Background
Bowyer, the son of a John Bowyer, was christened on September 20, 1599 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire.
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Michael Bowyer
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He spent most of his maturity with Queen Henrietta"s Men, but finished his career with the King"s Men.
Career
With the former company, he was one of "those of principal note," according to James Wright"s Historia Histrionica (1699), one of the troupe"s "eminent actors."
He played a series of important roles through his career, including:
Beaufort in James Shirley"s The Wedding;
King John in Robert Davenport"s King John and Matilda;
Vitelli in Philip Massinger"s The Renegado;
Mr. Spencer in Thomas Heywood"s The Fair Maid of the West;
Scipio in Thomas Nabbes"s Hannibal and Scipio. Robert Davenport dedicated his poem Too Late to Call Back Yesterday to Bowyer and Richard Robinson.
The Queen"s Men were disrupted by a long theatre closure due to bubonic plague, which lasted from May 1636 to October 1637.
Bowyer, along with three other veterans of that troupe, may have been with James Shirley at the Werburgh Street Theatre in Dublin from 1637 to 1640. As with many actors, his fortunes passed into eclipse after the London theatres were closed in September 1642 at the start of the English Civil War.
By the time of Bird"s suit, Bowyer was a decade dead. Little is known of Bowyer"s personal life.
Membership
Bowyer was a member of the King"s Men by January 1640. He was one of the six members of that company who were named Grooms of the Chamber on 22 January 1641, indicating that he was a sharer in the troupe by that time. According to a 1655 lawsuit filed by fellow Queen Henrietta"s and King"s Manitoba Theophilus Bird, Bowyer, along with Thomas Pollard and other members of the King"s Men, sold off the company"s play scripts and costumes sometime after the theatres closed.
