List of Scottish monarchs
Scottish monarchs until 1707

The monarch of Scotland was the head of state of the Kingdom of Scotland. According to the Annals of Ulster, Kenneth I MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín) — styled King of the Picts — was the first king of a unified kingdom that encompassed the majority of what would later become the Kingdom of Alba. The Kingdom of the Picts went through a series of political turmoils including Viking invasions, and the assassination of Áed, King of The Picts in 878CE. The Kingdom of Alba became the kingdom's official name during the reign of Domnall mac Causantín, further evolving into the "Kingdom Of Scotland" in Scots and English by the 11th Century. Scottish kings would eventually style themselves using the term "rex Scottorum", or King of Scots.
After years of being ruled in a personal union, both the kingdoms of Scotland and England were dissolved to form a single unified kingdom, the Kingdom of Great Britain, in 1707. Queen Anne was the last monarch of both the kingdoms of Scotland and England and the first of Great Britain (see Union of the Crowns). Her uncle Charles II was the last monarch to be crowned in Scotland, at Scone in 1651. He had a second coronation in England ten years later.
Heraldry
List of monarchs of Scotland
House of Alpin (848–1034)
The reign of Kenneth MacAlpin begins what is often called the House of Alpin, an entirely modern concept. The descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin were divided into two branches; the crown would alternate between the two, the death of a king from one branch often hastened by war or assassination by a pretender from the other.
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