Legendary kings of Scotland

The Scottish Renaissance humanist George Buchanan gave a long list of Scottish Kings in his history of Scotland—published in Latin as Rerum Scoticarum Historia in 1582Latin version onlineListing in an English translation—most of whom are now considered by historians to be figures of legend, or completely misrepresented. The list went back around 1900 years from his time, and began with Fergus I. James VI of Scotland, who was Buchanan's pupil, adopted the story of Fergus I as his ancestor, and the antiquity of the line was emphasised by the House of Stuart.
==Dynastic importance==
The genealogy of Scottish kings, going back to Fergus mac Ferchar (i.e. Fergus I) and beyond, was in place by the middle of the 13th century, when it was recited at the 1249 inauguration of Alexander III of Scotland.William Ferguson, The Identity of the Scottish Nation: an historic quest (1998), p. 37; online at Google Books. In 1301 Baldred Bisset was involved in a hearing at the Papal Curia, on the Scottish side of the debate on Edward I of England's claims, and at least helped prepare material dealing with the mythological history that was being adduced as relevant, on both sides.
thumb|Alexander III hears his genealogy; late medieval illustration of the Scotichronicon.
The question of the antiquity of the Scottish royal lineage, and even the details of the associated origin myth, became particularly significant from 1542 when Mary, Queen of Scots came to the Scottish throne. Buchanan alluded to Mary's long ancestry in his Epithalamium written for her 1559 marriage to Francis II of France.George Buchanan, edited by Paul J. McGinnis and Arthur H. Williamson, The Political Poetry (1995), p. 24 and p. 134. In the period before Mary's betrothal, a marriage to Prince Edward, the future Edward VI of England, was much discussed. As part of that debate, the list of legendary kings of Britain became involved, in the form of the "Brutus myth", promoted by Edward Hall over the doubts of Polydore Vergil. Publicists on the English side of the argument, including John Elder, James Henrisoun, and William Lamb, had cast doubt on the Scottish history.Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings: Mary Queen of Scots 1542–1551 (2000), pp. 42–46.
When James VI entered Edinburgh in 1579 the pageantry included a public posting of the genealogy of the Scottish kings; and when his son Charles I visited in 1633, portraits of 
107 kings were displayed, some of which (by George Jamesone) survive.Elizabeth McGrath, Local Heroes: the Scottish Humanist Parnassus for Charles I, p. 258, in Edward Chaney and Peter Mack (editors), England and the Continental Renaissance (1990). Another series of 110 imagined portraits of the monarchs from the list was painted for Charles II by Jacob de Wet II, and hung in Holyrood Palace. The de Wet portrait collection later became a noted sight for tourists, for example as written about by John Macky, A Journey through Scotland.http://www.scotsites.co.uk/ebooks/travellerstales7.htm
==Historiography of Buchanan's list==
While Rerum Scoticarum Historia was published only in the year of Buchanan's death, he had worked on it during much of his life. It was published with his De jure regni apud Scotos, first printed 1579. Of the two works, the Historia for Buchanan served as a source of precedents on dealing with bad kings (tyrants in the list inevitably come to a sorry end at the hands of the people, in line with Buchanan's monarchomach position), while the De jure is cast as a humanist dialogue between Buchanan himself and Thomas Maitland, and concentrates on classical exemplars. Both works were dedicated to James VI.J. H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700 (1991), p. 216–217. King James came to regard the chronicles of Buchanan and John Knox as "infamous invectives".Alan Stewart, The Cradle King: A life of James VI and I (2004), p. 148.
The king-list of the Historia was therefore, in that work, only incidental to Buchanan's purpose in the book, whatever later uses it may have been put to. After the later scholarly work of Thomas Innes, this list was given little credence in its initial parts. It was, however, the culmination of centuries of development of king-lists for the Kingdom of Scotland. Much fictional material had been introduced into these lists by the humanist Hector Boece, writing half a century before Buchanan. Peter Hume Brown in his biography of Buchanan describes him as somewhat more sceptical than Boece in what he accepted as historical; but less so than John Mair, writing earlier.https://archive.org/details/georgebuchananhu00browiala Buchanan has been called inconsistent in his treatment of classical sources, since his rejection of the legend of Gathelus does not extend to the early Scottish kings, who are equally unsupported by classical authors.https://archive.org/stream/sanctaactaconvent00inteuoft#page/14/mode/2up
Writers who perpetuated the Boece tradition, as put into form by Buchanan, included:
*John Johnston, Inscriptiones Historicæ Regum Scotorum, continuata annorum serie a Fergusio I. ad Jacobum VI. (1602)
*Gilbert Gray
*David Hume of Godscroft
*James UssherVol. vi in Whole works; now for the first time collected, with a life of the author and an account of his writings (1864), edited by Charles Richard Elrington.
*Alexander Gardyne, Theatre of the Scotish Kings, published 1709 by James Watsonhttp://collections.chadwyck.co.uk/html/ep2/bibliography/g.htm
*James Wallace, The History of the Kingdom of Scotland from Fergus the First King to the Union (1724)
The antiquity of the line was attacked by William Lloyd, who argued that Scotland was not settled before the 6th century; George Mackenzie published the 1685 Defence of the Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland against Lloyd, and a sequel the next year against Edward Stillingfleet, who had given a sceptical account of Boece's history in Chapter V of his Origines Britannicae.https://archive.org/stream/originesbritanni02stiluoft#page/n5/mode/2up The work of Innes, which in effect terminated the scholarly debate, was published in 1729, but the tradition continued.
*James Anderson, Royal Genealogies (1732). This book was based on a work of Johann Hübner, but with Anderson's additions. The king-list is Table 499, attributed to Boece and Buchanan.At Google Books, table as p. 12 of volume as scanned.
*Francis Nichols, The British Compendium (1741)https://archive.org/details/britishcompendiu03nich
*William Guthrie.
Subsequently, John Pinkerton and William Forbes Skene contributed to the study of the king-lists. Reference works continued, however, to copy Buchanan's list, and the mythological history took many years to drop out of circulation, persisting in print as factual well into the 19th century (for example the fourth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1810), the Encyclopædia Perthensis (1816), the London Encyclopedia (1829), and the individual kings in reference books by George CrabbUniversal Historical Dictionary (1833); Google Books. and John PlattsNew Universal Biography (1826); Google Books.).
==Legendary content==
See list of Scottish monarchs for the view of contemporary historians of Scotland. The first historical figure in Buchanan's list is Caratacus. The rediscovery of the works of Tacitus prompted Boece to include this well-attested figure from the period of the Roman occupation of Britain.
The last legendary figure is more complex to discuss. The kings in the list from about the 6th century (in the Fifth Book of Buchanan) onwards may have some relationship to historical figures in the Kingdom of Dalriada, extending in present-day terms from western Scotland to part of Ireland. See list of Kings of Dál Riata. But the Kingdom of Scotland (i.e. Alba) was not a historical reality until Kenneth MacAlpin created it in the year 843; and what was said about his predecessors in the list by Buchanan may have little historical foundation.
The list of Kings of the Picts includes other historical figures reigning in parallel with the Dalriada kings, in other areas of what is now Scotland. The critical Essay (1729) of Innes, while demolishing the king-list going back to Boece, substituted in part kings of the Picts, and is now regarded as questionable in its own way. Innes was a Jacobite and concerned therefore to lay emphasis on legitimacy of descent and primogeniture.
==Legendary kings (Buchanan), BC==
Numbering (Buchanan)	Name 	Accession date (Buchanan)	Alternate names 	Comments
1 	Fergus I 	330 BC 	 	The first king of Scotland, according to the fictitious chronology of Boece and Buchanan. He is said to have come to Scotland from Ireland about 330 BC to assist the Scots already settled in Scotland against the joint attack of the Picts and Britons. He is then said to have gone back to Ireland to quell disturbances, and to have been drowned in the passage off the rock or port which got the name of Carrick Fergus from him. According to John Fordoun, Andrew of Wyntoun, and most of the earlier genealogical lists of Scottish kings, the same account is given of the settlement of the Scots from Ireland by a King Fergus, son of Ferchard. According to other lists, Ferchard or Feardach, the father of Fergus, was the first and Fergus the second king.
2 	Feritharis	305 BC 	Ferithais (Bellenden)Contents from Boece, taken from 1821 edition of the translation by John Bellenden, which was from Latin into Scots of the 16th century.	Brother of Fergus, and in Buchanan's view elected king. British Identities before Nationalism (PDF) , p. 125.
3 	Mainus 	290 BC 	 	
4 	Dornadilla	262 BC 	Dorvidilla (Bellenden) 	The identification of Dun Dornaigil as Dornadilla's castle is mentioned in Itinerarium septentrionale (1726) by Alexander Gordon.http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/event/586669/ Dorvidilla, in Boece, was fond of hunting dogs, and made laws regulating hunting.http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/robert-craig-maclagan/the-perth-incident-of-1396-from-a-folk-lore-point-of-view-hci/page-16-the-perth-incident-of-1396-from-a-folk-lore-point-of-view-hci.shtml
5 	Nothatus 	232 BC 	Nathak (Bellenden) 	In legend, killed by Dovallus; a story adopted by Clan Macdowall for their ancestry.http://www.scotweb.co.uk/info/macdowall/
6 	Reutherus 	 	Reuther (Boece),http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/boece/kings.html Rewthar (Bellenden) 	Claimed as the eponym of Rutherglen.Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1846) by Samuel Lewis.
7 	Reuthra 	 	Rewtha (Bellenden) 	
8 	Thereus 	 	 	
9 	Josina 	 	Josyne (Bellenden) 	
10 	Finnanus 	 	Fynnane (Bellenden) 	
11 	Durstus 	 	 	
12 	Evenus I 	 	 	
13 	Gillus 	 	 	
14 	Evenus II 	 	 	
15 	Ederus 	 	 	
16 	Evenus III	 	 	
17 	Metallanus	 	 	According to Boece, he received Roman ambassadors.http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/boece/3eng.html
==Legendary kings (Buchanan), Caratacus to Eugenius I==
Numbering (Buchanan)	Name 	Accession date (Buchanan)	Alternate names 	Comments
18 	Caractacus 	 	 	
19 	Corbredus I 	 	 	
20 	Dardannus 	 	 	
21 	Corbredus II Galdus	 	 	
22 	Luctacus 	 	Lugthacus (Boece) 	Boece says some of his crimes must go unmentioned (and then mentions them).http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/boece/5eng.html
23 	Mogaldus 	 	Mogallus (Boece) 	
24 	Conarus 	 	 	
25 	Ethodius 	 	 	
26 	Satrael 	 	Satrahel (Boece) 	
27 	Donaldus I 	 	 	Boece makes him the first Christian king.
28 	Ethodius II 	 	 	
29 	Athirco 	 	Athircon, son of Echodius (James Ussher)https://archive.org/stream/cu31924024758975#page/n59/mode/2up	
30 	Nathalocus 	 	 	A usurper killed by a servant, a story which was the subject of an 1845 poem by James Clerk Maxwell.http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/lewis-campbell/the-life-of-james-clerk-maxwell--with-a-selection-from-his-correspondence-and-o-hci/page-44-the-life-of-james-clerk-maxwell--with-a-selection-from-his-correspondence-and-o-hci.shtml
31 	Findochus 	 	Findocus (Boece) 	
32 	Donaldus II 	 	 	
33 	Donaldus III 	 	 	
34 	Crathilinthus 	 	Crathlinthus (Boece) 	
35 	Fincormachus 	 	 	
36 	Romachus 	 	 	
37 	Angusianus 	 	 	
38 	Fethelmachus 	 	Fethelmacus (Boece) 	
39 	Eugenius I 	 	Evenus I 	
==Buchanan's Fifth Book, Fergus II to Kenneth II==
Numbering (Buchanan)	Name 	Accession date (Buchanan)	Alternate names 	Comments
40 	Fergusius II 	 	Fergus II, Fergus the Great 	See Fergus Mór.
41 	Eugenius II 	 	Evenus II 	
42 	Dongardus 	452 	Domangart 	See Domangart Réti.
43 	Constantine I	457 	 	Polydore Vergil (Anglica Historia, 1555) gives from here a succession close to Buchanan.http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/polverg/3eng.html: Polydore Vergil gives the succession as Constantine, Congallus, Goranus, Eugene III, Convallus, Amtillus, Aidan, Kenneth, Eugene IV, Ferquart, Donald, Maldwin, Eugene V, Eugene VI, and Ambercletus.
44 	Congallus I 	479 	 	See Comgall mac Domangairt.
45 	Goranus 	501 	Gabhran Goranus, Conranus (Boece). 	See Gabrán mac Domangairt.
46 	Eugenius III 	535 	 	Father of St Kentigern; see Owain mab Urien.
47 	Congallus II 	558 	Convallus (Boece). 	See Conall mac Comgaill.
48 	Kinnatellus 	574 	Kynnatillus (Boece), Cumatillus,https://archive.org/stream/ecclesiasticalch01gord#page/2/mode/2up Amtillus. 	
49 	Aidanus 	575 	 	See Áedán mac Gabráin
50 	Kennethus I 	605 	Kenneth I Keir (Boece) 	See Connad Cerr
51 	Eugenius IV 	606 	 	See Eochaid Buide.
52 	Fearchair I 	626 	Ferquart 	See Ferchar mac Connaid
53 	Donaldus IV 	638 	 	See Domnall Brecc
54 	Ferchardus II	652 	Ferquhardus I (Boece), Fearchair Fada. 	See Ferchar Fota.
55 	Maldvinus 	670 	Malduinus (Boece) 	
56 	Eugenius V 	690 	 	See Eochaid mac Domangairt.
57 	Eugenius VI 	694 	 	
58 	Amberkelethus	704 	Ambirkelethus (Boece), Ainbhealach, Ambercletus in Polydore Vergil.http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/polydore-vergil/polydore-vergils-english-history-from-an-early-translation-preserved-among-the-goo/page-13-polydore-vergils-english-history-from-an-early-translation-preserved-among-the-goo.shtml	See Ainbcellach mac Ferchair.
59 	Eugenius VII 	706 	 	Likely duplicates Eugenius VI. Also see Eochaid mac Echdach
60 	Mordacus 	723 	 	See Muiredach mac Ainbcellaig.
61 	Etfinus 	730 	Ethfinus (Boece) 	See Áed Find
62 	Eugene VIII 	761 	 	See Eógan mac Muiredaig.
63 	Fergus II 	764 	 	See Fergus mac Echdach
64 	Solvathius 	767 	Selvach. 	See Selbach mac Ferchair and the legend of Sholto Douglas.
65 	Achaius 	788 	 	See Eochaid mac Áeda Find. Also supposed to have concluded a treaty with the Emperor CharlemagneHume of Godscroft, History of the House of Douglas, 1820 London. pp7-8
66 	Congallus III	819 	Convallus II (Boece) 	See Conall Crandomna but at a great chronological distance.
67 	Dongallus 	824 	 	
68 	Alpinus 	 	 	See Alpín mac Echdach.
69 	Kennethus II 	 	 	See Kenneth MacAlpin.
==Sixth Book, later kings==
*(73) Grig/Gregory the Great: see Giric
==Notes==
==External links==
*Boece, Scotorum Historia (1575 edition)
*Links to Buchanan's Latin
*1831 English translation of Buchanan
*Link to another translation of Buchanan
*Metrical version of Boece, by William Stewart, edited by William Barclay Turnbull (1858)
*Holinshed, A History of Scotland
*Chart
*Scotland
Kings