Ayrshire > Volume 1

ioo HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
to loot the town. Their dispersion did not escape the
notice of the governor of the castle, who ordered an
immediate sortie. Sir William de Keith at once rode
through the town, and recalled the men to their standards,
with the result that the English were driven back, and
were finally, though not until they had sustained a siege
of sixteen weeks, compelled to surrender through famine.
Sir William lived to acquire considerable renown in these
wars. He accompanied Douglas to Spain in 1330, when
that gallant knight was on his way to Jerusalem with
the heart of the Bruce, commanded at Berwick when
that town was taken by the English in 1333, was
ambassador to England in 1335, and was killed at the
siege of Stirling the following year.
It was on June 7, 1329, that King Robert died at
Cardross. His last injunction to his old comrade, Sir
James Douglas, is well remembered : — " I wish as soon
as I be dead that my heart be taken out of my body and
embalmed, and that you convey it to the holy sepulchre
where our Lord lay, and present it there, seeing my body
cannot go thither. And, wherever you come, let it be
known that you carry with you the heart of King Robert
of Scotland, at his own instance and desire, to be
presented at the holy sepulchre." How Sir James set
forth to keep the vow that he had vowed, how Bruce' s
body was laid to rest in Dunfermline, how Douglas fell
in Spain in battle with the Moors, and how the heart of
King Robert was brought back to Scotland and buried
in Melrose Abbey — these things pertain to the pathetic
incidents of these trying days of battle and of high
emprise.
That the Bruce continued through life to have a
warm side for Carrick is evident from the substantial
recognition he offered to Crossraguel Abbey and its
Benedictines. At Berwick, June 4, 1324, he granted
to the abbot and monks, by charter, his whole lands of
Dungrelach, " to be held in pure and perpetual alms-gift
for the weal of his soul, and of the souls of all his ancestors
and successors.'-' At Cambuskenneth, July 20, 1327,