According to tradition, Old Scone was made the capital of the Picts in the 8th century. In 843 Kenneth I MacAlpin, the first king of the Picts and Scots, is said to have brought here the Stone of Destiny (or Stone of Scone). The Scottish kings were crowned on the stone until 1296, when Edward I, king of England, took it to Westminster Abbey in London. The stone remained there for the next seven centuries, apart from a period in 1950 when it was removed by Scottish nationalists and returned to Scotland; it was recovered four months later. In 1996 the stone was again returned to Scotland by an act of the British government. Even without the stone, Scottish sovereigns continued to be crowned at Scone, the last coronation being that of Charles I in 1651 during his exile from England.
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In 844 Kenneth MacAlpine, king of Dalriada, and later king of Scotland, who was a descendant of the Pictish royal family, obtained the crown of Pictland, probably with the assent of the harassed Picts. The united kingdoms, officially known as Alban, comprised all the territory north of the firths of Forth and Clyde. Kenneth and several of his successors vainly attempted to subdue the remaining Northumbrian possessions in Caledonia and, in alliance with Strathclyde, tried to halt the raids of the Vikings. Although, with the help of the Northumbrians, the Vikings were prevented from securing a foothold in Dalriada, they seized various coastal areas in the north, east, and west and occupied the Orkney and Shetland islands and the Hebrides. In later times the rulers of England claimed the Scottish domain on the basis of the aid their forebears had given to Alban.
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