William Fowler

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. He 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, 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. 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. Coded letters mentioning Mary's distrust of Fowler was discovered in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and deciphered in 2023. 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.