62 The Scalacronica. 



This plot was discovered by Muryogh of Menteith, Avho was 

 afterwards Earl of that place. He had lived a long time in 

 England, in the King's service. For revealing this plot he went 

 to the Castle and became Earl of Menteith, by the resignation 

 of his niece, his eldest brother's daughter. After his death she 

 became Countess again. The King of England meddled no more 

 with Scotland; so that by his inactivity he lost all that his father 

 had gained, and also many of his fortresses within the marches of 

 England as well as all the plain of Northumberland. The Scots 

 became so confident that they subdued the Marches of England 

 and dismantled the Castles of Werk and Herbotle, the English 

 scarcely daring to await them. They subdued the whole of 

 Northumberland through the foul treacher}' of the false men of 

 the country. They found hardly any one to oppose them, except 

 at Xorham, where a knight, Thomas de Gray, and his personal 

 friends formed the garrison. It would be too prolix a matter 

 to describe all the skirmishes, deeds of arms, sufferings from 

 lack of victuals, and the sieges in which he was engaged during 

 the eleven years that he remained there in times so bad and so 

 unfortunate to the English. Every day he had to devise fresh 

 means to keep the Castle. After the town of Berwick had been 

 betrayed from the hands of the English, the Scots were evidently 

 so elated and presumptuous that they took hardly any account of 

 the English, who did not interfere in the war, but allowed it to 

 cease. At this time a great fea.st was being held by the lords 

 and ladies of the county of Lincoln. A page gaily brought a 

 helmet of war with a golden crest to William Marnsyoun, a 

 Knight, with a letter from his lady, bidding him go to the most 

 perilous place in Great Britain and make this helmet famous. It 

 was decided there by the Knights that he should go to Xorham, 

 as the most perilous place in the country and fullest of adventures. 

 So the said William set out to Norham. Within the fourth day 

 after his starting. Sir Alexander de Moubray. the brother of Sir 

 Philip de Moubray, then Warden of Berwick, came before the 

 Castle of Xorham with the prime chivalry of the Marches of 

 Scotland. He haked at the hour of noon before the Castle with/ 

 more than eight score men-at-arms. The attack on the Castle 

 began when the men were at dinner. Thomas de Gray, the 

 warden of the Castle, went out to the barrier with his garrison, 

 and saw that the enemy had halted near in battle array. He 



