The Kings of Scots can be traced back with some certainty as far as the fourth century AD, but until the ninth century at least we cannot be positive about what appears below.
Some medieval sources (notably the Red and White Book of Menzies) show genealogies running back to fourth-century BC Ireland, but these are conjectural at best, and include names that don't even sound Celtic. Still, the earliest Scottish kings are certainly descended from Irish chiefs.
There is a traditional genealogy of the Celtic kings of Britain that begins with a brother and sister, Corbred and Hoada, which may have some credibility. (Actually it goes back even furher, deriving these two from figures in Greek mythology, but that part is an obvious later fabrication.) Corbred's son Corbred II was the great-grandfather, through a daughter and her daughter, of one Ethodus, who died c192 AD. His son Ethodus II (died 238) had a son Athirco (died 250) whose son Cormac was the father of Finncormac (died 357), in turn the father of Ethedius, father of Erc, who is a recognized historical figure and the ancestor of the first dynasty of Scottish kings. It is not clear, however, how this British family ended up in Ireland, so Iit is questionable whether we should boldface the ancestors of Erc. The first Corbred's sister Hoada is supposed to have married Arbicagus, a fairly well documented early British 'king' who was the father of the famous Boadicea or Boudicca. This 'queen' married the Iceni chieftain Prasutagus and after his death led the Iceni in a nearly-successful revolt against the Romans. Their daughter Julia married another 'king' called Croilus and is supposed to have been the mother of Eurgen, wife of Lucius or Lleuver Mawr, a great 'king' of the Roman era who died in 181. Later Christian monks developed Lleuver's genealogy and claimed that he was a great-grandfather of St Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine. This is most unlikely.
In any case, Erc was a real person, and lived probably in Ulster as the chief of the Scotii, an Irish tribe that lived in the northern part of that island and began migrating the short distance from Ulster across to Dalriada, or southwestern Scotland, in the the fourth century. This migration was slow, and continued for centuries; the "Scots" long considered themselves to be Irish. Erc was the father of Fergus Mór, the first 'king of Scots' because he settled in Dalriada and ruled there before his death in 506 AD. His son Domangart died in 511, and was the father of two sons who served in turn as 'king of Scots' - Comgal (died 535, whose line died out after three generations; and Gabhran (died 557) who enlarged his territories and influence by marrying Ingenach or Lleian, daughter of the ruler of neighboring Manaw Gododdin, Brychan. Their son King Aidan (died 605) was the father of Eochaidh Buidhe (died 621), whose second son Domnall Breach ("freckled Donald," died 642) was the father of a second Domangart. This king was the father of a third Domangart (died c673), father of King Eochaid Rinevel ("crooked nose," died 705), father of Eochaid III (died 733), father of Aedh Finn ("the white," died 769); father of Fergus II, who died childless, and of Eochaid IV "the venomous," who died in 826 and who married a Pictish princess named Unuisticc. This marriage is supposed to have united the Picts and Scots under one monarchy for the first time. The couple produced Alpin (died between 834 and 843), the first 'real' king of all Scotland and eponymous ancestor of:
The House of MacAlpin
Kenneth I "mac Alpin" died in 859 or 860, and was the first king to rule all or most of Scotland - that is, to be regarded as more than just a tribal chief or king. His son Constantine I died in 877, and his son Donald in 900; not much more is known about them. Donald's son Malcolm I (died 954) is better documented. He was the father of at least 3 children:
(1) Dubh or Duff, King of Scots 954-967, father of Kenneth III (967-1005), whose son Boedh was the father of Gruoch, the "Lady Macbeth" of Shakespeare's play. Gruoch married first Gillacomnan, the Mormaer of Moray, and second his cousin MacBeth, also Mormaer of Moray; he was a son of the mormaer Findlaech by Donada, daughter of Malcolm II (see below). We are descended from Gruoch through her son by her first husband, Lulach, who was later King of Scots (1057-1058). Lulach's daughter married Aedh, earl of Moray, and they had many descendants among the nobility of Scotland and northern England.
(2) Kenneth II, died in 995; he was the father of King Dungal (died childless in 999) and of Malcolm II (954-999-1034). Malcolm had three children: the Donada mentioned above, Macbeth's mother; another daughter, who married Sigurd, Jarl of Orkney (see Lord of the Isles); and a third daughter, Bethoc, who married Crinan, Thane of Atholl and lay Abbot of Dunkeld. This couple are ancestors of all the later kings of Scotland and Great Britain.
(3) Beatrice, who married Menyn or Mainus, Thane of Dull, ancestor of the Menzies clan.
King Constantine I (died 877) had a brother Aedh, who succeeded him briefly as king and died in 878. Aedh was the father of Constantine II (died 942) who among other children had Indulf, king of Scots (died 962), father and grandfather of several more kings who reigned briefly in the late tenth century. Indulf's descendants through the female line are numerous.
Constantine I and Aedh also had a sister (name uncertain) who married Olaf the White, King of Dublin (c840-871), who is our ancestor via another wife, Aud the Deep-minded. (see Vikings)
Kenneth MacAlpin's younger brother Gregor is also our ancestor through his son Dungall, ancestor of the MacAlpins of Glenorchy, hereditary standard-bearers to the later Scottish kings. The chiefs of Clan Gregor are a branch of this family.
The House of Dunkeld
The male-line descendants of Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld and his wife Princess Bethoc (see above) ruled Scotland from the mid-eleventh century down to the death of the "Maid of Norway" in 1290. As they often intermarried with the Norman nobility of England, we are descended from them in all sorts of ways. Their second son Maldred is the ancestor of the medieval Earls of Dunbar; the elder son Duncan I was King of Scots 1034-1040. He married Sybil of Northumberland, a relative (sister or daughter) of Earl Siward (also our ancestor through his son Waltheof of Northampton; see Northumberland). They had four children, including Malcolm III "Canmore" (see below) and Donald III Bane, king in 1093-1097 (our ancestor through his daughter Bethoc's daughter Hextilda, who married a Comyn); and Maelmuir, ancestor of the later Earls of Atholl.
Malcolm III Canmore (1031-1040-1093) is supposed to have married Ingibjorg, daughter of the Norwegian jarl Finn Arnasson and a descendant of Halfdan the Black, among other Norwegian and Swedish kings (see Vikings). However, as the same Ingibjorg is said to have been married to the much older Jarl Thorfinn the Black of Orkney, I think this is impossible - more likely, Malcolm married Thorfinn and Ingibjorg's daughter. They had three children; we are descended from the eldest, Duncan II (see below). Malcolm III married secondly Margaret of the House of Wessex (Saint Margaret of Scotland), daughter of Edward Aetheling. They had nine children; we are descended from at least four of them (see below).
King Duncan II (1060-1093-1094) was a hostage in England during most of his adult years. In 1093 the Normans helped him seize the throne from his uncle Donald Bane, but he was killed shortly afterwards. Donald Bane shared the throne for a few years with Duncan's half-brother Edmund; but he died in 1100. Eventually the throne went to Edmund's full brothers Alexander and then David (see below). Duncan II married Etheldreda, daughter of Gospatric, earl of Northumberland and Dunbar; they had one son, William, known as "earl of Moray" although he had the best claim to the Scottish throne in his lifetime. This William married Alice le Meschines of Copeland; they had six children surnamed FitzDuncan, and we are descended from at least one, Amabilis (married Reginald de Lucy).
Alexander I, King of Scots 1107-1124, married a daughter of Henry I of England but had no children. His brother David I (1080-1124-1153) restored stability to the country and the dynasty, and is the ancestor of all later kings, down through the Stewarts. He married Matilda, daughter of Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon (and that title was later used by the heirs to the throne). They had four children, but only the second survived to adulthood: Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, who died just a few months before his father in 1152. He married Ada de Warenne, daughter of William, 2nd Earl of Surrey (see Warenne). They had six children, and we will now have to follow several lines separately, because their descendants would later war among themselves for the throne.
First, Henry's eldest son inherited from his grandfather: this was Malcolm IV (1141-1165), who died unmarried and childless. His brother became king as William I (1143-1165-1214, known as "William the Lion"). He married Ermengarde, daughter of Richard, vicomte de Bellomont (a granddaughter of Henry I of England; see Beaumont of Maine). They had a son and three daughters (see below). The son was Alexander II (1198-1240), who married Marie de Coucy and had two children, Alexander III (1241-1286, married Margaret, daughter of Henry III of England), and by an unknown mistress, a daughter Marjory, who married Alan Lundin, Durward of Scotland, earl of Atholl (they had descendants in the female line who did not take part in the kin-strife of the fourteenth century, as Marjory was illegitimate; our connection is through Soules and Lovel). Alexander III had two sons who died young and a daughter, Margaret, who married King Eirik II Magnusson of Norway; their daughter Margaret (the "Maid of Norway") was heir to the Scottish throne after her grandfather died, but she perished in a shipwreck on her way from Norway to Scotland in 1290, age seven).
This event touched off a civil war among various branches of the royal family. Of Alexander II's three sisters, two died childless; the third had two daughters, but they died childless too. Next in line to the throne should have been the descendants of William the Lion's brother David, Earl of Huntingdon (1144-1219). This David had married Maud, daughter of Hugh Kevilioc, 3rd Earl of Chester. They were the parents of seven children, four of whom died young. The descendants of the remaining three would now (1290) claim the throne. The eldest was Margaret, who in 1209 married Alan of Galloway. They had four children, two of whom had descendants: Devorguilla, who might have been the next Queen of Scots had she not died in 1290, at about the same time as the Maid of Norway; and Marian, who married Sir John 'the Red' Comyn, Lord of Badenoch. The second daughter of David and Maud was Isobel, who married Robert de Bruce or Brus, 4th Lord of Annandale (died 1245). The third daughter was Ada, who married Henry de Hastings of Ashill.
Devorguilla was next in line by the strict laws of primogeniture, but those laws often did not hold in Scotland. She had married John de Baliol of Barnard Castle, and they had seven children. The eldest son, Hugh, died young; so did the second, Alexander. The third son (and sixth child) was John de Baliol (1249-1313), who successfully claimed the throne in 1292 but was deposed by Edward I of England, who invaded in support of the Comyn claimant, through whom he hoped to govern Scotland. (John's son Edward was also king from 1332 to 1356 as an English puppet). These Baliols left no descendants.
After Devorguilla's descendants, the next heir by primogeniture were the family of her sister Marian of Galloway and her husband John Comyn (died c1273). They were the parents of John Comyn 'the Black' (died 1313) who married John Baliol's sister Margaret; thus he and his wife both had strong claims to the throne. But John supported Baliol's claim until his submission to the English king in 1296. His son was a different matter. The second John Comyn 'the Red' actively sought the crown for his family, and was murdered in 1306 by his rival Robert the Bruce (see below).
The extinction of this branch of the Comyns made the Bruce family the next legitimate heirs. Isobel of Galloway and Robert de Brus (see above) had a son and two daughters (one daughter left descendants, the FitzMarmaduke family). The son was Sir Robert de Bruce (1210-1295), 5th Lord of Annandale, who tried to claim the throne when the Maid of Norway drowned, but he was already eighty, and his claim was weak anyway. He married Isabel, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford (closely related to both the English and Scottish royal families). They had five children; we are concerned only with the eldest, another Robert de Bruce, 6th Lord of Annandale (1243-1304), who married Marjory, daughter of Neil, Earl of Carrick (a very ancient Celtic family, not of Norman origin like the Baliols or Bruces or Comyns; this later gave the family a special claim on the Highlanders' loyalty; Marjory was also descended from one of Henry I of England's many illegitimate daughters). They had nine children: (1) Robert "the Bruce," King of Scots, see below; (2) Edward Bruce, Earl of Carrick, briefly "King of Ireland," left descendants named Cunningham through a granddaughter; not our ancestor as far as I can tell; (3) Isobel, married Eirik II Magnusson of Norway, left descendants through a daughter Ingeborg; (4) Christian or Christina, died 1357, married Gartney, 7th Earl of Mar, by whom she had (among others) Margaret of Mar, who married Malcolm, 5th Earl of Lennox, an ancestor of both Alexander Magruder and King James VI and I; (5) and Thomas, Mary, Matilda and Margaret, who were either not our ancestors or left no descendants.
The House of Bruce and the Stewarts
King Robert I "the Bruce" (1274-1329) married Isobel, sister of the Gartney mentioned above; see Mar. They had one son, David II (died childless in 1371) and several daughters, including the eldest, Marjory (c1296) who married the High Steward of Scotland, Walter (1292-1325) and was the ancestress of all the Stewart kings of Scots, of England and of the United Kingdom, down to the death of Henry, the Cardinal Duke of York, in 1807. Their only child was Robert II (1316-1390), the only royal Stewart in our ancestry. He married Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan; they were the parents of nine children, and Robert had five more by his second wife, and at least a half dozen more by mistresses. The eldest son, John, became Robert III and is the ancestor of the royal Stewart line. His younger brother Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, married secondly Marietta Keith; one of their daughters was Marjory, who married Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochow, 1st Lord Campbell (died 1453); they were also ancestors of Alexander Magruder.
Robert II's daughter Margaret (also by his first wife Elizabeth Mure) married John, Lord of the Isles, and was the mother of our Cotter ancestor John of the Isles (ancestor of the Macdonnels of Antrim).
