A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen/Bower, Walter

BOWER, Walter, an historical writer of the fifteenth century, was born at Haddington, in 1385. At the age of eighteen, he assumed the religious habit; and after finishing his philosophical and theological studies, visited Paris in order to study the laws. Having returned to his native country, he was unanimously elected Abbot of St Colm, in the year 1418. After the death of Fordoun, the historian, (see that article,) he was requested, by Sir David Stewart of Rossyth, to undertake the completion of the Scotichronicon, or Chronicles of Scotland, which had been brought up by the above writer only to the 23d chapter of the fifth book. In transcribing the part written by Fordoun, Bower inserted large interpolations. He completed the work in sixteen books, which brought the narrative to the death of James the First; and he is said to have been much indebted for materials to the previous labours of Fordoun. Bower, like Fordoun, wrote in a scholastic and barbarous Latin; and their work, though it must be considered as one of the great fountains of early Scottish history, is characterised by few of the essential qualities of that kind of composition.