Fowler, William

(1560-1612)

   This Scottish poet was the son of Thomas Fowler, executor to the Countess of Lennox, Arabella Stuart's grandmother. He was at one time pastor of Hawick, having been driven from France by the Jesuits. In 1581 (while living in Edinburgh) he published An Answer to the Calumnious Letter and erroneous propositiouns of an apostat named M. Jo. Hammiltoun, setting out his allegations of the errors of Roman Catholicism. He was a prominent burgess of Edinburgh and about 1590 became secretary to Queen Anne, the wife of James VI, whom he accompanied to England in 1603. Two of his sonnets, addressed to Arabella Stuart, were included in Progresses of James I by John Nichols (1828). In September 1609 a grant was made to him of two thousand acres in Ulster. Fowler's sister married John Drummond, first laird of Hawthornden, who was mother of William Drummond (see entry). Some of his poems: "Grieve not, faire flower of colour, sight, and scent," "If When I Die," "In Orkney," "Ship-broken Men Whom Stormy Seas Sore Toss," "The Tarantula of Love" (seventy-two sonnets in the Italian style), "The Triumphs of Petrarch" (translation).

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Edgewood College, Wisconsin, An Antholog y of Tudor and Elizabethan Poetry (Poets Born Before 1576) (http://english.edgewood.edu/ eng359/lyric_poetry.htm). English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Scottish Collection of Verse to 1800. Eileen Dunlop and Kamm Antony, eds. Richard Drew, 1985.