He was of a Durham family, son of John Bowes, who married Anne, daughter of Gunville of Gorleston in Suffolk. His name occurs in the list of the gentlemen who followed Edward Clinton, to France, in his expedition to avenge the fall of Calais. It has been inferred from a casual mention of him by John Stowe that he was a client of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester in 1571; but he was banished from court six years later for slanderous speech against him. He was restored to favour, and in 1583 was appointed ambassador to Russia. Fedor Pisemsky had travelled to England in 1581, and the diplomatic background included trade matters, and a proposed marriage of Ivan IV of Russia to Lady Mary Hastings, daughter of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon. In June 1583 Bowes set sail with Pisensky for Russia, on what was to be a fruitless mission.[1]

John Milton, in his Brief History of Moscovia, gives an account of this embassy, taken from Richard Hakluyt. Anecdotes are in Samuel Pepys and Samuel Collins's Present State of Russia, 1671. Ivan IV of Russia is there said to have nailed the French ambassador's hat to his head. Bowes at his next audience put on his hat, and the czar threatened him with the like punishment. Bowes replied that he did not represent the cowardly king of France, but the invincible queen of England, 'who does not vail her bonnet nor bare her head to any prince living.' The czar commended his bravery and took him into favour. Bowes also tamed a wild horse so effectually that the beast fell dead under him. Milton describes the pomp of the reception and that the ambassador would not submit to the etiquette prescribing the delivery of his letters into the hands of the chancellor, but insisted upon his right to give them to the emperor himself. The czar, irritated by the assertion of Elizabeth's equality with the French and Spanish kings, lost patience when Bowes, to his question 'What of the emperor?' replied that her father Henry VIII had the Holy Roman Emperor in his pay. He hinted that Bowes might be thrown out of the window, and received for answer that the queen would know how to revenge any injury done to her ambassador. Ivan's anger gave place to admiration, and he renewed his proposal of an alliance with one of the queen's kinsfolk. But he died soon after, and with Feodor I the anti-English Dutch faction came into power. Alfred Nicolas Rambaud, in his History of Russia, blamed Bowes for clumsiness and want of tact. He was imprisoned, threatened, and at last dismissed. When ready to embark he sent back the new tsar's letters and present.