Mac Alpin History

It was the fortune of King Alpine of Dalriada to beget the son who became the first sovereign of the Picts and Scots and the founder of the royal dynasty of what was to evolve as the modern kingdom of Scotland. Kenneth Mac Alpin’s achievement has remained a matter of some surprise ever since, and the explanations for it have been various. The British (Welsh-speaking) kingdoms of Strathclyde, Gododden and Rheged in southern Scotland were of ancient and firm foundation: yet they vanished utterly. The Picts had been considered the most formidable military power by the Romans, and they had repelled the Northunbrian English who conquered the Britons. Yet it was Kenneth the Scot who took over Pictland in 843, and not the Picts who conquered Dalriada. By the time he died in 858 he had established the Scottish hegemony so effectively that the very Pictish language soon disappeared in favour of Gaelic.
This can be explained partly by the cultural infiltration which followed the mission of Saint Columbia to the King of the Picts in the late 6th century. On the other hand, another Pictish king was adopting the rival Roman religious customs from Northumbria over a century later, in place of those of the Columban church, which must have diminished its influence considerably. In 741, according to the Gaelic annals, King Oengus of the Picts ‘utterly destroyed’ the Scots. Yet a century later Kenneth Mac Alpin’s takeover occurred. Perhaps he was assisted by the ancient law of matrilinear succession which gave him a claim to the Pictish crown through female descent. But probably the dominant factor was the onslaught of the Vikings from Scandinavia early in the 9th century. The Picts were already weakened by their assaults by the time the Scots began to move eastwards, towards the safety of the hills, as the Norsemen made life in the western islands and firths increasingly precarious. Such were the contributory factors which caused Britain’s northern peninsula to be called Scotland, and the ancient Scottish form of social organization by kindred's to spread and evolve into the clan system.
Although Mac Alpine is used as a surname to this day, there is little trace of an effective clan of that name in historical record. Generally the term employed is Siol Ailpein, the descendants of Alpin, and among those who have claimed this distinction are the Mac Kinnons and Mac Quarries, the Mac Gregors, Grants, Mac Nabs and Mac Aulays. The paradox is that these clans did not combine to make Siol Ailpein and effective confederation like that of Clan Chattan. The most ignominious fate of all that befell Alpin’s descendants was suffered by the Mac Gregors; whose motto is ’S rioghal mo dhream, my blood is royal.