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He was the son of John Fowler, and was born at [[Marlborough, Wiltshire]], about 1610. He entered [[Magdalen College, Oxford]], 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]] he owed a strong attachment to [[Reformed theology]]. He took holy orders, and was a [[Puritan]] preacher in and about Oxford, until he obtained a living at [[West Woodhay]], [[Berkshire]], before 1641.
On the surrender of [[Reading, Berkshire|Reading]] (26 April 1643), Thomas Bunbury, vicar of [[Reading Minster|St. Mary's]], joined King Charles in Oxford; his living was sequestered and given to Fowler. He took the [[Solemn League and Covenant|covenant]] (1643), and was a strong [[presbyterian]] cause. Thinking himself unsafe in the neighbourhood of the royalist troops at [[Donnington Castle]] in [[Berkshire]], garrisoned for the king at the time of the [[second battle of Newbury]] (27 October 1644), Fowler went to London. Here his preaching attracted a crowd of hearers, and [[Anthony Wood (antiquary)|Anthony Wood]] 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 [[Albourne]], [[Sussex]], and was at St Margaret's from about 1652. In 1649 Fowler refused to take the [[engagement controversy|engagement]]; but he was later made a fellow of [[Eton College]].
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]], formerly of [[St Laurence's Church, Reading]], whom the commissioners ejected (by order 8 December 1654, to take effect 2 February 1655) from the rectory of [[Bradfield, Berkshire]]. Fowler wrote an account and defence of this business, in which he and John Tickel, presbyterian minister at [[Abingdon, Oxfordshire|Abingdon]], had taken a leading part. Somewhat later he entered the debates against the [[Quaker]]s. With [[Simon Ford (divine)|Simon Ford]], vicar of St. Laurence's, Reading, he published (1656) an answer to the 'quaking doctrines' of [[Thomas Speed (Quaker)|Thomas Speed]] of [[Bristol]]; and he engaged in controversy (1659) with [[Edward Burrough]].
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