Jerome Bowie married Margaret Douchall. She was the king's laundress or "lavendar", described as the "lavander for his hienes awin lining claithis". She replaced her mother, the long-serving Margaret Balcomie or Malcomy, who had washed the linen of Mary, Queen of Scots at
Linlithgow and Stirling in the 1540s. Margaret Balcomie's husband John was probably a relation of William Duchale who had been a servant in the wine cellar to
James V. In the 1560s, Mary, Queen of Scots gave clothes to the "little daughter of her laundress", possibly Margaret Douchall. In 1579 James VI moved to
Holyrood Palace and ordered the building of two new wash houses there for Margaret Douchall. A room or bedchamber at Holyroodhouse was refurbished for "Gyrie Bowey" (and his wife) with new glazing. Jerome Bowie also acquired two houses on the south side of Edinburgh's
Canongate which had belonged to a prominent stonemason,
Gilbert Cleuch. Cleuch had given or bequeathed the houses to his daughters Margaret, who married a maltman Peter Wood, and Helen, who married William Gray. Jerome Bowie obtained possession of a part of Helen Cleuch and William Gray's property in 1581. Bowie's son James Bowie owned both properties in 1617, and his daughter Anna Bowie was the owner in 1642. Eventually these properties were bought up by
Charles Maitland of
Hatton and incorporated in
Queensberry House, now part of the
Scottish Parliament buildings. Margaret Douchall served
Anne of Denmark at
Dunfermline Palace in 1600 when she was pregnant with
Prince Charles. The
treasurer's accounts record that beds were provided at Dunfermline for the queen's physician
Martin Schöner, his man, and for "Jonet Kinloch and Jerie Bowie's wyffe". They had three sons and three daughters, including James and Agnes Bowie who were also servants at court. Jerome Bowie died at
Stirling in October 1597. He was from Stirling and in his will requested to buried in the family Bowie's Aisle in the
Church of the Holy Rude.
Agnes Bowie Agnes Bowie was laundress to King James in England, with an annual fee of £20. She gave King James a cambric handkerchief edged with gold lace as New Year's Day gift in January 1606. Her husband, Francis Galbraith, was a servant in the royal pantry. He was made a burgess of Edinburgh in January 1589, after their marriage.
James Bowie James Bowie, the eldest son of Jerome Bowie, became a court sommelier, from 1594 serving
Prince Henry at Stirling, and moving with the court to London at the
Union of the Crowns, where he was Sergeant of the Cellar. In July 1608, James Bowie was given £100 to go to France to seek wines for the king. A letter from
James Hudson to the Earl of Mar in September 1616 mentions "Sargant Bowye" as a traveller to France who had met the earl's sons on their Grand Tour. Bowie was sent to France again in September 1617 with £400 for wine. James Bowie returned to Scotland with King James in 1617 and was made a burgess of Edinburgh. Like his father, James Bowie was in charge of gold and silver plate, and he was fined when a pinnacle broke off a gold cup and was lost. James Bowie was imprisoned in the
Marshalsea after a pretence of marriage with a daughter of Sir Thomas Gardiner, as he already had a Scottish wife. He was involved in some of
Ben Jonson's masques, including
The Irish Masque at Court,
News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (1620), ''
Pan's Anniversary (1620), The Masque of Augurs (1622), Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours, and The Fortunate Isles and Their Union'', and seems to be the "young Bowie" that King James sent to Spain in 1623 with a message to
Prince Charles and the
Duke of Buckingham during the
Spanish Match. ==References==