THE Gaelic Kings and Tradition in Scotland

.The line of Scottish Kings which descended from the Gaels of Dal Riada had ended with the death of Alexander III in 1286.

• Gaelic in race, the Kings of Scotland had, for two centuries, ceased to be Gaelic in character.
• The marriage of Malcolm ” Ceann Mdr ” to a Saxon princess in the twelfth century, and the subsequent settlement in Scotland of Norman families —like the Bruces, Stewarts and Balliols—had changed the nature of the Scottish Court.
• It was by the practically independent rulers of Argyll and ” The Isles ” that the Gaelic tradition in Scotland was now carried on.

These—Mac Donalds and others—the Gaelicised descendants of the Norse Somerled (SorhAirae or ” Sorley,”) who had founded (1150) the “Lordship of the Isles,” now occupied the Scottish territories of Dal Riada.