King Fergus I (said to have
flourished
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
c. 330 B.C.), is generally identified as the son of Ferchard, Prince of Scots in Ireland and is the first of the line of
Legendary kings of Scotland
The Scottish Renaissance humanist George Buchanan gave a long list of Scottish Kings in his history of Scotland—published in Latin as ''Rerum Scoticarum Historia'' in 1582—most of whom are now considered by historians to be figures of legend, ...
.
The "first king of Scotland", according to the fictitious chronologies of
Boece
Hector Boece (; also spelled Boyce or Boise; 1465–1536), known in Latin as Hector Boecius or Boethius, was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and the first Principal of King's College in Aberdeen, a predecessor of the University of Abe ...
and
Buchanan, is said to have come to Scotland from Ireland about 330 B.C. to assist the Scots already settled in Scotland against the joint attack of the
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from ea ...
and
Britons
British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mod ...
. After succeeding in this he is further said to have gone back to Ireland to quell disturbances which had arisen in his absence, and to have been drowned in the passage off the port which got the name of
Carrickfergus
Carrickfergus ( , meaning " Fergus' rock") is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It sits on the north shore of Belfast Lough, from Belfast. The town had a population of 27,998 at the 2011 Census. It is County Antrim's oldest t ...
from him. According to
Fordoun
Fordoun ( gd, Fordun) (Pronounced "For-Dun") is a parish and village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Fothirdun (possibly "the lower place"), as it was historically known, was an important area in the Howe of the Mearns. Fordoun and Auchenblae, to ...
,
Wyntoun
Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a Canon (priest), canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and, later, a canon of St. Andrews.
Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled met ...
, and most of the earlier genealogical lists of Scottish kings, the same account is given of the settlement of the Scots from Ireland by a King Fergus, son of Ferchard. According to others of the lists, Ferchard or Feardach, the father of Fergus, was the first and Fergus the second king. There follows a series of thirty-nine or forty-five kings between Fergus I and
Fergus II, son of Earc. The critical insight of Father
Innes demolished these fabulous lists of kings, and put the chronology of Scottish history on a sound foundation, by his proof that Fergus II, son of Earc, who came to Scotland about the end of the fifth century A.D., was in reality the first
Dál Riata
Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is now ...
king in Scotland. Innes's results have been adopted by subsequent historians.
The invention and persistent acceptance during so many centuries, from the twelfth to the eighteenth, of a fabulous series of kings is, though not unparalleled, a singular specimen of the genealogical myth which flatters the vanity of nations as of families. It is supposed to have been due to the desire to establish a higher antiquity for the Scottish peoplehood, royal line, and church, than could be claimed for the Irish or English. It is of course not inconsistent with the rectified chronology of Innes that even prior to 503 A.D. there may have been
Celts
The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
of the Scottic culture settled in Scotland. Scots had aided the Picts in opposing the
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
in the fourth century, and
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
evidently inclines to an earlier date for the Scottish settlement. All that can be safely said is that there is no proof of any Dál Riata kingdom till the commencement of the sixth century, and that the account given by Boece and Buchanan of Fergus, the son of Ferchard, and his successors, is as devoid of historical foundation as the statement that "his coming into
Albion
Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...
was at the time when
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
took
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
, about 330 years before the birth of Christ".
Buchanan, from whom this sentence is quoted, attempts to save his own credit by prefixing the words "historians say that", but by adopting it he became himself one of these historians, and gave the fabulous narrative a prolonged existence. Father Innes presses somewhat hardly on Boece, for the origin of this narrative dates back at least as early as the twelfth century, but the special blame undoubtedly attaches to Boece and still more to Buchanan that they clothed the dry list of names with characters, and invented events or incidents which gave the narrative more of the semblance of history.
A portrait of Fergus I by Dutch painter
Jacob de Wet II
Jacob Jacobsz de Wet II (1641, Haarlem – 1697, Amsterdam), also known as James de Witt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter known for a series of 110 portraits of Scottish monarchs, many of them mythical, produced for the Palace of Holyroodhous ...
, who painted many mythical Scottish kings, hangs in the Great Gallery of
Holyrood Palace
The Palace of Holyroodhouse ( or ), commonly referred to as Holyrood Palace or Holyroodhouse, is the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinbu ...
. An engraving of Fergus and his
genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
is housed in the
National Portrait Gallery, London
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...
.
See also
*
Goídel Glas
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fergus I
Mythological kings
Scottish mythology