Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/428

 when his bishopric was sequestrated, he was allowed by parliament 500l. per annum. In Lloyd and Walker this appears as a fine of 500l. on composition, but there is no record of his compounding (see Calendar of the Committee for Compounding). The sequestration of his rectories, the sale of his episcopal property and desecration of his palace were matters of course. Owen died on 15 Oct. 1651, at Perth Kinsey, and was buried in the cathedral church of St. Asaph, under the bishops' throne (21 Oct.).

Owen married, first: Sarah Hodelow of Cambridgeshire, by whom he had a son, Robert Owen, fellow of All Souls, Oxford, B.C.L. on 3 Dec. 1660, and shortly after chancellor of the diocese of St. Asaph; and a daughter, married to Dr. William Griffith, chancellor of Bangor and St. Asaph. The first wife was buried at Burton-Latimer in February 1621. Owen's second wife was Elizabeth Gray; and his third wife, Elin, daughter of Robert Wyn of Conway.

The assertion that he was the author of ‘Herod and Pilate’ is incorrect (see, Athenæ Oxon. iv. 831). He is stated in the ‘State Papers’ (Dom. Car. I. cccclxxiv. No. 64) to have composed in Welsh a treatise on the ten commandments. About the beginning of 1641 he prayed the king in a petition to authorise the printing of it.

[Foster's Alumni; Oxf. Univ. Reg. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ed. Clark; Lansdowne MSS. 982, ff. 185–6, 985, f. 182; Addit. MS. 15671, ff. 40, 46, 49, 67; Thomas's Hist. of St. Asaph, pp. 98, 201, 227; Browne Willis's Survey of St. Asaph; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 880, iv. 831, and Fasti, i. 170, 289; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 1; Lloyd's Memoirs, p. 569; Cooper's Athenæ; Williams's Biogr. Dict. of Eminent Welshmen; Bridges's Northamptonshire, ii. 224–5; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 507; Rowland's Mona Antiqua Restaurata, p. 344; Commons' Journals, ii. 235, 363, 514; State Papers, Dom. passim; information from the Rev. Francis B. Newman, rector of Burton-Latimer; the Rev. J. Jones, rector of Llanfyllin; the Rev. Hugh Jones, rector of Llanroost; the Rev. T. A. Vaughan, rector of Rhuddlan; the Rev. T. F. Davies, vicar of Whitford.] 

OWEN, JOHN (1600–1666), royalist colonel, was the eldest son of John Owen of Clenenny, Carnarvonshire, and Ellen Maurice, heiress of Clenenny and Porkington. His father was the fourth son of Robert Owen of Bodsilin, Carnarvonshire, the secretary to Walsingham. Owen was a staunch royalist, and is said by Lloyd to have taken part in seven battles, nine sieges, and thirty-two actions (Memoirs, p. 668). In 1644 he was governor of Harlech Castle, and vice-admiral of North Wales (, Prince Rupert, ii. 425). Numerous letters from Prince Rupert, giving him military instructions, are extant (Ormesby Gore MSS.) On 23 Oct. 1644 he was ordered to rendezvous at Ruabon, on 24 April 1645 to march to Hereford with a thousand men, and on 23 Feb. 1645–6 to rendezvous with the prince at Wrexham (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. pp. 86–7). He distinguished himself at the capture of Bristol by Rupert, and was desperately wounded there (, vii. 133). On 10 Dec. 1644 he was appointed by Rupert governor of the town and castle of Ruabon, in succession to Archbishop Williams, who had been governor since 1 Aug. 1643. He was knighted by Charles on 17 Dec. 1644 at Oxford (Domestic Entry Book, 48A, Record Office). Williams had spent money on Ruabon Castle, and declined to give it up to Owen, and Owen had to seize it by something like force (9 May 1645). The appointment led to a long-standing quarrel with the archbishop, against whom Owen exhibited articles of high treason before Charles at Raglan on 20 July 1645 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 86). In September of the same year his commission as governor of the town and castle was renewed, but in August 1646 he yielded it up to the parliamentary Colonel Mytton [q. v.] (Conway taken by Storm; confirmed in The Weekly Account for 12–19 Aug. 1646). Owen treated at first independently with Mytton, but on the final surrender of the castle Williams played a treacherous part (see Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 86, 9 Nov. 1646; Hacket's ‘Extraordinary Apology for Williams’ in Scrinia Reserata, ii. 218). Owen subsequently retired to Clenenny, and numerous fines were levied out of his estate for delinquency—part of 4,071l. on 18 Feb. 1646–7, part of 1,000l. on 26 Sept. 1648, and his composition taken at a tenth and valued at 771l. on 27 May 1647 (Calendar of Committee for Compounding, pp. 58, 131, 1754).

In 1647 Prince Rupert invited Owen to enter the service of the king of France (, Prince Rupert, iii. 237), an offer which he seems to have declined. In 1648 he headed a last rising for Charles I along with Colonel Floyd; he led four hundred men to the attack of Carnarvon, defeated Major-general Mytton and William Lloyd, high sheriff of Merioneth, and laid siege to the town. Lloyd was wounded in the action, was made prisoner, and was dragged about the street till he bled to death (The Bloody Murthering of Mr. Lloyd, Brit. Mus.) The parliamentary troops being reinforced by the arrival of Colonels Carter and Twistleton, a