A Dictionary of British and Irish History

N

NAITON SON OF DER‐ILEI

(fl. from 707; d. 732, probably in N Britain). Naiton succeeded his brother BRIDEI SON OF DER‐ILEI as king of FORTRIU and the other Pictish areas in 707. His early years as king were troubled, partly because of opposition to IONA’s new supremacy. That was addressed in (probably) 715, when, following advice from NORTHUMBRIA, he instituted reforms similar to those of the synod of WHITBY (660), relating particularly to the dating of Easter and the tonsure – thus aligning the far N of Britain with the Roman Church. Subsequently, new Easter tables were distributed, and Northumbrian stonemasons built a stone‐and‐mortar church dedicated to St Peter. Then, in 717, Naiton expelled clergy associated with Iona – probably conservative opponents of the reforms – from Pictland, which in effect ended Iona’s ecclesiastical supremacy. Thereafter his reign seems to have been uneventful, and when he abdicated and entered a monastery in 724 that was probably due to his age (55–60?), not coercion. But internal warfare broke out, and in 729 the eventual victor, ONUIST SON OF VURGUIST, restored him as king. He ruled until his death in 732, whereupon Onuist succeeded. See also PICTS; EASTER CONTROVERSY.

NAPOLEONIC WARS

see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC WARS, BRITISH INVOLVEMENT

NATAL

A former British colony in southern Africa. Great Britain annexed Natal, a territory recently occupied by Boers (Calvinist farmers), to CAPE COLONY in 1843 and made it a separate