The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. V] OF SCOTLAND 75
The effects of this conquest seem to have been more particularly
felt by the Scottish portion of the population, and its
immediate result appears to have been the complete extinction
of the house of Kenneth Mac Alpin, which for so many genera-
tions had filled the Scottish throne, the extirpation of the greater
part of the chiefs of the Scottish race, and the termination of
that superiority and dominion which they had so long main-
tained in the Lowlands of Scotland.
But besides the portion of the country occupied by the Scots,
a considerable part of the territories of the northern Picts
remained unconquered by the Norwegians, while Thorfinn
extended his conquests to the banks of the Firth of Tay, and
while he effected the utter destruction of the Scottish possessions,
even of those districts which he had not overrun with his
victorious troops, the district of AthoU and the greater part of
Argyll was sufficiently protected by its mountain barriers from
his power, and became now the only part of Scotland which
could offer any resistance to his progress.
In addition to this, one of its most powerful chiefs had
married the daughter of the last king, and his son, who thus
added a hereditary right to the throne to the influence which he
derived from his power, appears to have been proclaimed king
without any opposition, and to have received the unanimous
support of all who were still independent of the Norwegian
yoke. In personal character Duncan was far from being well
fitted for the difficult situation in which he was placed, but being
the only chief of the northern Picts who remained unsubdued
by the Norwegians, he was the most likely person to preserve
the rest of Scotland from their grasp ; and during the whole of
his reign he appears to have been unmolested by Thorfinn in
his circumscribed dominions. The Scots having thus enjoyed,
during Duncan's reign, six years of repose, began to consider
their strength sufficiently recruited to attempt the recovery of the
extensive territories in the north which Thorfinn had conquered.
Taking advantage accordingly of the temporary absence of
Thorfinn, who was engaged with the greater part of his Norwegian
force in an English expedition, Duncan advanced
towards the north of Scotland, and succeeded in penetrating
as far as the district of Moray without encountering apparently