Life

He was the son of John Fowler, and was born at Marlborough, Wiltshire, about 1610. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

, as a servitor in 1627, and graduated B.A. on 9 February 1632. Moving to St. Edmund Hall, he graduated M.A. on 29 October 1634. To John Prideaux

John Prideaux

John Prideaux D.D. was an English academic and Bishop of Worcester.-Early life:The fourth son of John and Agnes Prideaux, he was born at Stowford House in the parish of Harford, near Ivybridge, Devon, England, on 17 September 1578...

 he owed a strong attachment to Reformed theology. He took holy orders, and was a Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 preacher in and about Oxford, until he obtained a living at West Woodhay

West Woodhay

West Woodhay is a hamlet and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire.It is located in the West Berkshire district, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border, south-west of Newbury, between Inkpen and Ball Hill. The eastern slopes of Walbury Hill, the highest point in South East England, are located...

, Berkshire

Berkshire

Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, before 1641.

On the surrender of Reading

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

 (26 April 1643), Thomas Bunbury, vicar of St. Mary's, joined King Charles in Oxford; his living was sequestered and given to Fowler. He took the covenant

Solemn League and Covenant

The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians. It was agreed to in 1643, during the First English Civil War....

 (1643), and was a strong presbyterian cause. Thinking himself unsafe in the neighbourhood of the royalist troops at the manor-house of Donnington

Donnington

Donnington may refer to:*Donnington, Berkshire**Donnington Castle*Donnington, Gloucestershire*Donnington, Herefordshire*Donnington, Oxfordshire**Donnington Bridge*Donnington, Shropshire, in the parish of Wroxeter and Uppington...

, Berkshire, garrisoned for the king at the time of the second battle of Newbury

Second Battle of Newbury

The Second Battle of Newbury was a battle of the English Civil War fought on 27 October, 1644, in Speen, adjoining Newbury in Berkshire. The battle was fought close to the site of the First Battle of Newbury, which took place in late September the previous year.The combined armies of Parliament...

 (27 October 1644), Fowler went to London. Here his preaching attracted a crowd of hearers, and Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

 suggested that he was at this time preacher at St Margaret's, Lothbury; it seems, however, from other sources that he first obtained an appointment at Albourn, Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, and was at St Margaret's from about 1652. In 1649 Fowler refused to take the engagement

Engagement controversy

The Engagement Controversy was a debate in England from 1649-1652 regarding loyalty to the new regime after the execution of Charles I. During this period hundreds of pamphlets were published in England supporting 'engagement' to the new regime or denying the right of English citizens to shift...

; but he was later made a fellow of Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

.

Fowler was an assistant to the commissioners for Berkshire, appointed under the ordinance of 28 August 1654, for ejecting scandalous ministers. In this capacity he was mixed up with the proceedings against John Pordage

John Pordage

John Pordage was an Anglican priest, astrologer, alchemist and Christian mystic. He founded the 17th century English Behmenist group which would later become known as the Philadelphian Society when it was led by his disciple and successor, Jane Leade.-Behmenists:John Pordage was the eldest son of...

, formerly of St. Lawrence's, Reading, whom the commissioners ejected (by order 8 December 1654, to take effect 2 February 1655) from the rectory of Bradfield, Berkshire

Bradfield, Berkshire

Bradfield is a small village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. The parish also includes the now rather larger village of Bradfield Southend, and the hamlet of Tutts Clump....

. Fowler wrote an account and defence of this business, in which he and John Tickel, presbyterian minister at Abingdon

Abingdon

Abingdon may refer to the following places:In Australia :* Abingdon, Queensland, a place in Northern QueenslandIn Britain:*Abingdon, Oxfordshire**Abingdon School**Abingdon Abbey**Abingdon Lock**Abingdon Bridge**Abingdon Air & Country Show...

, had taken a leading part. Somewhat later he entered the debates against the Quakers. With Simon Ford, vicar of St. Lawrence's, Reading, he published (1656) an answer to the ‘quaking doctrines’ of Thomas Speed of Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

; and he engaged in controversy (1659) with Edward Burrough

Edward Burrough

Edward Burrough was an early English Quaker leader and controversialist. He is regarded as one of the Valiant Sixty, early Quaker preachers and missionaries....

.

On the restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 of the monarchy Fowler lost his fellowship at Eton, but retained the Reading vicarage till he was ejected by the Uniformity Act of 1662. He then moved to London, was successively at Kennington

Kennington

Kennington is a district of South London, England, mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, although part of the area is within the London Borough of Southwark....

 and Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

, and exercised his ministry in private. He was an interpreter of prophecy

Prophecy

Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...

 and chronologist; according to Wood, Fowler was later considered somewhat crazed, but William Cooper praised him.

A warrant was out for his apprehension as a conventicle

Conventicle

A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated meeting of laypeople, to discuss religious issues in a non-threatening, intimate manner. Philipp Jakob Spener called for such associations in his Pia Desideria, and they were the foundation of the German Evangelical Lutheran Pietist movement...

 preacher at the time of his death. He died in Southwark in January 1678, and was buried within the precincts of St. John the Baptist, Dowgate Hill. Cooper preached his funeral sermon.

Works

He published:

• ‘Dæmonium Meridianum,’ &c., 1655, (an account of the proceedings against Pordage, who had already published his own account, 1654; with appendix in reply to Pordage's ‘Innocency Appearing,’ 1655,).
• ‘Dæmonium Meridianum. The Second Part,’ &c., 1656, (in reply to Pordage's ‘Truth Appearing,’ 1655, and a tract entitled ‘The Case of Reading,’ 1656; appendices on infant baptism in answer to John Pendarves
  John Pendarves
  -Life:The son of John Pendarves of Crowan in Cornwall, John Pendarves was born at Skewes in that parish. He was admitted a servitor of Exeter College, Oxford, on 11 December 1637. He matriculated on 9 February 1638, on the same day as his elder brother, Ralph Pendarves, and became a competent...
  
  , and on the Reading case addressed to the municipal authorities).
• ‘A Sober Answer to an angry Epistle … by Thomas Speed,’ &c., 1656, (by Fowler and Simon Ford; Speed replied to these and another adversary in ‘The Guilty-Covered Clergyman,’ &c., 1657).
• ‘A True Charge in Ten Particulars against the people called Quakers’ [1659] (does not seem to have been separately printed; it is handled in ‘A Discovery,’ &c., 1659, by Edward Burrough, and is reprinted in Burrough's ‘Works,’ 1672.
• ‘Sermon on John xix. 42,’ 1666, (this is mentioned by Wood, but not seen by him; the date seems to show that Fowler was one of those nonconformists who resumed their ministry after the Great Fire of London
  Great Fire of London
  The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
  
  in defiance of the law, giving a little support to theory that Fowler founded the presbyterian congregation which met in a wooden structure at Unicorn Yard, Tooley Street).

Also a sermon in the ‘Morning Exercise at Cripplegate,’ 1674–6, and another in the ‘Morning Exercise against Popery preached in Southwark,’ 1675.