A History of the County of Renfrew from the Earliest Times (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: four months, took Dumbarton. In 872 Artga, the King of Strathclyde, was slain, as the chronicle puts it, by the counsel of Constantine II. The last native prince of Strathclyde was Eocha, son of Run, by the daughter of Kenneth Mac Alpin. During his reign the kingdom was again overrun by the Northmen. He died somewhere between the years 900 and 918, and was succeeded by Donald, brother to Constantine III., King of Scots.1 But a Scots dynasty upon the throne of Strathclyde did not mean the union of the kingdom to the Scottish Crown. The Britons fought along with the Scots and Danes against Athelstane at the famous battle of Brunanburh in 934. Later on their territory was overrun by the Danes. Edmund Ironsides drove them out in 945, and then handed the Cumbrian Kingdom over to Malcolm I. of Scotland on condition that he should be his " fellow worker." But in 971 the Britons once more asserted their independence, and at a battle fought in that year defeated and slew Cuilean the Scots King and his brother, thus proving " that in spite of their misfortunes they were still formidable rivals to the Scots." In 1018 the two kingdoms were again in league, and at the battle of Carham on the Tweed, Owen, the King of Strathclyde, contributed largely to Malcolm's signal victory over the Northumbrians. Owen was the last independent King of Strathclyde. On his death Malcolm appointed his own grandson Duncan to succeed him, and Strathclyde was thenceforth an appanage of the Scottish Crown. It continued to be ruled by princes until 1224, when, on the accession of David, Prince of Cumbria, to the Scottish throne, it was finally united to the Scottish Crown, and Renfrewshire became an integral part of the kingdom of Scotland. 1 According to a Welsh chronicle of somewhat doubtful authority, in " ...