The 'Chronicle of Melrose' (manuscript: Cotton Faustina B ix) begins in 731, and comes to an abrupt, mid sentence, end during an entry dated 1270. From 1172, successive changes of handwriting suggest that it was, more or less, a contemporary narrative. Up to around 1136 (when Melrose Abbey was re-founded), however, the Chronicle is clearly based on English sources. It was probably between 1240 and 1264 (according to Marjorie O. Anderson, in 'Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland') that someone, at Melrose, incorporated a source known as the 'Verse Chronicle' - a rendition of a Scottish king list, starting with Kenneth mac Alpin, complete with chronicle notes, in Latin elegiac couplets. This he copied, piecemeal, into margins and spaces of the existing 'Chronicle of Melrose'. In terms of manuscript date, it is the earliest surviving Scottish king list.