The Pictish Civil War Part III

The last post ended with the abdication of Naiton, King of the Picts in 724 and with the question: did he jump or was he pushed? To answer that we need to look at his successor (or successors).

First we are introduced to someone known as Drust (or Drest) “who then ruled”[1]. The Annals give us no further information about his background and he was not the first Drust/Drest/Drostan to be recorded as king. (The recurrent use of certain names does not particularly help us work out who he was.) We saw in the Mother of Kings post that a Derilei, mother of King Naiton also had a child with a certain Drostan. This child was Talorc who had been imprisoned – at least temporarily – by his half-brother, King Naiton, in 713, an act perhaps linked to the killing of one of Naiton’s other brothers, Cinaed.

Is it possible that Drust who became King in 724 was somehow related to Drostan, the father – with Derilei – of Talorc? Before answering that question, it is helpful to look at the record known as the Pictish Chronicle. This Chronicle is in fact at least 7 versions of a similar document dating from the 10^th to the 12^th centuries which contains accounts of the legendary origins of the Picts as well as king lists of both the Picts and of Alba. The Pictish list begins in legendary pre-history whereas the Alba list starts in the middle of the 9^th century.

The Chronicle has been split into two main groups. Group A consists of three texts, the first of which dates back to 971-5. The other two texts probably originated around 100 years later. Group B is made up of four later versions: from 1187, 1251, 1280 and 1317.

When dealing with the aftermath of Naiton’s abdication, the earlier (Group A) versions of the king lists are more or less consistent with the Annals. They note that:

“Drest et Elpin con(g)regnaverunt v. annis” (Drest and Elpin ruled together for five years)

Drest is Drust. We’ll come back to Elpin in a bit.

The Group B versions of the king lists are much less straightforward. For example, the 1251 version notes that after Naiton’s reign, a number of kings are listed, including:

• Alpin son of Feret (who reigned for 6 months)
• Oengussa, son of Brude (also 6 months)
• Brude son of Tegus (8 years)
• Durst, son of Talorgen (1 year)
• Engus, son of Brude (36 years)

The 1317 version is similar, although the Durst in the list above is there called Drust and Alpin is described as the son of Engus (and he also reigns twice – each for 8 years). Only the 1317 version mentions the later and important king Onuist (as Hangus son of Fergus) but understates his length of rule.

It is possible that the extra kings are in positions of power in some of the Pictish sub-kingdoms (remember how Bede talked about Pictish provinces?). Although we concentrate on so-called “overkings” – such as Bridei who defeated the Northumbrians at Dun Nechtain in  685 – it is clear that some sub-division continued to exist. The Pictish “kingdom” most often named in the sources is that of Fortriu, but we also hear of Atholl and Circinn in particular. All of these are also mentioned in the origin legend parts of the Pictish Chronicle which talk of seven legendary sons of Cruithne (whose name is an Irish word which comes to be used for the Picts) who approximately represent seven Pictish territories: Fib, Fidach, Fotlaig, Fortrenn, Cait, Ce, Circinn. Atholl has been linked with Fotlaig and Fortrenn is Fortriu[2]. Fib is Fife and Cait is Caithness. Circinn and Fidach have been linked with Angus/Kincardineshire and the area west of modern-day Inverness respectively.

Whether it is true that the multitude of kings in the later versions refer to some lesser kings, or whether they are just a confused mass of errors, is it possible that Drust, son of Talorgan is King Drust of 724 and that he is the son of that Talorc arrested in 713?

To ascertain that, we need to work backwards from the date of the imprisonment of King Drust’s son a year after he took the throne. This is recorded in the Annals for the year 725 and assuming he was a man of fighting age – say 20 – then he was born in 705. I will use generation timescales of 20 years to keep things simple. That would mean that Drust was born no later than 685 and that his potential father Talorc was born in 665. This would also mean that Deriliei’s dalliance with Drostan (which resulted in the birth of Talorc) happened before she got together with Dargart (a union which produced four sons: Bridei, Naiton, Cinaed and Congal). However it would also mean that Talorc was 48 when he was imprisoned by his half-brother Naiton in 713 and, as we shall see, 74 when killed by Naiton. Of course all of that is possible although Naiton’s execution at such an advanced age does seem a little odd.

Another possibility is that Talorc was born later – let’s say by 20 years, in 685. This would mean that his imprisonment and execution happened to a much younger man (at the ages of 28 and 54 respectively) but it also suggests that King Drust’s son was taken prisoner as a newly born – or perhaps, if we can say that the generation  gap (i.e. age of fatherhood) to be used was nearer 17 than 20, then the captured son in 725 would have been a young child, no older than 6 or 7. This would also imply that Derilei’s act of union with Drostan happened probably just before the death of Dargart, the father of her other four children in 686 (a date reported in the Annals). Again none of this is impossible, but the age of the child kidnapped in 725 seems questionable.

A final possibility is that Derilei and Drostan had Talorc some time after the birth of her four sons with Dargart, but before Dargart’s death. Choosing a date of 676 would mean that the kidnap in 725 happened to a child somewhere between the ages of 9 and 16.

Of these three options, I think the most convincing one features the kidnap of a 20-year-old (rather than a child) in 725, but that does result in the execution of a very old man in 739. On balance then it is probably more likely than not that King Drust was not the son of Talorc, son of Drostan. Why therefore did he assume power in 724 when Naiton abdicated? Was he somehow related to Naiton through another link (as he would have been had Talorc really been his father)?

As shown above, the earlier and (probably) more reliable version of the Pictish Chronicle states that Drust ruled jointly with someone called Elpin – and that they ruled for 5 years. This would take them from 724 to 729. Elpin is also referred to in the Annals (sometimes as Alpin or Elphin) and James Fraser[3] suggests that he was from Atholl – also where Talorc will end up being king.  Although the Annals do not talk of Elpin coming to power at the same time as Drust, they do refer to him later and my best guess is that both he and Drust were working together and that somewhere in the mess of Pictish nobility, they were linked by some form of family or provincial tie. Perhaps the Atholl contingent were trying to push their elderly relative out and this led to Naiton, to an extent reluctantly, seeking a quieter life. This was done through an alliance between Drust (possibly linked to Naiton by blood) and Elpin who may have had more support (and firepower) behind him. Subsequent events do seem to support this theory as we shall see.

One scrap of literary evidence which supports the theory that not all was peaceful in the kingship after Naiton’s (enforced) retirement was that kidnap of Drust’s son.  Translators of the Annals have generally assumed that the son was called Simul (“Simul filius Druis constringitur”[4]), although this could simply be a misreading of the original Latin word “simul” which means “at the same time”. (This is certainly the meaning of the word when it appears elsewhere in the Annals.)

Then a year later in 726 we hear that Naiton was taken from his monastery – or wherever he was living a life devoted to God – by Drust and held captive. That probably means that Naiton (or some supporters of his) were working against the new joint kings. There is also the intriguing line in the Annals which state that “Drust had the rule over the Picts removed (from him), and Elphin reigned for them.”[5] Was this a reaction to the kidnap of Naiton? Again subsequent events shed some light on this and it appears that Drust remained on the scene, perhaps as a junior partner to Elpin.

To answer the question set at the end of the last post, then, I think it is highly likely that Naiton was pushed from the kingship into clerical life. His religious mind may well have been content with that, but there are hints that he (or others on his behalf) still hankered after power, which led to his imprisonment by Drust in a place where the (now junior) king was able to keep an eye on the former king. The kidnap of that junior king’s son also lends credence to the continuing uncertainty of power and who held that power.

Who then were these supporters of Naiton? Were they genuinely interested in returning Naiton to the throne for his sake or did they have other motives? I will look to answer those questions in the next and final post on the Civil War.

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[1] “Clericatus Neactain reigis Pictorum. Drust postea regnat.” (Annals of Tigernach, 724.2: “The entry into the clerical life of Nechtan. Afterwards Drust ruled”)

[2] The spelling “Fortriu” never appears in the sources, Fortrenn is the genitive form (i.e. “of Fortriu”)

[3] “From Caledonia to Pictland”, p289

[4] Annals of Ulster 725.3. Compare however Annals of Tigernach 725.3: “Simal filius Druist constringuitur”

[5] Annals of Tigernach 726.4:” Druist de reghno Pictorum iectus et Elphin pro eo regnat.”