Ayrshire > Volume 1

ROBERT THE BRUCE 99
needed to emphasise the fact that it was a great time
for Ayr.
In these days the Church of St. John's stood in all
its beauty amid the sandhills by the seashore, and
within its walls the Scottish Parliament assembled.
The chief business was urgent enough. As years went,
the King was still a comparatively young man — he was
but forty-one — but the strenuous manner of his life, his
marchings, his wanderings, his nights spent in the open,
and his manifest anxieties had enfeebled his constitution,
and rendered his tenure of life uncertain. At that time
he had only one child, the Princess Marjorie ; and it
was to arrange for the succession to the Crown, in
certain events, that the Scottish Parliament had met.
It was resolved that should the King die without
heirs male, the succession should devolve upon his
brother Edward, the Earl of Carrick, and his heirs male ;
whom failing, upon the Princess Marjorie. In the event
of the heir to the Crown succeeding under age, the Earl
of Moray was to be guardian of the throne and of the
Kingdom ; and, should all the possible or prospective
heirs die, Moray was to administer the affairs of the
realm until the prelates and magnates should declare
who it was that should succeed. In circumstances such
as these, it was of enormous importance who it was that
should wed the Princess Marjorie, and the choice that
fell upon Walter, High Steward of Scotland, was one
that was destined to have incalculable results upon the
history of Scotland, and of Great Britain, for many a
day to come. Unfortunately, the Princess did not long
survive her wedding. On March 2, 1316, in giving
birth to her only child, afterwards Robert II. of Scotland,
she died.
In one of the forays on the Border country, the
activity and resourcefulness of a young Ayrshire knight.
Sir William de Keith of Galston, saved what at one time
threatened to prove a desperate situation. The Scots
had captured Berwick from an English garrison, and,
after the manner of the time, the soldiers had proceeded