Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/404

Owen men under the Duke of Burgundy (, Mandements de Charles V, p.965), and on 22 July occurs as captain of La Tour de Broue. It seems hardly likely that during this time Owen should have taken part in a descent on the English coast, as stated by Froissart (viii. pp. lxix, 122). On 28 Jan. 1374 he was engaged in Saintonge with a hundred men at arms, and in the autumn was serving in the fleet under Jean de Vienne at the siege of St. Sauveur le Vicomte, which fortress surrendered on 3 July 1375. In the autumn Owen took part in the expedition of Enguerrand de Coucy to Alsace against the latter's cousin Leopold of Austria (, ed. Luce, viii. p. cxxxvi, n. 1 ; cf. Chron. Angliæ, 1328–88, p. 135, Rolls Ser.)

In August 1377 Owen was serving under Louis of Anjou at the siege of Bergerac. In the following month he defeated an English detachment, and, after the capture of Duras in October, was ordered to undertake the siege of Mortagne in Poitou. After recruiting for a time at Saintes he marched against Mortagne about the end of 1377 (, ii. 314–16 ;, ix. 4, 19, 25–7). He was still engaged on the siege when in July 1378 there came to him a squire from the Welsh marches named John Lambe, who, by giving out that he was on his way to take service with his countryman, had made his way unharmed through Brittany. Lambe assured Owen that all Wales was eager for his coming, and, by thus working on his credulity, was taken into his service and confidence. He then waited for a favourable opportunity, and one morning, when Owen had gone out unarmed to view the castle with no other companion, treacherously slew him. Owen was buried at the church of St. Leger, about four miles from Mortagne. His assassin took refuge in Mortagne, where, according to Froissart, he was somewhat coldly received. However, on 18 Sept., when John de Neville, fifth Baron Neville of Raby [q. v.], raised the siege, Lambe and two companions were rewarded for accomplishing Owen's death. The murder of Owen is alleged to have been done in revenge for his treatment of the Captal de Buch (ib. ix. 74–9, p. Ii. ; Kervyn's notes to, ix. 508, xxii. 25–6).

Owen's invasion of Guernsey fills a large place in the island legend, and a ballad in the Guernsey patois has survived under various forms. According to this ballad, Owen had married, at La Greville in France, a Princess Eleanor, with whom he obtained great wealth, and who had come with him to Guernsey. In its fullest form the ballad relates that after his attack on the island Owen was taken prisoner by an English ship off the coast of Brittany, and carried to Southampton. There he was put to death, and his wife was consigned to beggary. This, of course, is pure fiction ; but it looks like a hazy recollection of the capture of Eleanor de Montfort [q. v.], the intended wife of Llywelyn ab Gruffydd q. v.], in 1275. In the Guernsey account Owen's soldiers are called Sarragousies, which may mean Aragonese ; but the whole narrative is mixed up with legends, and perhaps confused with other invasions. The Guernsey legend says that Owen landed in the early morning, and that the alarm was given by a peasant called Jean Letocq ; so to be 'stirring early like Jean Letocq' has become proverbial in the island.  OWEN GLENDOWER (1359?–1416?), Welsh rebel. [See [[Glendower, Owen (DNB00).]  OWEN, ALICE (d. 1613), philanthropist, and wife of Thomas Owen (d. 1598) [q. v.], the judge, was daughter of Thomas Wilkes, a landowner, of Islington, near London. His name occurs in a deed, dated 3 Nov. 1556, as tenant or occupier of a field within the manor of Barnsbury (, Perambulation of Islington, p. 148 n.;, Monumenta Westmonasteriensia, 1683, p. 197). In her childhood, when in the fields at Islington, ‘sporting with other children,’ she had a narrow escape of being killed by an arrow, shot by some unskilful archer, which ‘pierced quite thorow the hat on her head.’ For this providential escape she recorded her gratitude in later life by the erection of a school and