William Bowyer (Keeper of the Records)

William Bowyer (d. 1569/1570) was an antiquary and government official who was a Member of Parliament and Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London early in the reign of Elizabeth I of England.

In this capacity, Bowyer advised Sir William Cecil as to the gifts expected of him in his new role of High Steward of Westminster Abbey (1561).

[2][5] In 1563, probably with the good graces of Cecil, Bowyer attained the position of Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, although he did not receive a formal patent for the office until 18 June 1567.

Among the manuscripts he acquired were "the Rievaulx Abbey copy of Roger of Howden's Chronica, the C manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, William of Malmesbury's De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiae, Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon, and Laurence Nowell's transcription of the Vita et mors Edwardi secundi (part of Geoffrey le Baker's chronicle).

[7][8] The scholar Norman Jones suggests that the purpose of the Heroica Eulogia was to build a case for the worthiness of Robert Dudley to be consort to Elizabeth I.