Gaining the Kingship of the Picts after the usual welter of blood and fratricidal slaughter, Oengus was a man of desperate ambition, with military skill and political craft to spare.
He made peace with the Angles and attacked the Scots, capturing their citadels and drowning the king of Dalriada in triumphant execution. After ten years of unrelenting war, he broke the Dalriada and made it subject. He then over-reached himself and marched against Strathclyde. His army was all but annihilated, and he died five years later a broken man.
