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The history of Scotland from the earliest period to the present time
The history of Scotland from the earliest period to the present time Author:George Buchanan 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: BUCHANAN'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. Book VI. BOOK VI. Introductory.' Union of the Scottish and Pictish Kingdoms under Kenneth II.—Third Series of Kings—... more »Conflicts with the English and Danes, till the expulsion of the latter from Scotland by Malcolm II—Including the period from A. D. 838 to A. D. 10S1. i. As Fergus I. and Fergus II. have been styled with the greatest propriety, two original founders of the Scottish monarchy, Kenneth, the son of Alpin, may without injustice be added as a third to that number. The first Fergus, from petty principalities, raised the Scots to an enviable rank among their neighbours; the second brought them back when wanderers, dispersed among distant nations, and, in the opinion of their enemies nearly extinct, recalled them as it were to life; and in a few years restored them to their pristine This Book, which contains the History of Scotland from the conquest of the Picts to Malcolm, comprehends the greater part of the ninth century, the darkest period in the history of modern Europe, and of course, it partakes of the general obscurity. There are scarcely two writers who unite as to facts and dates in this century, and amid the discordant Scottish and Irish records which still remain, it is difficult to find, in some instances, even a semblance of agreement. We must not, therefore, instantly condemn as fabulous, what we cannot establish by collateral proof. The English chronicles are scarcely less discordant than our own; the Saxon chronicles, as Cambden ingeniously owns, never acknowledge that the English were ever defeated, and, in whatever regards Scotland, their eager desire to establish the feudal superiority of England, renders it necessary to read even their best writers with a jealous eye. It must, however, be granted, that the...« less