867 he was made governor
of New Zealand, in which position he was successful in reconciling the
Maoris to the English rule, and saw the end of the struggle between the
colonists and the natives. Transferred to Victoria in 1872, Bowen
endeavoured to reduce the expenses of the colony, and in 1879 became
governor of Mauritius. His last official position was that of governor
of Hong-Kong, which he held from 1882 to 1887. He was made a K.C.M.G. in
1856, a privy councillor in 1886, and received honorary degrees from
both Oxford and Cambridge. In December 1887 he was appointed chief of
the royal commission which was sent to Malta with regard to the new
constitution for the island, and all the recommendations made by him
were adopted. He died at Brighton on the 21st of February 1899, having
been married twice, and having had a family of one son and four
daughters. Bowen wrote _Ithaca in 1850_ (London, 1854), translated into
Greek in 1859; and _Mount Athos, Thessaly and Epirus_ (London, 1852);
and he was the author of Murray's _Handbook for Greece_ (London, 1854).

A selection of his letters and despatches, _Thirty Years of Colonial
Government_ (London, 1889), was edited by S. Lane-Poole.

BOWER, WALTER (1385-1449), Scottish chronicler, was born about 1385 at
Haddington. He was abbot of Inchcolm (in the Firth of Forth) from 1418,
was one of the commissioners for the collection of the ransom of James
I., king of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 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 his work the _Scotichronicon_, on which his reputation now chiefly
rests. This work, undertaken in 1440 by desire of a neighbour, Sir David
Stewart of Rosyth, was a continuation of the _Chronica Gentis Scotorum_
of Fordun. The completed work, in its original form, consisted of
sixteen books, of which the first five and a portion of the sixth (to
1163) are Fordun's--or mainly his, for Bower added to them at places. In
the later books, down to the reign of Robert I. (1371), he was aided by
Fordun's _Gesta Annalia_, but from that point to the close the work is
original and of contemporary importance, especially for James I., with
whose death it ends. The task was finished in 1447. In the two remaining
years of his life he was engaged on a reductio