SCOTTISH RULERS

One of the greatest of early Scottish kings, his long reign (900-943) being proof of his power during a period of dynastic conflicts and foreign invasions. During the first part of his reign the kingdom was still beset by the Norsemen. In his third year they wasted Dunkeld and all of Alba. They were repulsed, however, in Strathearn the following year. In his eighth year Rognwald, the Danish king of Dublin, with earls Ottir and Oswle Crakaban, ravaged Dunblane. Six years later the same leaders were defeated on the Tyne by Constantine in a battle whose site and incidents are told in conflicting stories; it appears certain, however, that Constantine saved his dominions from further serious attacks by the Vikings.  

In spite of his wars, Constantine found time in the early part of his reign for two important reforms, one ecclesiastical and the other civil. In his sixth year (906) he established the Scottish church, which the Pictish kings had earlier suppressed. Two years later, on the death of Donald, king of the Britons of Strathclyde, Constantine procured the election of his own brother Donald to that kingdom.  

He had now to meet a more formidable foe, the West Saxons, whose kings were steadily moving northward. In league with other northern kings, Constantine was decisively defeated at the Battle of Brunanburh (937) by King Athelstan. The slaughter was devastating. A son of Constantine was slain, as were four kings and seven earls. Constantine himself escaped to Scotland, where in old age he resigned the crown for the tonsure and became abbot of the Culdees of St. Andrews. He was succeeded by a cousin, Malcolm I. 

King of the Picts and Scots (Alba), also called MALCOLM MACDONALD. Malcolm succeeded to the crown when his cousin Constantine II entered a monastery (943). He annexed Moray to the kingdom for the first time. After driving the Danes from York, the English king Edmund turned Cumbria over to Malcolm, apparently as a fief or seal of alliance. Later, when Norsemen again invaded the land, the Scots sent raids against the English, and in 954 the West Saxon king Eadred reunited the northern counties to his dominions. Malcolm was slain the same year at Fordoun in the Mearns in a breif conflict with his own northern regions. 
 
 
 

Constantine II's son Indulf was now at the throne of Alba. 

The usual pattern of English - Dane - Scott rivalry continued, and Indulf's main claim to fame is the capture of the fortress at Edinburgh - Dun Eden, defeating Edwin the Anglian. That is about all that is known of Indulf, bar the fact that by 962 he wasn't the King anymore. Whether he was killed in battle, or whether he became a monk just like dad, know one knows. 
 
 
 
 

King Dubh, son of Malcolm, is somewhat a mystery. 

All that is know is that Indulf's son Culen twice fought for the right to be the king, the first time without success in the town of Atholl, and the second time with success in the town of Forres. So in 967 at Forres in Moray Dubh was killed and Culen took over. 

Culen had claimed the throne in 966. During his reign he struck hard at the English in an attempt to recapture and claim Strathclyde as Scottish territory yet again. 

He killed king Rhiderch's brother and his daughter, thereby claiming the land as his. But in Lothian the revenging king cut down Culen once and for all. This now paved the way for Dubh's brother Kenneth to make claim to the throne. 

Kenneth began his reign by ravaging the Britons, probably as an act of vengeance, but his name is also included among a group of northern and western kings said to have made submission to the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar in 973, perhaps at Chester; and the chronicler Roger of Wendover (Flores Historiarum, under the year 975) states that shortly afterward Kenneth received from Edgar all the land called Lothian (i.e., between the Tweed and the Forth rivers). This is the first mention of the River Tweed as the recognized border between England and Scotland. Kenneth was slain, apparently by his own subjects, at Fettercairn in the Mearns.