—— 
53 
Picts is said to have brought this about by force of arms, and 
patriotic Scottish writers blow him out into Gregorius Magnus, 
King of Scotland, conqueror of England, Ireland, and the 
Danislagh. Marriage with a British Princess, rather than conquest, 
or perhaps the two combined, must have been the causes of © 
Grig’s success. After Grig’s death, we find there was some 
relationship between the Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde (or | 
Cumbria). 
Meanwhile the English and the Danes had been fighting with 
great vigor. Alfred the Great had commenced the attempt to 
reduce to English rule the territory known as the Danislagh, where 
Danish laws and customs prevailed. Edward the Elder, King of 
the English, continued the wartare, and, in 924, he wrested 
Manchester from the Danes, whereon the whole of the North laid 
itself at his feet ;—not only Northumbria, including the Lothians, 
but the Scots and Picts of Scotland ; and the Britons of Cumbria 
choose him to be “ FATHER and OveRLorD.” The Britons of 
North Wales had done so before, and thus Edward, King of the 
English, became Overlord, or Emperor of the Britons and the 
Scots. 
This transaction is called the Commendation to England of 
Scotland and Strathclyde. Uts date is 924 A.D. Fierce has been 
the war of pens that has raged over this transaction. Scottish 
historians can ill brook to own that, in 924, Scotland declared 
itself vassal to England, and their energies have been directed to 
the whittling away of its importance. But it was the foundation of 
all the claims made by Edward I. to Scotland. 
At the time it was of but little practical importance : the 
Overlord, Edward the Elder, died almost immediately. War at 
once broke out all over the North, and lasted, spite of a peace 
made at Dacre in Cumberland, until Ethelstan, king of the 
English, in 939, defeated Constantine, king of Scotland, and 
Eugenius, or Owen, king of Cumbria, at the battle of Bruanburgh. 
Eugenius, or Owen, whichever may be his name, fell in this battle, 
whose site is unknown. 
In 945 Dunmail, “the last king of rocky Cumbria,” fell out 
