Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/319

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 * [[File:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - Sir Walter the Steward.png|frameless|125px]] || [[File:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - Sir Thomas Gray of Hetoun.png|frameless|125px]]
 * Sir Walter the Steward. || Sir Thomas Gray of Hetoun.
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 * Sir Walter the Steward. || Sir Thomas Gray of Hetoun.
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INVASION AND COUNTER-INVASION.

A.D. 1319-1322.

ORHAM Castle, a border fortress of great strength and importance on the south bank of the Tweed, was held for the English during eleven stormy years by Sir Thomas Gray of Heton. The son of that knight tells us, in his Scalacronica, that it would be tedious to recount all the exploits and hardships of which it was the scene. The stories he does permit himself to tell are of a sort that make one regret his reticence. Here is one of them.

Sir William Marmion, a knight of Lincolnshire, was feasting with some other knights and ladies, when there was brought to him from his lady-love a gilt helmet and crest, together with her commands that he should take her gift to the most perilous place in Britain, and there make it famous. It was decided by the company present, to whom Marmion referred the question, that there was no place like 263