Walter Kennedy Biography

Walter Kennedy (ca. 1455 – 1518?) was a Scottish makar associated with the renaissance court of James IV. He is perhaps best known as the defendant against William Dunbar in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie, but his surviving works clearly show him to have been an accomplished "master" in many genres. It is likely that a significant body of poetry by him has been lost.

His most impressive surviving poem is The Passioun.

Kennedy was born into the Scottish Clan Kennedy, a principal aristocratic family in South Ayrshire. This was part of the Galloway Gàidhealtachd, a strong Gaelic-speaking area of the Scottish Lowlands. He was almost certain to have been a native speaker of the language. Educated at the University of Glasgow, he graduated as MA in 1478.

As great-grandson of Robert III and nephew of James Kennedy, bishop of St Andrews, Kennedy would have been very well-connected in the royal court. He possessed estates in both Carrick and Galloway and is known to have held ecclesiastical posts such as rector of Douglas and canon of Glasgow Cathedral although records show that his right to hold at least one of his posts was contested by the Holy See in Rome.

Although Kennedy's surviving works are written in Middle Scots he may also have composed in Gaelic. In the Flyting, for instance, Dunbar makes big play of Kennedy's Carrick roots (albeit in the rankly insulting terms that are part of the genre) and strongly associates him with Erschry, which meant in other words the bardic tradition. By this time, the term Irish in Scotland signified Gaelic generally:

Sic eloquence as thay in Erschry use,

In sic is sett thy thraward appetyte.

Thow hes full littill feill of fair indyte.

I tak on me, ane pair of Lowthiane hippis

Sall fairar Inglis mak and mair perfyte

Than thow can blabbar with thy Carrik lippis.

Such eloquence as they in Irishry [Gaeldom] use

Is what defines your perverse taste.

You have very small aptitude for good verse-making.

I'll wager, a pair of Lothian hips

Shall fairer English [Lowland Scots] make and more polished

Than thou can blabber with thy Carrick lips.

Kennedy also appears at the end of Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris (c.1505) where he is described as being close to death (in poynt of dede) though there is no evidence that he died at this date.