, that, in all the writings wherein he is mentioned, he is always called by the title of “the most victorious king.” On three occasions did he, by a lucky chance, outwit and defeat the Danish pirates, who often sallied forth on shore from their ships, and ravaged the parts of the kingdom bordering on the sea; and once these were routed by the natives, though he was not there. Othred, likewise an English earl, but subject to the Danes, endeavoured to plunder Cumbria—though I know not what was the cause of the hostilities which broke out between them. But Malcolm recovered the plunder, and overcame him in a hard-fought battle near Burgum (Burgie). About the first few days after his coronation, a Norwegian army arrived, with a large fleet, in the north, and made a long stay there, stripping the country. But it was destroyed by him in a night attack; so that few save the sailors escaped that disastrous battle, to bring the tidings to the rest at home. He only lost thirty of his men. Thus the land was freed from their inroads for a long while after this battle.
…  In the seventh year of his reign, Malcolm, thinking over the manifold blessings continually bestowed upon him by God, pondered anxiously in his mind what he should give Him in return. At length, the grace of the Holy Ghost working within him, he set his heart upon increasing the worship of God; so he established a new episcopal see at Marthillach (Mortlach), not far from the spot where he had overcome the Norwegians, and gained the victory; and endowed it with churches, and the rents of many estates. He desired to extend the territory of this diocese, so as to make it reach from the stream or river called the Dee to the river Spey. To this see, a holy man, and one worthy the office of bishop, named Beyn, was, at the instance of the king, appointed, as first bishop, by our lord the pope Benedict.
…  So it came to pass, afterwards, that when he set out one day, with his usual train of knights, on the road he had to take—I know not whither, nor to transact what business—those disloyal ruffians, who had made diligent inquiries about it, got information thereof; and having, near Glammys, in the darkness of midnight, barred with robbers from among their satellites, the path along which he was to go, they suddenly poured out of their ambush and surrounded him, far as he was from suspecting any such violence. But he, indeed, undismayed, boldly rushed upon them with his followers, and soon overcame their forces, which were three times as numerous as his own; and he slew the ringleaders of the traitors. But it was a mournful victory: for, woe worth the day! the king was wounded in the fight; and after surviving three days, he was, at length, to the grief of all of Scottish birth, released by death of a haemorrhage, at the age of eighty or more. And thus God gave him freely, even at his death, such meed of success in victory, as He had often bestowed upon him during his life.

Scottish kings; a revised chronology of Scottish history, 1005-1625 pp1-7 (Archibald Hamilton Dunbar, 1899)   MALCOLM THE SECOND
      KING OF SCOTS
      1005—1034
Reign began about the 25th March 1005,
    „     ended 25th November 1034,
    „     lasted 29 years and about 8 months.
Malcolm the Second. ‘King of Scots,’ ‘Malcolm Mac Cinaeth, king of Alban,’ ‘Head of the nobility of the whole of Western Europe,’ ‘King of Monaidh,’ ‘ King of Scotia,’ ‘The most victorious king,’ ‘A warrior fortunate, praised of bards.’
Son of Kenneth II. and grandson of Malcolm I., kings of Alban.
Born in or before the year 954.
    REIGN BEGAN 25TH NOVEMBER 1034.
King of Scots. Malcolm II. became king of Scots in Alban after having defeated his kinsman Kenneth III., king of Alban, in battle at Monzievaird, near the banks of the Earn, about the 25th of March 1005.
Aged about 50 when he became king of Alban in 1005.
  The 1st Siege of Durham. The men of ‘Saxonia,’ under Earl Uchtred, defeated the Scots under King Malcolm II. and made great slaughter of their nobles, after the Scots had devastated Northuinbria, and had unsuccessfully besieged the city of Durham in the year 1006.
  The Monastery of Marthillach (Mortlach) in Banffshire was founded by King Malcolm II. as a thank-offering for his victory over the Danes in the year 1010.
  The Abbey of Deer. King Malcolm II., ‘son of Cinatha,’ gave the king’s share in certain lands to the Columbite abbey of Deer in Aberdeenshire, probably when on his way southwards after having defeated the Danes at Mortlach in the year 1010.
  The Battle of Clontarf. The Irish, under Brian Boroimha, with the help of the men of Alban, entirely defeated the Northmen at Clontarf, near Dublin, on Good Friday, the 23rd of April 1014.
  Caithness and Sutherland were given by King Malcolm II. to his grandson Thorfinn with the title of earl, after Sigurd Hlodverson, earl of Orkney, Thorfinn’s father, had been slain in the battle of Clontarf, on the 23rd of April 1014.
  The Battle of Carham. The Scots, under King Malcolm II., totally defeated the Northumbrians, under Edulf Cudel, earl of Northumberland, at Carham on the Tweed, in the year 1018.
  Lothian was annexed to the kingdom of the Scots by King Malcolm II., having been ceded to him by Edulf Cudel, earl of Northumberland, and King Malcolm II. ‘distributed many oblations’ to the churches as well as to the clergy after the battle of Carham, in 1018.
  Moray. Finnlaec, son of Ruaidhri, mormaer of Moray, was slain by his nephews, the sons of his brother Maelbrighde, in 1020.
  Orkney, tributary to Norway. Brusi and Thorfinn, sons of Sigurd, earl of Orkney, submitted to Olaf (the Saint), king of Norway, in 1021-2.
  Bishops of the Scots. Malmore, Malise, and Alwyn seem to have been successively sole bishop of the Scots in the reign of King Malcolm II. Alwyn was elected bishop in 1025.
  Dunkeld in Alban was entirely burned in 1027.
  Bishop of St. Andrews. Maelduin, son of Gillaodran, was bishop of St. Andrews after the death of Alwyn, in the year 1028.
  Canute, king of England, invaded Scotia, and King Malcolm II., with the two chiefs, Maelbeathe and Jehmarc, submitted to him in 1031.
Moray. Gillacomgan, son of Maelbrighde, mormaer of Moray, and fifty of his men were burned to death in 1032.
Died. King Malcolm the Second died at Glammys, 25th November 1034.
Aged 80 or more.
Buried in Iona.
His Reign lasted 29 years and about 8 months.
    REIGN ENDED 25TH NOVEMBER 1034.
        ISSUE
King Malcolm the Second had three daughters,
  Bethoc, Donada (?), and another:
  (I.) Bethoc, heir of her father King Malcolm II., was married about the year 1000 to Crinan the Thane, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and seneschal of the Isles, who held with other lands the territory called ‘Abthania de Dull,’ in Athol. Crinan was slain in battle at Dunkeld ‘with 9 times 20 heroes’ in 1045.
  Issue, two sons, Duncan and Maldred, and a daughter:
    (1) Duncan, king of the Cumbrians, and after his grandfather’s death king of Scots as Duncan I. from the 25th November 1034 to the 14th August 1040.
    (2) Maldred seems to have succeeded to Cumbria, when his brother Duncan became king of Scots on the death of their maternal grandfather, King Malcolm II., in 1034. He married Ealdgyth, daughter of Uchtred, earl of Northumberland, by his wife Ælgifu, daughter of Æthelred II., king of England. Issue, a son:
      Gospatric, earl of Northumberland, purchased that earldom from William the Conqueror at Christmas in 1067, and was ‘deprived’ in 1072. He had a grant of ‘Dunbar with the adjacent lands in Lothian’ from his kinsman King Malcolm. III. (Ceannmor) in 1072. Earl Gospatric became a monk. His tombstone is now in the crypt of the cathedral at Durham. Issue, three sons, Dolfin, Gospatric, and Waltheof, with Æthelreda, and several other daughters:
        (a) Dolfin, ruler in Cumbria, expelled from Carlisle by William II. (Rufus), king of England, in 1092.
        (b) Gospatric of Dunbar succeeded his father as second earl. He styles himself ‘Gospatric the earl, brother of Dolfin’ in his charter and on his seal. He was the ‘summus dux Lodonie’ who was slain by an arrow in the eye, at the battle of the Standard, 22nd August 1138.
        (c) Waltheof, lord of Allerdale, abbot of Croyland from 1125 until deposed by the legate Alberic, in 1138.
        (d) Æthelreda, married to Duncan II., king of Scots. King Duncan II. was treacherously slain by the mormaer of the Mearns, 12th November 1094.
    (3) —— , daughter of Bethoc, and sister of King Duncan I.
    Issue, a son:
      Moddan, titular earl of Caithness, slain at Thurso in 1040.
  (II.) Donada (?), a younger daughter of King Malcolm II., supposed to have been married about 1004 to Finnlaec, mormaer of Moray, and to have had a son:
     Macbeth, king of Scots, from the 14th August 1040 to the 15th August 1057.
   (III.) , a younger daughter of King Malcolm II., married about 1007, as his second wife, to Sigurd Hlodverson, earl of Orkney, who had ransomed his life from Olaf Trygveson, king of Norway, by accepting Christianity for himself and his followers about the year 995. Issue, a son:
     Thorfinn, earl of Orkney, born in 1008, had Caithness and Sutherland with the title of earl, from his grandfather, King Malcolm II., in 1014. Married Ingibjorg, daughter of Earl Finn Arnason, and died about 1057. Issue, two sons, Paul and Erlend, joint earls of Orkney:
        (A) Paul, earl of Orkney, married a daughter of Haakon Ivarsson; died 1098, and had, with other issue, a son:
          Haakon, earl of Orkney.
        (B) Erlend, earl of Orkney, married Thora, daughter of Sumarlidi Ospakson; died 1098, and had, with other issue, a son:
           Magnus, earl of Orkney, murdered by his cousin Haakon, 16th April 1115. This is the St. Magnus to whom the cathedral of St. Magnus, at Kirkwall in Orkney, is dedicated.

Dictionary of national biography vol 35 pp399-400 (ed. Sidney Lee, 1893)
  MALCOLM II (MACKENNETH) (d. 1034), king of Scotland, son of Kenneth II [q. v.], succeeded in 1005 to the throne by defeating and killing Kenneth III [q. v.], son of Duff, at Monzievaird, Perthshire. He commenced his reign by a raid on Northumbria and the siege of Durham, before whose gates he was repulsed with great slaughter by Uchtred, son of the Ealdorman Waltheof, in 1006. Uchtred was rewarded for this victory by receiving a grant of the two Northumberland earldoms, Bernicia and Deira, from Ethelred, king of Wessex, who gave him as his third wife his daughter Ælgifu (FREEMAN, Norman Conquest, i. 358). The whole south-eastern border of Scotland being thus united under this powerful earl, Malcolm turned his attention to the north of Scotland. He allied himself to Sigurd, jarl of Orkney, in 1008, by giving him his daughter in marriage, and the son of this marriage, Thorfinn, a boy of five, on the death of his father at Clontarf, 1014, was made Earl of Caithness and Sutherland, while his elder brother succeeded to the Orkney, Shetland, and other islands held by the Norse jarls. In 1018 Eadulf Cudel, the brother of Uchtred (slain by Canute), who retained the district north of the Tees, in spite of Canute’s grant of the Northumbrian earldom to Eric, another Dane, was defeated at Carham on the Tweed, two miles above Coldstream, by the united forces of Malcolm and Eugenius, or Owen the Bald, king of the Strathclyde Britons. The great victory, which had been presaged by a comet, led to the cession of Lothian to the Scottish kingdom (SIMEON OF DURHAM, ‘Tract on the Northumbrian Earls,’ Decem Scriptores, x. 81) although John of Wallingford (p. 544) and Roger of Wendover (i. 416) assert there was an earlier grant by Eadgar, king of Wessex, to Kenneth circa 968, a view which Freeman, in his ‘Norman Conquest,’ adopts in a modified form, while admitting the effect of the victory of Carham, and acknowledging that Simeon of Durham is the best English authority on the point. His argument on ‘The Cession of Lothian’ (Norman Conquest, i. 610), against Mr. E. W. Robertson (Scotland under her Early Kings, ii. 386) is partial, and although he stated that the subject was suited ‘for a monograph, and if I do not find any opportunity for a single combat with Mr. Robertson,’ he never found the opportunity; and ‘his hope that some other champion of the rights of Edward and Athelstane may be forthcoming’ has not been realised for more recent English writers have not supported his views (see GREEN’S History, i. 102; art. EDGAR).
  The cession of Lothian, whatever its date, was made on the condition that the men of Lothian should retain their customs and laws, with the important result that the Scottish south-eastern lowlands became the centre from which Anglo-Saxon and Norman civilisation gradually permeated Scotland. About the same time, on the death of Owen, the king of Strathclyde, that district which consisted of Cumbria north of the Solway became an appanage of the Scottish kingdom under Duncan [q. v.], grandson of Malcolm, by the marriage of one of his daughters with Crinan, the lay abbot of Dunkeld, while modern Cumberland, south of the Solway, fell into the hands of the English kings. The southern boundary of future Scotland was for the first time indicated by these two acquisitions, and in spite of attempts to restrict or extend it, the Tweed and the Solway were marked out as the limits between the kingdoms.
  The reign of Malcolm is a blank for the next twelve years, but in 1031 Canute, who had conquered England, after a visit to Rome made a raid on Scotland, and, according to the ‘Saxon Chronicle,’ Malcolm ‘bowed to his power, and became his man, retaining his allegiance for a very short time.’ One of the poems of Sighvat, the Norse contemporary poet, perhaps refers to the same victory in the lines:
The foremost princes, north of Fife, have bowed
Their heads to Cnut, to buy peace from him.
      Corpus Poet. Boreale, i. 133.
Macbeth and Jehmarc, two sub-kings who submitted to Canute at the same time, are conjectured by Skene to have been Macbeth, son of Finlay, mormær of Moray, afterwards king of Scotland, and another mormær of uncertain name and district, perhaps of Argyll. On 25 Nov. 1034 Malcolm died, for the statement of Fordoun and Wyntoun that he was killed at Glamis is not supported by the earlier authorities. He is called by Marianus Scotus, the monk of Cologne, who was born during his reign, ‘Rex Scotiæ,’ the first instance of the territorial title of king of Scotland, and by Tighernac, the Irish annalist, ‘king of Alban, and head of the nobility of the west of Europe.’ A later chronicle (1165) mentions his benefactions to the church; but the foundation of the see of Mortlach, afterwards transferred to Aberdeen, ascribed to him by Fordoun, scarcely be historical, and probably belongs to the reign of Malcolm III. The laws attributed to him, by which all Scotland was transformed into a feudal monarchy at a council held at Scone, are apocryphal, for feudalism proper did not penetrate Scotland till the time of Malcolm Canmore and his sons. The year before his own death he had slain a possible competitor for the crown, who is described by by the ‘Ulster Annals’ as ‘the son of Boete, the son of Kenneth, possibly his cousin or nephew’ (SKENE, p. 399), and he was succeeded by his grandson, Duncan I [q. v.], son of his daughter Bethoc by Crinan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and father of Malcolm III [q. v.] With Malcolm ended the male line of Kenneth Macalpine.
  [Chron. of Picts and Scots, Anglo-Saxon Chron., Annals of Tighernac, Heimskringla, vii., chap. ii., Simeon of Durham, John of Wallingford’s Chronicles, and Marianus Scotus are the authorities on which Skene, Celtic Scotland, and Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, have constructed the history of this reign. Freeman’s Norman Conquest. vol. i.; Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings; Skene’s Celtic Scotland, vol. i.]      Æ. M.

Other accounts of the life and reign of Malcolm II can be found in Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland vol 5 pp255-64 (ed. Raphaell Hollindshead, 1808), Scotland under her early kings vol 1 pp92-109 (E. William Robertson, 1862), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Alban vol 1 pp384-99 (William F. Skene, 1886) and wikipedia (Malcolm_II_of_Scotland).

Death: 25 November 1034, at Glamis Castle, Glamis, Angus, Scotland, by assassination

Buried: Isle of Iona

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