of it, and forced the Britons, some of them to retire to corners of the island, others to abandon it. We have thus seen that the names Scots and Picts were co-eval, the Picts being another name for the native Caledonians. The Scots, as we shall further see, were a colony which arrived from Ireland, under their leader Cairbre Riada in the year 258. Very probably they were induced by the Picts to come over as allies to cope with them against their powerful neighbours the Romans and South Britons.

During their contendings with these enemies, they seem to have lived in mutual alliance, and held their conquests in common in the debatable ground. The northern part of the island was the indisputable home of the Picts. Although the Scots came only as helpers, and in a manner were unsettled and without any form of government, it appears they had lands assigned them by their allies, to wit, Argyle beyond Lochfyne, on which their leader Riada conferred his name, and the other branch-the Attacots-occupied east of Lochfyne to the river Leven. It seems that all the while the Picts were retaining their help for a selfish end, for when they finally got clear of the Romans in 426, they alone took possession of the territories vacated to their extremities, which composed the province of Valentia, and this will prepare us for their ungrateful conduct in expelling the Scots shortly thereafter to Ireland, who had faithfully co-operated with them for one hundred and fifty years.

Before passing to the next topic I may observe that the Picts, when left to their own resources, did not long retain their conquest of Valentia. They seem to have been driven to the district of Galloway, where they settled till the middle ages, and were known there as the Southern Picts. The Britons of the South extended beyond them on the west to the Clyde, and the Angles of Bernicia on the east to the Forth; and both

retained these possessions till driven back to the Solway and the Tweed by Kenneth M'Alpin, after the union of the Scots and Picts in 843.

THE FIRST SCOTS COLONY-THE DALREUDINI.

The Venerable Bede says: "In process of time, Britain, besides the Britons and the Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating from Ireland under their leader Reuda, either by fair means or by force of arms secured to themselves those settlements among the Picts which they still possess. From the name of their commander they are to this day called Dalrudins; for in their language Dal signifies a part." (Bk. I., ch. i.)

The Reuda of Bede is the Reada of King Alfred's translations, and the Riado of the ancient Irish writers. (Enq., Vol. II., p. 61.) There are several fanciful derivations of Dr. Smith, in the old ecclesiastical statistics, calls him Cairbre Ruadh, or Cairbre of the red hair, who conferred his name on Dalruadhan, near Campbeltown.

the name Riada.

Dr. Skene surnames him Righfhada, or Cairbre of the long arm. (Celtic Scot, Vol. I., p. 140.)

The translator of Bede calls him Ri-eta-the King of Eta, which no doubt has reference to Ossian's Poems. (Bk. I., Ch. i., Note.)

O'Conor, in his remarks on O'Flaherty's Ogygia, Dublin, 1775, and also in his Dissertations on the History of Scotland, Dublin, 1776, tells us who Riada was, and the time and occasion of his invasion of Albin. He says Carbre Riada was a prince of the Degads in Munster, being son of Conary II., and cousin of Cormac O'Cuin, the most celebrated of the Irish monarchs. When Conary II. was murdered, in 220, his three sons were minors. Carbre Riada, the youngest of them, distinguished himself early in having quelled a disturbance

between two factions in the north-east part of County Antrim, when he seized their possessions and called them Dalriada, or the portion of Riada. He again shewed great bravery at the battle of Kinfebrat in A.D. 237, and on Cormac O'Cuin's succession to the Irish throne in 254, Carbre Riada was sent against the Cruthnii, or Picts, who were in possession of the north-west of Ulster, and had rebelled. He did not confine his conquest to Ulster, but in 258 carried the war to Albany, or Argyle, and the Scots that he led settled there. After his descendants had been in Albany for six generations (according to O'Conor, which Pinkerton says is surely the truth, Vol. II., p. 68) the Picts forced the whole colony in Britain to take flight into Ireland under their leader Eochad Munrevar, when they settled in the Irish Dalriada. But neither he nor his son Erc could obtain a re-establishment in North Britain. Nor was it effected till the beginning of the sixth century, when the sons of Erc again led the Scots there. It appears from this that the retreat of the first colony happened two generations before 503, or about 440 A.D., also that the Irish and British Dalriada was governed by the same family, and that the sons of Erc in the eight generations from Carbre Riada re-established this colony in Argyle. (Enq., Vol. II., pp. 63-4.)

During the sojourn of the first colony of Irish Scots in North Britain, there was a tribe or nation occupying the north side of the Clyde, extending from Lochfyne on the west to the river of Leven on the east. This region comprehended the whole of Cowal and the greater part of Dumbartonshire.

This people was called the

ATTACOTTI.

Pinkerton says most writers on British antiquities have been puzzled to divine who the Attacotti were, and none has hitherto settled this point. I am fully convinced that Attacotti was

D

neither more nor less than the name given by the northern Cumraig or Welsh to the Dalreudini. The name in that language means simply, Hither-Scots, or Scots remaining in Britain. The "s" is quite a servile letter, and not required. To Ptolemy's map of North Britain, published in the second century, Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century, has added the Attacotti and the Damnii Albani, nations unknown to Ptolemy, and Richard is certainly right in their positions. He places the Attacotti on the north of the Firth of Clyde, and the Damnii Albani just above them. Now, Bede places the Dalreudini, on their first arrival, exactly in that very region. (Enq., Vol. II., pp. 72-3-4.) Bede's words are: "There is a very large gulf of the sea (the Clyde) which formerly divided the nation of the Picts from the Britons (Welsh), which gulf runs from the west very far into the land, where to this day stands the strong city of the Britons, called Alcluith (now Dumbarton Castle). The Scots arriving on the north side of this bay settled themselves there." (Ecc. Hist. Bk. I., Ch. 1.)

Roman writers, who evidently borrowed the names of both Scots and Attacotti from the Britons or Welsh who lived contiguous to them, kept up this distinction while they occupied Britain; but when they had abandoned it for ever, the name Attacotti also disappears, and the Scots afterwards are known either by their own name, or by that of the Dalriads. Riada, the leader of the first colony of the Scots in 258, was considered the founder of this race in Argyle. The second colony arrived there about the beginning of the sixth century, led by Loarn Fergus and Angus, the sons of Erc; but although they and their descendants often distinguished themselves as potent kings, yet they never supplanted the patronymic of Riada.

In the annals of Ulster for three hundred and sixty years (626-988), we find the Scots of Argyle known by his name.

We have recently seen that about the year 440, the first

colony of the Scots, under Eochad Munrevar, had been expelled by the Picts to Ireland. There are no reasons given, but it is probable that the Picts, now being freed from the Romans, and having driven the Britons to extremities, became ungrateful enough to get quit of their faithful allies, who had been co-eval with them, under their new name Picts, and had shared their troubles and trials for upwards of one hundred and fifty years.

The first colony of Scots-being merely under a leaderhad hitherto no bond of union except to be led against the common enemies of Caledonia.

When peace was restored it is probable that they became disorganised, and some of them would be induced to enlist under the Roman banners. We find this was the case with the Attacotti.

In the Notitia Imperii, a work of the fifth century, numerous bodies of them appear in the Roman army. One body was in Illyricum-their ensign was a kind of mullet; another at Rome -their badge a circle; and the Attacotti Honoriane were in Italy. (Enq., Vol. II., p. 72.) This is the last we hear of this division of the Scots colony.

The principal part of the other division was located at modern Campeltown, and the place still retains their nameDalruan.