Family and Education

b. by 1530, 4th s. of Roger Fowler of Norf., and bro. of Brian. educ. Gonville, Camb. matric. pens. 1544; I. Temple, adm. 5 Feb. 1547. m. by 13 Sept. 1561, Catherine, da. of Richard Moreton of Haughton, Staffs., 4s.2

Offices Held

Biography

On the death in 1543 of his uncle Rowland Lee, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, James Fowler received under a settlement of 1540 the manor of Pendeford, formerly belonging to the dissolved priory of St. Thomas near Stafford. A year later he entered his uncle’s university, although probably not his college, and was subsequently admitted to the Inner Temple where on 3 Feb. 1549, at the instance of Anthony Stapleton, he was pardoned all offices and vacations and allowed to be out of commons at his pleasure.3

Fowler was almost certainly nominated to sit for Stafford in two Marian Parliaments by his elder brother Brian, who lived at St. Thomas near Stafford and who was himself returned as senior knight for the county to the second of them: if he was already married his father-in-law, who lived near the town, could have added his support. Unlike his fellow-Member Matthew Cradock he did not withdraw prematurely and without leave from the Parliament of November 1554. If this means that he shared his brother’s Catholicism his failure to play any part in affairs after the accession of Elizabeth would be understandable; in that case he may have benefited by the protection which his kinsman by marriage Roger Fowke seems to have given his brother. He appears to have paid much attention to his properties so that his children would not suffer as his own generation had done from his parents’ deaths. In 1583 he was summoned to appear before the Somerset herald during the visitation of that year to record his arms and descent. He appears to have left no will, but at the inquisition held at Wolverhampton on 29 June 1584 it was found that he had died the previous 21 Feb., that his widow had a life interest in Pendeford and that his son and heir Walter was 19 years old.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: A. D.K. Hawkyard

Notes

• 1. The indenture (C219/23/116) is torn and only the christian name is legible: the full name is given in Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from education. Shaw, Staffs. ii. 203; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. 1882(2), p. 79; 1885, p. 135; J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), i. 351.
• 3. VCH Staffs. iii. 265-6; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. lvi. 273; Cal. I.T. Recs. i. 155; C142/69/119; PCC 3 Pynnyng, 14 Wrastley.
• 4. CPR, 1560-3, pp. 90-91; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. 1882(2), p. 79; 1894, pp. 132, 135; C142/208/209.