BOWER, WALTER

born 1385, Haddington, Lothian, Scot. died 1449 author of the Scotichronicon, the first connected history of Scotland, which expands and continues the work of John of Fordun. Bower probably entered the church at St. Andrews and became abbot of Inchcolm, an island in the Firth of Forth, in 1417, after which he was named in papal and royal records, notably as an unsuccessful claimant of the abbacy of Holyrood (1420), an opponent of peace with England (1432), and an auditor for Parliament. Begun in 1441, the Scotichronicon was finished in 1447, the last date it mentions. In addition to Fordun's work, Bower relied upon the chronicles of Andrew of Wyntoun. First printed in 1722 from late-15th-century manuscripts, the Scotichronicon exists in several copies, that at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, being apparently the author's manuscript. It was edited and translated by W.F. Skene in his Historians of Scotland, vol. 1 and 4 (187172).