Person

William Dunbar

c. 1460–c. 1520 · 15th century

William Dunbar was a Scottish poet at the court of James IV, the most accomplished of the makars writing in Scots. His varied output includes The Thrissil and the Rois, celebrating the king's marriage to Margaret Tudor in 1503, comic and satirical verse and the Lament for the Makaris, a meditation on death that names earlier poets. He disappears from the records after 1513.

William Dunbar — Image: Stephencdickson · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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Kingdom of ScotlandImpact

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APA: The Epoch Institute. (2026). William Dunbar. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/william-dunbar
MLA: “William Dunbar.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/william-dunbar. Accessed .
Chicago: The Epoch Institute. “William Dunbar.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/william-dunbar.
Harvard: The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘William Dunbar’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/william-dunbar (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻