The Scalacronica is the earliest surviving chronicle written by a member of the English laity after the Conquest and has not been fully edited or translated for almost a century. While this alone would make Andy King's edition important, it also boasts an author, Northumbrian noble Sir Thomas Gray, who was a participant in the Scottish and French wars of the fourteenth century. Both he and his father were constables of Norham castle (just south of the Tweed), and the author accompanied Edward the Black Prince to France in 1359, and so Gray's already impressive variety of familiar sources (such as Brut, Historia Ecclesiastica, and Historia Aurea) is augmented by personal experience and eyewitness description. In addition, Gray began writing the chronicle while a prisoner of the Scots in 1355–56 and employed several Scottish sources no longer extant. It is a great benefit that this unique text is now made widely available.

King provides a newly edited Anglo-Norman text and facing page English translation for the final portion of Gray's text, as part of a larger effort by the University of Durham's History Department to produce a new edition and translation of the entire Scalacronica, which begins at biblical creation. Chronicling the years 1272–1363 and the reigns of Edwards I, II, and III, this volume includes all the events for which Gray had his own or his father's firsthand experience. Therefore, there are eyewitness accounts of the battle of Bannockburn and the Black Prince's 1359–60 French campaign. Gray was a soldier, and his perspective of his era is almost entirely occupied with military history; the plagues of 1349 and 1361 garner only a few lines each. The focus of the chronicle follows the Grays’ careers: the earlier part of the history (chaps. 32–46) is primarily occupied with the Scottish wars, while the later part (chaps. 47–57) reports the campaigns of Edward III and the Black Prince in France. However, even in this latter section, Scotland is never far removed. After reporting the victory of Edward the Black Prince at Poitiers, Gray returns immediately to the movements of Lord Douglas and the machinations of King David II. Much of the value of Gray's chronicle results from just this kind of juxtaposition. By shifting from one geographic area (and source) to another, Gray is able to communicate the nearly impossible diplomatic and military balancing act of late medieval politics. For instance, the history of Edward II is not dominated by Piers Gaveston, for he is only one in a long list of nobles, magnates, and princes whom Edward is incapable of manipulating, pacifying, or defeating in battle. While Gray's careful descriptions of genealogy, alliance, and the eternal shifting of the borders might not make for beautiful prose, they provide a powerful sense of the rule of chance and fortune. Gray rarely posits any kind of divine will in military victory or philosophizes about justice, and considering the regularity with which conquered lands are reconquered, kings are made prisoners, and noblemen break oaths and change sides, it is no wonder. The Scalacronica presents warfare as interminable and relentless; in one of the few moments of commentary, Gray notes that, “though, rationally, peace should be everything,” he finds few situations in his time in which such rationality supersedes the obligation for princes and nobles to defend their rights and honor (193).

Gray does not omit his own family's honor, and included among the deeds of kings and magnates are the deeds of the Grays themselves. He celebrates the Grays’ unvarying dedication to the King of England as well as their bravery (and success) in defending Norham. The accounts of Gray the elder's close escape from death at the hands of William Wallace (stripped and unconscious, Gray is kept alive by the warmth of nearby burning houses) and at the siege of Stirling castle (struck in the head by a bolt, he regains consciousness just as he is about to be buried) are reported with no less approbation than the deeds of much greater magnates. It is unfortunate that the description of the author's capture and imprisonment by the Scots was included in several folios lost from the sole surviving manuscript.

The Anglo-Norman text of the Scalacronica was last published in 1836, edited by Joseph Stevenson; the last full translation of the portion covering 1272–1363 was published in 1907 and lacks a modern critical apparatus. Both texts are extremely difficult to find, and King's edition is a welcome remedy. King produces an almost word-for-word translation of the Anglo-Norman, explaining that it “is intended to help the reader to follow the French text … inevitably at the cost of fluency and readability” (lxii). King carefully notes the rare occasions in which idiom and scribal error force him to deviate from the French, and his commitment to preserving word order sometimes makes the translation tedious. King includes the prologue (Gray's vision of the Sybil and a mystical ladder) as well as an appendix consisting of two letters relating to Gray's career. For the folios missing from the manuscript, King substitutes John Leland's sixteenth-century abstract, with its original spelling. King's extensive notes explain historical and geographic context and correct Gray's numerous chronological errors. The critical introduction provides an abundance of biographical and textual information and lays the groundwork for a longer critical assessment of Gray's ability as a writer and interpreter of history. The Scalacronica is a text that deserves more scholarly attention, and this edition is an excellent beginning.