Marmaduke was a kinsman of the Bruces and an example of cross-border links among the English and Scottish nobility. His mother was Lucy de Bruce of Kilton, a descendent of Adam de Brus, lord of Skelton and brother to Robert de Bruce, 1st lord of Annandale. Marmaduke was a vassal of his kinsman Robert de Bruce, father of the victor of Bannockburn, by virtue of the latter's fiefdom in the North Riding.
Marmaduke fought at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where his heroic behaviour was the only bright spot in a day of shame and disaster for the English. He rode with the vanguard across the bridge, where the English cavalry were trapped and slaughtered as they tried to deploy in boggy ground. Marmaduke's son was killed in the fight. His father threw the young man's body over his saddle, cut his way out of the mess and swam his horse across the river. Once on the other side, he advised Earl Warenne to break down the bridge and withdraw, which was done. After the rout, Marmaduke was appointed one of the two English castellans of Stirling Castle. The English were quickly starved out and Marmaduke taken off to captivity at Dumbarton, though he was released in time to serve at Falkirk. At the battle he fought in the Bishop of Durham's bataille and would have been involved in the initial charge against the Scottish schiltrons.
In 1314 Marmaduke had the misfortune to fight for the English at Bannockburn. After the destruction of Edward II's army he spent the night in a hedge, and the following morning wandered about the battlefield in his nightshirt, looking for someone to surrender to. He and Ralph de Monthermer, another English baron, were entertained to breakfast by Bruce before being released without ransom. Marmaduke was clearly a competent and chivalrous character, well-respected by the leading lights on both sides of the border.
Not being an effeminate, cackling psychopath with a taste for legalised rape, he doesn't appear among the English characters in Braveheart.
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