BOWER, WALTER (c. , Scottish chronicler, was born at Haddington. He was abbot of Inchcolm (in the Firth of Forth) from 1418, and in 1433 was one of the embassy to Paris on the business of the marriage of the king's daughter to the dauphin. He played an important part at the Council of Perth (1432) in the defence of Scottish rights. During his closing years he was engaged on the Scotichronicon, a continuation of the Chronica Gentis Scotorum of Fordun (see FORDUN, JOHN OF).
The task was finished in 1447. In the two remaining years of his life he was engaged on a reduction or "abridgment" of this work, which is known as the Book of Cupar, and is preserved in the Advocates' Library (now National Library of Scotland) Edin burgh (ms. 35. i. 7). Copies of the full text of the Scotichroni con, by different scribes, are extant. There are two in the British Museum, in The Black Book of Paisley, and in Harl. ms. 712; one in the National Library of Scotland, from which Walter Goodall printed his edition (Edinburgh, 1759), and one in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge.