Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwin, Robert
GWIN, ROBERT (fl. 1591), catholic divine, a native of the diocese of Bangor in Wales, received his education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was admitted to the degree of B.A. on 9 July 1568 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 271). In 1573 he went to the English College at Douay and studied divinity. He was ordained priest in 1575, and sent back to this country on the mission on 16 Jan. 1575-6, having just before that date taken the degree of B.D. in the university of Douay. He lived chiefly in Wales, and was much esteemed for his talent in preaching. A document in the archives of the English College at Rome says that he ‘tam scriptis quam laboribus maximum in afflictissimam patriam auxilium contulit’ (Douay Diaries, p. 288). By an instrument dated 24 May 1578 Pope Gregory XIII granted him a license to bless portable altars, &c., because at that time there were in England only two catholic bishops, both of whom were in prison, namely, an Irish archbishop and Dr. Watson, bishop of Lincoln. Gwin, who appears to have been alive in 1591, wrote several pious works in the Welsh language, according to Antonio Possevino, who, however, omits to give their titles, and he also translated from English into Welsh 'A Christian Directory or Exercise guiding men to eternal Salvation,' commonly called 'The Resolution,' written by Robert Parsons, the jesuit, 'which translation,' says Wood, 'was much used and valued, and so consequently did a great deal of good among the Welsh people.'
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 586, Fasti, i. 181; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 366; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 104; Possevino's Apparatus Sacer ad Scriptores Vet. et Novi Testamenti, 1608, ii. 342; Douay Diaries, pp. 5, 7, 24, 100, 108, 259, 273, 274.]