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A Scottish tradition, perhaps ill-founded but none the less interesting, tells us that kingship among the Picts did not pass from father to son, but from a deceased king to the son of a sister - his nephew, or to the son of his mother - his brother. In other words, though men ruled in Pictland, their eligibility to rule depended upon their female parentage. Such a custom, though exceedingly uncommon, was not unknown elsewhere; and it is not to be dismissed as absurd. On the contrary, only by some such procedure could kingship be kept, beyond any shadow of doubt, in a royal line. There is, after all, never any possible doubt as to the identity of a child's mother, whereas the identity of the other parent has to be taken on trust.

Certainly the passing of the crown back and forth seems more regular than would justify the alternative explanation of feud and murder.

At all events, in 843 Kenneth emerges as first beyond doubt king of a united Scottish/Pictish kingdom, Alba, which has been described as 'the only kingdom of significance in the otherwise fragmented Celtic world.'

Just as we must doubt that the union of Picts and Scots was effected in such a tidy, swift fashion, so also the traditional explanation as to how this new kingdom came to absorb lands to the south, as far as the present Scottish border, is not quite the whole story.

In the east, south of the Forth, lay territory under the control in theory of the English Kings of Bernicia, later part of the powerful kingdom of Northumbria. But these lands between Tweed and Forth, were at the outer limits of Northumbrian power. That power was in any case weakened from time to time by wars and divisions among the English kingdoms and principalities. As a result kings of Scots, from time to time, were able to exercise power and authority in the area which was beginning to be known by its own particular name - Lothian. In 1018 England, which had achieved a degree of internal unity but had then suffered the conquest of its northern half by the Danes, found itself at a disadvantage when the Scottish king Malcolm II, took his army across the Tweed and defeated the army which the English from the Tyne and Tees valleys mustered against him. This Battle of Carham proved more final than might have been expected, and the eastern border between England and its northern neighbour, remains today, along the River Tweed. In the west, the kings of Alba came to exercise increasing domination over the British kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria. It seems to have been the custom for the kings of Alba to appoint their chosen successors to be, in title, kings of Strathclyde, but in a position of dependence upon the larger kingdom. Malcolm II appointed his grandson, Duncan, King of Strathclyde, but Duncan, largely by chance, was also the sole real contender for the crown of his grandfather. So, in 1034, Duncan, King of Strathclyde, inherited the throne of the larger kingdom also, and the ancient British kingdom was incorporated into a new united monarchy with its border placed at least as far south as the Solway.