reader to an account recently published by one of its former inmates.
In August 1628 Owen was apparently in the employ of the government as a spy, and he arrested in London Christopher Mallory, who was viewing the ordnance which had been embarked for the French expedition, apparently in order to give information to the enemy. In the same year he published ‘The Unmasking of all Popish Monks, Friers, and Iesuits, or a Treatise of their Genealogie, Beginnings, Proceedings, and Present State. Together with some Briefe Observations of their Treasons, Murders, Fornications, Impostures, Blasphemies, &c. … Written as a caueat or forewarning for Great Britaine. By Lewis Owen,’ London, 1628, 4to, pp. 164; dedicated to Sir John Lloyd. In this work Owen gives many details which had come under his own observation, and incidentally offers some account of his travels; copies of it are in the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries. In 1629 he brought out ‘Speculum Jesuiticum, or the Iesuites Looking Glasse, wherein they may behold Ignatius (their Patron), his Progresse, their owne Pilgrimage, &c. By L. O.,’ London, 1629, 4to. To this is added ‘A True Catalogue of the Names of all the Cities, Townes, and other places where the Jesuits have any Colledges or Religious Houses in Europe.’ One copy is in the Bodleian Library, and another, bound up with Sir Edwin Sandys's ‘Europæ Speculum,’ and dated 1632, is in the British Museum Library.
If Owen is rightly identified with the grandson of Lewis Owen the judge, he must have succeeded his mother's brother, William David Lloyd, in the Peniarth estate, Merionethshire, and died in 1633, leaving two daughters. The elder, Margaret, married (1) Richard Owen (d. 1627?) of Machynlleth, and (2) Samuel Herbert, a cousin of Edward, first lord Herbert of Cherbury [q. v.]; her eldest son, by her first husband, was Lewis Owen, who represented Merionethshire in parliament in 1659, and owned the original manuscript of Lewis Dwnn's ‘Heraldic Visitations.’
[Authorities quoted; works in Brit. Mus. and Bodleian Libraries. Wood's account in Athenæ, ed. Bliss, ii. 480, has been frequently reprinted in the Biographical Dictionaries of Chalmers, Rose, and Didot, and in the Biogr. Universelle.]
OWEN, MORGAN (1585?–1645), bishop of Llandaff, was the third son of the Rev. Owen Rees of Y Lasallt, in the parish of Myddfai (Mothvey), Carmarthenshire, where he was born about 1585. He is described as a descendant of the physicians of Myddfai, and an inheritor of much of their landed property in that parish (The Physicians of Myddvai, published for the Welsh MSS. Society, 1861, Introduction, p. xxx). He was educated at the grammar school, Carmarthen (Spurrell, Carmarthen, p. 62), and was for four years servitor to David Williams (who was probably a native of Myddfai, of which parish he subsequently became vicar) at Jesus College, Oxford, where Williams had matriculated 7 Nov. 1600 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) Owen matriculated as a member of the same college on 16 Dec. 1608, and became chaplain of New College, whence he graduated B.A. (as Owen Morgan) 5 July 1613; he proceeded M.A. from Hart Hall, 4 June 1616. He was introduced to the notice of Laud when bishop of St. David's, and was appointed his chaplain, and subsequently, through his influence as chancellor of the university of Oxford, he was made D.D. (at the time of the king's visit to Oxford), 31 Aug. 1636, then being described as of Jesus College. Wood (Athenæ Oxon. iv. 803) describes him as well beneficed in Wales. He was rector of Port Eynon in Glamorganshire 1619, canon of St. David's 1623, deputy-chancellor of Carmarthen (Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Ser. 17 April 1624), prebendary of the collegiate church of Brecon 1626, precentor 1637, and rector of Newtown 1640 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) He was elected bishop of Llandaff 12 March 1639–1640, and installed 30 June 1640 (Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Ser. sub 28 Feb. and 2 April 1640); he held the rectories of Bedwas and Rudry, in commendam.
Being a rich man, and possessed of many lands, he enclosed the south yard of St. Mary's Church at Oxford, and built in 1637, at the expense of 230l., ‘the beautiful porch leading from the high street into the church, with the image of our lady and a babe in her arms at the top of it,’ which gave great offence to the puritans, and was defaced by the parliamentary soldiers. It was assumed that Laud had sanctioned this work as chancellor of the university, and evidence to that effect was brought against Laud at his trial (Prynne, Canterbury's Doom, pp. 71–2, 477–8; Wood, History and Antiquities of Oxford, ed. Gutch, i. 435).
Owen was one of the bishops impeached, 4 Aug. 1641, of high crimes and misdemeanours for promulgating the canons of 1640 (House of Commons' Journals, 23 Feb. 1640, and 4 Aug. 1641), and was imprisoned in the Tower (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 21 Dec. 1648). He was at liberty, however, in December, and was one of the twelve bishops
