page_title: Cuilén
section_title: Contested kingship and kin-strife
hierarchical_section_title: Cuilén / Contested kingship and kin-strife
caption_attribution_description: English: An excerpt from Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 489 (the Annals of Ulster), folio 32v. The excerpt concerns Dub mac Maíl Choluim, King of Alba (died 966/967).
context_page_description: Cuilén was an early King of Alba.
  He was a son of Illulb mac Custantín, King of Alba, after whom he is known by the patronymic mac Illuilb of Clann Áeda meic Cináeda, a branch of the Alpínid dynasty.
  During the 10th century, the Alpínids rotated the kingship of Alba between two main dynastic branches. Dub mac Maíl Choluim, a member of a rival branch of the kindred, seems to have succeeded after Illulb's death in 962. Cuilén soon after challenged him but was defeated in 965. Dub was eventually expelled and slain in 966/967. Whether Cuilén was responsible for his death is uncertain.
  Following Dub's fall, Cuilén appears to have ruled as undisputed king from 966–971. Little is known of Cuilén's short reign other than his own death in 971. According to various sources, he and his brother, Eochaid, were slain by Britons. Some sources identify Cuilén's killer as Rhydderch ap Dyfnwal, a man whose daughter had been abducted and raped by the king. Rhydderch was evidently a man of eminent standing, and seems to have been a son of Dyfnwal ab Owain, King of Strathclyde, and could have possibly ruled the Cumbrian Kingdom of Strathclyde at the time of Cuilén's death.
context_section_description: There is some uncertainty regarding the succession after Illulb's demise. On one hand, he may well have been succeeded by Máel Coluim's son, Dub (died 966/967). Such a chronology is certainly evinced by the fourteenth-century Chronica gentis Scotorum and various king lists. The twelfth-century Prophecy of Berchán, on the other hand, states that the kingship was temporarily shared by Dub and Cuilén. If correct, this source could indicate that neither man had been strong enough to displace the other in the immediate aftermath of Illulb's passing. Although the Alpínid branches represented by Illulb and Dub seem to have maintained peace throughout Illulb's reign, inter-dynastic conflict clearly erupted in the years that followed.
  The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba may indicate that Dub spent much of his reign contending with Cuilén. Certainly, this source states that the two battled each other on Dorsum Crup, where Dúnchad, Abbot of Dunkeld (died 965), and Dubdon, satrap of Atholl (died 965) were slain. The battle seems to have taken place at Duncrub, possibly the same site as the first-century Battle of Mons Graupius. The conflict itself is attested by the fifteenth–sixteenth-century Annals of Ulster in 965, in an entry recording Dúnchad's fall in a clash between the men of Alba. Although the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba states that Dub attained the victory, the same source reports that he was later expelled from the kingdom. The Annals of Ulster reports Dub's death in 967. According to the so-called "X" group of king lists, Dub was killed at Forres and his body was hidden under a bridge at Kinloss during a solar eclipse. The account of Dub's death preserved by the fifteenth-century Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, and Chronica gentis Scotorum also associate the king's fall with an eclipse. If these sources are to be believed, Dub would seem to have fallen before the solar eclipse of 20 July 966.
  There is reason to suspect that the inscriptions displayed upon Sueno's Stone, alongside the Kinloss road at Forres, commemorate the final defeat and death of Dub. One of the panels of this remarkable monument appears to show corpses and heads lying under an arch which may well represent a bridge. One of the heads is framed, which may be that of Dub himself. Although the stone does not appear to make reference to an eclipse, it is possible that such an event was inserted into the traditional account as a means to improve the tale. If so, the aforesaid date recorded by the Annals of Ulster may well be correct. The chronology of Dub's death could be evidence that his downfall came after Cuilén's consolidation of the kingship. Although it is conceivable that Dub was slain in favour of his successor, this may not necessarily have been the case—certainly Cuilén is not stated to have been responsible for his death—and it is possible that events transpired without Cuilén's interference.
caption: The name of Cuilén's rival kinsman, Dub mac Maíl Choluim, as it appears on folio 32v of Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 489.[39]
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