Bower, or BOWMAKER, WALTER

Bower, or BOWMAKER, WALTER, frequently spoken of as 'the continuator of Fordun,' completed the history of Scotland which is known as the Scotichronicon, and which was begun by Fordun. Not much is known of Bower's personal history. We know from his own statement that he was born in 1385; and in the British Museum MS. of the Scotichronicon—which MS. is known as The Black Book of Paisley—he is spoken of as 'the venerable father in Christ, Walter Bower, Abbot of the Monastery of St Columba.' This monastery was situated on the island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth. He died in 1449. Bower has been too much overlooked as one of the authors of the Scotichronicon, which is frequently quoted as if Fordun wrote the whole of it, whereas his share of the work, with the exception of certain further materials which he had collected, ends at the close of Book V. with the death of David I. (1153). Bower continued the history to the death of James I. (1437), and as he was contemporary with the later events which he describes, he is for this period entitled to be regarded as an independent historian. Like Fordun, he wrote in Latin. The only edition of his history is that printed by Walter Goodall, Edinburgh, in 1759, and no complete translation of it has yet appeared.