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This article presents several letters by Queen Anna of Denmark that are currently preserved in the State Archives of Florence and Venice, and that were written by her foreign secretary, Master William Fowler (Edinburgh 1560–London 1612). Fowler is a well‐known presence in Scottish literary history, as a member of James' VI so‐called 'Castalian band of poets' in the 1580 s and a translator of Petrarch and Machiavelli into Scots. The letters penned by him and preserved in Italy, mostly postdating the move of the Scottish court to London, offer a new perspective on Fowler's career as Anna's secretary, and provide additional information on the internal workings of the Queen's secretarial establishment in London, prompting us to re‐evaluate both Fowler's professional trajectory and the nature and functioning of the Jacobean secretariat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]