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WALTER BOWER (1385-1449)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 343 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WALTER See also:BOWER (1385-1449)  , Scottish chronicler, was See also:born about 1385 at See also:Haddington . He was See also:abbot of Inchcolm (in the See also:Firth of Forth) from 1418, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the See also:ransom of See also:James I., See also:king of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 one of the See also:embassy to See also:Paris on the business of the See also:marriage of the king's daughter to the dauphin . He played an important See also:part at the See also:council of See also:Perth (1432) in the See also:defence of Scottish rights . During his closing years he was engaged on his See also:work the Scotichronicon, on which his reputation now chiefly rests . This work, undertaken in 1440 by See also:desire of a See also:neighbour, See also:Sir See also:David See also:Stewart of Rosyth, was a continuation of the Chronica Gentis Scotorum of See also:Fordun . The completed work, in its See also:original See also:form, consisted of sixteen books, of which the first five and a portion of the See also:sixth (to 1163) are Fordun's—or mainly his, for See also:Bower added to them at places . In the later books, down to the reign of See also:Robert I . (1371), he was aided by Fordun's Gesta Annalia, but from that point to the See also:close the work is original and of contemporary importance, especially for James I., with whose See also:death it ends . The task was finished in 1447 . In the two remaining years of his See also:life he was engaged on a reduction or " abridgment " of this work, which is known as the See also:Book of See also:Cupar, and is preserved in the See also:Advocates' library, See also:Edinburgh (MS . 35 . I .

7) . Other abridgments, not by Bower, were made about the same See also:

time, one about 1450 (perhaps by See also:Patrick See also:Russell, a Carthusian of Perth) preserved in the Advocates' library (MS . 35 . 6 . 7) and another in 1461 by an unknown writer, also preserved in the same collection (MS . 35 . 5 . 2) . Copies of the full See also:text of the Scotichronicon, by different See also:scribes, are extant . There are two in the See also:British Museum, in The See also:Black Book of See also:Paisley, and in Harl . MS . 712; one in the Advocates' library, from which See also:Walter Goodall printed his edition (Edin., 1759), and one in the library of Corpus Christi, See also:Cambridge .

Goodall's is the only See also:

complete See also:modern edition of Bower's text . See also W . F . See also:Skene's edition of Fordun in the See also:series of Historians of See also:Scotland (1871) . See also:Personal references are to be found in the See also:Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, iii. and iv . The best See also:recent See also:account is that by T . A . See also:Archer in the See also:Diet. of Nat . Biog .

End of Article: WALTER BOWER (1385-1449)
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SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN (1821—1849)
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JAMES SCOTT BOWERBANK (1797-1877)

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