Agnes Bowker

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Agnes Bowker (born around 1541) was an English domestic servant from Leicestershire. She became known for a strange claim: in January 1569 her midwife said Bowker had given birth to a cat. The tale drew attention because some feared it might be a bad omen. The cat was said to have a stomach full of food, which made the claim puzzling, and a pamphlet spread about it.

Bowker was unmarried and had reportedly tried drowning and hanging herself during her pregnancy. Not much is known about her life after the incident, though she had visited London in 1566 to see Elizabeth I and worked in the Leicestershire area.

The church authorities investigated the report. Anthony Anderson created a life-size drawing of a cat and sent it to Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, who forwarded it to William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s adviser. Cecil passed it to Edmund Grindal, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Grindal, in August, ruled the affair a hoax, but said there was no evidence Bowker was lying.

Bowker’s later life remains unclear. The cat drawing is now in the British Library, and London physician William Bullein dismissed the birth as a hoax in 1573.