William Fowler (c. 1560 – 1612) was a Scottish poet or makar (royal bard), writer, courtier and translator.
Early life William Fowler was the son of Janet Fockart and William Fowler, a well-connected Edinburgh merchant burgess who sold a variety of fine fabrics.Margaret H. B. Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (Edinburgh, 1987), p. 91: Michael Pearce, 'Maskerye Claythis for James VI and Anna of Denmark', Medieval English Theatre 43, 2021 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), p. 113. His father was a treasurer of the French revenues of Mary, Queen of Scots and made payments for her royal guard. He sent £500 Scots to Mary when she was at Perth in April 1564.Michael Pearce, "Account of George Wishart of Drymme", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, 17 (Edinburgh: SHS, 2025), p. 15.William Craigie, Works of William Fowler, 3 (Edinburgh: STS, 1940), p. x.
William Fowler, the poet, graduated from St Leonard's College, St Andrews in 1578. By 1581 he was in Paris studying civil law. At this time he published An ansvver to the calumnious letter and erroneous propositions of an apostat named M. Io. Hammiltoun a pamphlet criticising John Hamilton and other Catholics in Scotland, who he claimed had driven him from that country. In response, two Scottish Catholics, Hamilton and Hay, manhandled him and dragged him through the streets to the Collège de Navarre.
London and secret correspondence Following his return to Scotland, he visited London to retrieve some money owed to his father by Mary, Queen of Scots. Here he frequently visited the house of Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de Mauvissiere, where he met Giordano Bruno, currently staying there. He was soon recruited by Francis Walsingham to act as a spy until 1583,Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the policy of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 2 (Archon, 1967), pp. 376–377, 379. by which time he felt his consorting with French Catholics was compromising his religious integrity. Castelnau showed some of Mary's letters to Fowler, and he described them to Walsingham. Fowler also informed on John Mosman, a goldsmith who was carrying Mary's letters.William K. Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1910), pp. 481 no. 495, 688-689 no. 724.
Fowler's letters to Walsingham mention his widowed mother's concern at his role and intrigues in London and her moneylending activities, and information he obtained in January 1583 from the exiled Scottish Duke of Lennox.Calendar of State Papers, Scotland: volume 6: 1581-83 (Edinburgh, 1910), 262-3, 265-6, 480 no. 495. The Duke mentioned to Fowler that he recalled staying with his mother when he came to Edinburgh in 1579.Margaret Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (James Thin, 1987), p. 99.
Coded letters mentioning Mary's distrust of Fowler were discovered in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and deciphered in 2023.George Lasry, Norbert Biermann, Satoshi Tomokiyo, "Deciphering Mary Stuart's lost letters from 1578-1584", Cryptologia, 47:2 (February 2023), pp. 57, 70, 72, 79. In May 1583, while William was intriguing in London, his sister Susannah Fowler married John Drummond the king's doorkeeper and son of Robert Drummond of Carnock, their son was the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden.
A Career at Court In September 1584, he met the German traveller Lupold von Wedel in Edinburgh and told him that he been teaching King James the art of memory.Gottfied von Bülow, 'Journey Through England and Scotland made by Lupold von Wedel in the years 1584 and 1585', in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 9 (London, 1895), p. 247. Fowler later noted that while he was teaching James the art of memory, the king taught him poetry and imprese or emblems.Henry Meikle, Works of William Fowler, vol. 3 (STS, Edinburgh, 1940), p. xix fn. 4.
Fowler was part of a literary circle around King James which has become known as the "Castalian Band" and included Alexander Montgomerie, John Stewart of Baldynneis, Alexander Hume, Thomas and Robert Hudson, and James VI himself. In 1591 Fowler contributed a prefatory sonnet To the Only Royal Poet to James VI's poem the Furies, printed in His Majesties Poeticall Exercises;James VI, His Majesties Poeticall Exercises (Edinburgh, Robert Waldegrave, 1591) (p. 7) while James, in return, commended, in verse, Fowler's Triumphs of Petrarke.
Fowler dedicated his Triumphs to Jean Fleming, wife of the Chancellor, John Maitland of Thirlestane. Mary Beaton, Lady Boyne the former companion of Mary, Queen of Scots, and "E. D.", probably Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Samuel Cockburn of Temple-Hall,Gordon MacGregor, 'Cockburn of Ormiston', Red Book of Scotland, vol. 3 (2020), pp. 78-9. contributed sonnets in praise of the author. Fowler dedicated a translation from Ariosto to Mary Beaton, who was a member of his literary circle.Kate McClune, "John Stewart's Roland Furios", Fresche Fontanis: Studies in the Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Scotland (Cambridge Scholars, 2013), p. 343 fn. 16.Louis Auguste Barbé, In Byways of Scottish History (London, 1912), p. 65 He wrote an epitaph for Elizabeth Douglas, Samuel Cockburn's wife, who died in 1594.Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2017), pp. 84-87.
Secretary to the queen In 1589, he was appointed to the diplomatic mission to Denmark to arrange the marriage of James VI to Anne of Denmark with John Skene. Fowler was a paid negotiator for the city of Edinburgh, charged with raising the profile of the burgh.John Marwick, Extracts from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), pp. 543-4: Clare McManus, 'Marriage and the Performance of the Romance Quest: Anne of Denmark and the Stirling Baptismal Ceremonies for Prince Henry', in L.A.J.R. Houwen, A.A. MacDonald, S.L. Mapstone, Peeters, A Palace in the Wild: Essays on Vernacular Culture and Humanism in Late-Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (Leuven, 2000), p. 177. John Craig wrote to Tycho Brahe to introduce the members of this embassy. He included Fowler's name in a postscript,Commercium litterarium clarorum virorum, 1, pp. 8-11 saying he was a young man worthy of friendship.Allison L. Steenson, The Hawthorden Manuscripts (Routledge, 2011), pp. 35–36: Patrick Fraser Tytler, An Account of the Life and Writings of Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton (Edinburgh, 1823), p. 246.
Fowler wrote from Denmark about the progress of the marriage negotiations to the English ambassador in Scotland William Ashby who forwarded his letter to William Cecil.Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times: A Series of Original Letters, vol. 2 (London, 1838), p. 392, misdated by Wright to 1588.
King James sailed to Norway to meet his bride. On 28 November 1589, at Oslo, Fowler was appointed private secretary and Master of Requests to Anne of Denmark. He retained these positions when Anne went to England.Allison L. Steenson, The Hawthornden Manuscripts of William Fowler (Routledge, 2021), 36: National Records of Scotland, Privy Seal Register, PS1/66 f78r.
Fowler returned to Scotland before James VI, and planned to rejoin the royal party in Denmark in April 1590.Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh: 1589-1603, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 17. The English diplomat in Edinburgh Robert Bowes reported to Burghley and Walsingham that Fowler had obtained two letters in cipher, one to the Earl of Erroll and the other mysteriously addressed to "Assuerus the Painter". Fowler gave the letters to the Provost of Edinburgh, Sir John Arnot to show them to the Privy Council. The Earl of Bothwell said the letters meant nothing to him, Bowes thought they looked like letters he had previously seen which referred to alleged Catholic and Spanish plots.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 257, 264-5.
Fowler left Scotland for a while on 17 September 1591 with the Laird of Buccleuch, and seems to have attended the University of Padua.Henry Meikle, Works of William Fowler, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1914), pp. xxv, cxxv. At this time Giacomo Castelvetro, an Italian writer, served James VI and Anne of Denmark as a language tutor and secretary. He lodged at Janet Fockart's house where the ambassador Robert Bowes stayed, and Bowes's wife made friends with his wife, Isotta de Canonici, the widow of Thomas Erastus.Henry Meikle, Works of William Fowler, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1914), pp. cxxvi, cxxviii, cxxx, citing British Library Harley 7004.
Fowler taught the queen the art of memory, a subject upon which he also wrote a now lost treatise. John Geddie, a calligrapher, was also a secretary to the queen. He drew out a Latin acrostic poem for a manuscript of Fowler's discourse on the history of mathematics titled 'Methodi, sive compendii mathematici'. This work was not printed.Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2017), p. 98.
Fowler devised and wrote an account of the entertainments at the baptism of Prince Henry in 1594.Bath, Michael, 'Rare Shewes, the Stirling Baptism of Prince Henry', in Journal of the Northern Renaissance, no. 4 (2012) At the feast following the baptism at Stirling Castle, a "Moore or Blackamoor"See, 'Mor(e), Moir', Dictionary of the Older Scottish TongueNandini Das, João Vicente Melo, Haig Z. Smith, Lauren Working, 'Blackamoor/Moor', Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England (Amsterdam, 2021), pp. 40-50 dragged a pageant cart with six ladies holding desserts towards the dais or high table in the great hall. He pretended to pull the stage with draught traces fashioned like gold chains. It was really winched or pushed by hidden workmen. Fowler said the pageant was propelled by "secret convoy".Henry Meikle, John Craigie, James Purves, The Works of William Fowler: Secretary to Queen Anne, Wife of James VI, vol. 2 (STS: Edinburgh, 1940), p. 188 His performance was a last-minute substitute for a lion.Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in the Stuart Court, 1590-1619 (Manchester, 2002), pp. 84-5. Perhaps this actor was the same Afro-Scot as the man in the pageant in the streets of Edinburgh for Anne in May 1590.Sujata Iyengar, Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, 2005), p. 83. The women represented Ceres, Fecundity, Faith, Concord, Liberality, and Perseverance.Michael Bath, Emblems in Scotland: Motifs and Meanings (Brill, Leiden, 2018), pp. 102-3.
In April 1595, the queen went to Stirling to see her son Prince Henry. She had joined a factional struggle, and the court at Stirling was filled with her adversaries. Roger Aston wrote that Fowler had stayed behind in Edinburgh for this reason.Thomas Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (London, 1754), p. 228, as 'Mr William Foulis'.
In 1598, Fowler agreed to send intelligence from the royal court to England, and was to be known by the cipher 'Ib' in correspondence. George Nicholson mentioned in March that Fowler needed encouragement and reassurance by a letter from the Secretary, Sir Robert Cecil.Allison L. Steenson, The Hawthornden Manuscripts of William Fowler (Routledge, 2021), 165. However, nothing from him or mentioning 'Ib' survives, except perhaps a newsletter of March 1602 that reached Sir Robert Cecil and appears to be in his handwriting.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 13 part 2 (Edinburgh, 1969), p. xvii, xxvii, 151, 164, 169; HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 14 (London, 1923), pp. 211-212. In October 1602, Fowler went to Ostend to meet the Laird of Buccleuch.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 12 (Hereford, 1923), pp. 448, 547.