The monarch of Scotland was the
head of state of the
Kingdom of Scotland. According to tradition, the first King of Scots was
Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín), who founded the
state in 843, although this is no longer taken seriously by historians. The distinction between the Kingdom of Alba/Scotland and the Kingdom of the Picts is rather the product of later medieval myth and confusion from a change in nomenclature, i.e. Rex Pictorum (King of the Picts) becomes ri Alban (King of Alba) under
Donald II when annals switched from
Latin to vernacular around the end of the 9th century, by which time the word Alba in
Gaelic had come to refer to the Kingdom of the Picts rather than
Britain (its older meaning).
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