bout 1380;
while Walter Bower, the principal continuator of Fordun's history, was
Abbot of Inchcolm from 1418 to the date of his death in 1449.

In the work known under the title of _Extracta e Variis Cronicis
Scocie_,[58] there is an account of Alexander's fortuitous visit to
Inchcolm, exactly similar to the above, but in an abridged form. Mr.
Tytler, in his _History of Scotland_,[59] supposes the _Extracta_ to
have been written posterior to the time of Fordun, and prior to the date
of Bower's _Continuation of the Scotichronicon_,--a conjecture which one
or more passages in the work entirely disprove.[60] If the opinion of
Mr. Tytler had been correct, it would have been important as a proof
that the story of the royal adventure of Alexander upon Inchcolm was
written by Fordun, and not by Bower, inasmuch as the two accounts in the
_Scotichronicon_ and in the _Extracta_ are on this, as on most other
points, very similar, the _Extracta_ being merely somewhat curtailed. As
evidence of this remark, let me here cite the original words of the
_Extracta_:--

"Emonia insula seu monasterium, nunc Sancti Columbe de Emonia, per
dictum regem fundatur circa annum Domini millesimum vigesimum quartum
miraculose. Nam cum idem nobilis rex transitum faciens per Passagium
Regine, exorta tempestas valida, flante Africo, ratem cum naucleris,
vix vita comite, compulit applicare ad insulam Emoniam, ubi tunc
degebat quidam heremita insulanus, qui seruicio Sancti Columbe
deditus, ad quamdam inibi capellulam tenui victu, utpote lacte vnius
vacce et conchis ac pisiculis marinis contentatus, sedule se dedit,
de quibus cibariis rex cum suis, tribus diebus, vento compellente,
reficitur. Et quia Sanctum Columbam a juventute dilexit, in periculo
maris, ut predicitur, positus, vouit se, si ad prefatam insulam
veheretur incolumis, aliquid memoria dignum ibidem facere, et sic
monasterium ibidem construxit canonicorum, et dotauit."[61]

I shall content myself with citing from our older Scottish historians
one more account of Alexander's adventure upon Inchcolm--namely, that
given by Hector Boece, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, in his
_Scotorum Historia_, a work written during the reign of James V., and
first published in 1526. In this work, after alluding to the foundation
of the Abbey of Scone, Boece proceeds to state that--(to quote the
translation of the passage as given by Bellenden)--"Nocht long efter