HistoryThe region comprising present-day Scotland was known after the Roman invasion of Britain as Caledonia. With the sole exception of the Picts, the ancient Caledonians do not figure in historical records. The Picts are first mentioned by Roman writers in the late 3rd century AD as raiders who harassed the Roman province of Britain from the north. Hadrian's Wall was built to protect the Roman colonies from their attacks. The Picts figured in connection with the campaigns of Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus in Britain in AD 296 and 306. In Scotland the northern Picts were converted to Christianity probably in the 4th century, and the southern Picts were converted probably in the 5th century. At first the Saxons kept clear of the Picts, but as the former pushed farther northward, they too encountered these northern people and were defeated by them in 685. For a long time thereafter border warfare was carried on. The Picts, who by this time were united under a king, also fought continuously in Scotland with the Scots who had settled there in the 4th century. In 850 the Picts were defeated by Kenneth I, king of Scotland. Kenneth united the domains of the two rival tribes and thus founded the kingdom of Scotland. Roman CaledoniaThe Picts, a fierce and warlike people, successfully resisted conquest by the Romans, whose great general, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, led the first invasion of Caledonia late in the 1st century AD. Agricola and his legions pushed northward to the Firth of Forth. The border Picts, probably joined by rebellious Britons, strenuously contested Roman sovereignty in the region between the firths of Forth and Clyde. In AD 122, to ward off the Pictish threat to the imperial positions in northern Britain, the Roman emperor Hadrian ordered construction of a rampart from Solway Firth to the mouth of the Tyne River. Remnants of this rampart, known in history as Hadrian’s Wall, are still extant. Two decades later another rampart, called the Antonine Wall, was constructed from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde. The territory between the two walls served as a defence area against the Caledonians during Roman occupation. Early Scottish KingdomsAfter the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 409, the Picts systematically raided the territories of their southern neighbours. The latter, however, soon put an end to these raids, probably with the assistance of the Saxons, one of the Germanic tribes that subsequently subjugated the Britons. In the course of the Germanic conquest many Britons withdrew into the Caledonian region between the Firth of Clyde and Solway Firth, and there laid the foundations of what became the kingdom of Strathclyde. The adjacent region to the north was occupied toward the beginning of the 6th century by the Scots, Celtic invaders from northern Ireland, who established the kingdom that became known in history as Dalriada. About the middle of the 6th century the Angles, a people who were related to the Saxons, overran most of Caledonia south of the Firth of Forth and east of Strathclyde. Together with the extensive Angle holdings in the north of what is now England, this region became the kingdom of Northumbria. During the period of Angle penetration in Caledonia, Christianity was widely disseminated among the Picts by Saint Columba, an Irish missionary who came to Dalriada from northern Ireland in 563. Strathclyde and various parts of Pictland had been converted to Christianity before the time of Columba. Between 655 and 664, Scottish missionaries were active in Northumbria, which was then the centre of a pagan revival. The Unification of ScotlandIn 685 Pictish territory north of the Firth of Forth was invaded by a large Northumbrian army. An overwhelming Pictish victory permanently weakened Northumbrian power in Caledonia. About 730 Angus MacFergus, king of the Picts, subjugated Strathclyde and Dalriada. Relative peace followed until the late 8th century, when Vikings from Scandinavia began to raid the Caledonian coasts. Taking advantage of Pictish preoccupation with the invaders, the Scots and Britons soon regained their independence. In 844 Kenneth MacAlpine, king of Dalriada, and later king of Scotland, who was a descendant of the Pictish royal family, obtained the crown of Pictland, probably with the assent of the harassed Picts. The united kingdoms, officially known as Alban, comprised all the territory north of the firths of Forth and Clyde. Kenneth and several of his successors vainly attempted to subdue the remaining Northumbrian possessions in Caledonia and, in alliance with Strathclyde, tried to halt the raids of the Vikings. Although, with the help of the Northumbrians, the Vikings were prevented from securing a foothold in Dalriada, they seized various coastal areas in the north, east, and west and occupied the Orkney and Shetland islands and the Hebrides. In later times the rulers of England claimed the Scottish domain on the basis of the aid their forebears had given to Alban. In the 10th century the Alban kings, having repulsed the Vikings, repeatedly attacked the Northumbrian strongholds south of the Firth of Clyde. All these attacks ended in failure. During the reign (1005-34) of Malcolm II Mackenneth, the Northumbrians were decisively defeated in the Battle of Carham (1018). With this event and as a result of the inheritance of the crown of Strathclyde by Malcolm’s grandson and successor, Duncan I, the Scottish domains, thereafter known as Scotland, embraced all the territory north of Solway Firth and the Tweed River.
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