Kenneth I MacAlpin

Kenneth I MacAlpin (d. 858), king of Dal Riata (c840/1–58) and ‘king of the Picts’ (842/3–58). Kenneth is anachronistically regarded as first king of Scotland because he is deemed to have unified the Picts (north of the Firth of Forth) with the Gaels (in Latin, Scoti) of Dalriada (Argyll). ‘Scotland’ (Alba in Gaelic) did not emerge until 900, however, and is likely to have begun as a much smaller area than the united territories of the Picts and Dalriada.

Kenneth's ancestors were probably kings of Dalriada and his father Alpin may have been king before him. Both Dalriada and the Picts were suffering from the first large‐scale Scandinavian incursions which, in 839, wiped out the Gaelic dynasty which had ruled the key Pictish region of Fortriu since 789. By 849, Kenneth had secured his grasp on the kingship. Whatever his attitude to the Picts may have been, he clearly looked to Gaeldom for support, and in 849 erected a church in Dunkeld which housed relics of St Columba, implying that Kenneth sought to cultivate the enormous influence of the Columban network of monasteries.

Kenneth raided Northumbria repeatedly, but his kingdom suffered assaults from the Britons of Strathclyde as well as Scandinavians. He died of a tumour on 13 February 858, at Forteviot (5 miles south‐west of Perth).