a year later to Sir Thomas Pope for the site of his projected Trinity College (ib. p. 274). On 25 Oct. 1552 he received a royal grant of land of the value of 20l. a year.
Meanwhile he was taking a prominent place in his profession, and was held in esteem by the public. Leland addressed an ‘Encomium,’ ‘Ad D. Audoenum Medicum Regium;’ and, according to his friend Thomas Caius [q. v.], he and Queen Catharine Parr joined in inducing Caius to translate into English Erasmus's paraphrase of St. Mark's Gospel. He was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians on 25 June 1545; an elect in 1552, in place of Dr. John Chambre, deceased; and on 2 Oct. 1553 was elected president, to which office he was reappointed in the following year. At the same time he was nominated royal physician on Mary's accession, and in the first year of the new reign he was instrumental in obtaining an act for the confirmation and enlargement of the powers of the College of Physicians. Two years later, when a difference arose between the College of Physicians and the university of Oxford concerning the admission by the latter of Simon Ludford and David Laughton to the degree of bachelor of medicine, Cardinal Pole, then chancellor of the university, directed that body to consult Dr. Owen and Dr. Thomas Huys, the queen's physicians, ‘de instituendis rationibus quibus Oxoniensis academia in admittendis medicis niteretur.’ Owen and his colleague suggested an agreement which the chancellor approved and ratified. Owen remained till his death on friendly terms with Queen Mary. In the spring of 1555 she sent him to Woodstock to report on the health of the Princess Elizabeth. At the new year of 1556 he presented the queen with ‘two pottles of preserves’ (Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary). He died of an epidemic intermittent fever on 18 Oct. 1558, and was buried on 24 Oct. at St. Stephen's Church, Walbrook (Machyn, Diary, p. 177). He was the author of a treatise named ‘A meet Diet for the New Ague, set forth by Mr. Dr. Owen,’ fol. London, 1558 (Tanner).
Owen left two sons, and two daughters, Lettice and Elizabeth. The elder son, Richard Owen of Godstow, married Mary, daughter of Sir Leonard Chamberlaine of Sherborne, Oxfordshire, and had issue. William, the second son, was, with his wife Anne, daughter of John Rawley of Billesby, Northamptonshire, residing at Cumnor Place when Amy Robsart met her death there in 1560 [see under Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester]. William Owen sold Cumnor to Anthony Forster in 1572, and in the same year was elected M.P. for Oxford (Turner, Records of Oxford, pp. 338–9). He seems to have retained his father's property at Godstow, and resided there.
John Owen, described in 1615 as a Roman catholic, of Godstow, was Richard Owen's grandson, and great-grandson of the physician. He achieved some notoriety in 1615 by being charged with using the treasonable expression that it was lawful to kill the king, since he was excommunicate. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and sentence of death was passed; but, after remaining in prison in the king's bench for three years, Owen was liberated and pardoned on 24 July 1618, at the request of the Spanish ambassador, on condition of his leaving the country within twenty days (State Trials, ii. 879; Gardiner, Hist. ii. 304–5; Cal. State Papers, 1611–18, pp. 548, 558).
[Visitation of Oxfordshire, 1566 and 1574 (Harl. Soc.), pp. 127–8; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 36; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 274; John Chambers's Worcestershire Biographies, pp. 59 sq.; Tanner's Biogr. Brit.]
OWEN, GEORGE (fl. 1604), author. [See Harry, George Owen.]
OWEN, GEORGE (1552–1613), county historian, born in 1552 at Henllys, near Newport, Pembrokeshire, was the eldest son of William Owen (1469–1574) [q. v.], by Elizabeth Herbert, a descendant of William, first earl of Pembroke of the Herbert line. On the attainment of his majority, Newport Castle and the baronial rights of the lordship of Kemes were delivered to him by his father, and for twenty years of his life he was in conflict with the council of the marches as to his possession of ‘jura regalia’ within the barony. Commissions sat at Newport in 1588 and 1589 to take evidence on the point, and it appears that Owen was at one time placed under arrest in his own castle of Newport. In 1573 he was admitted member of Barnard's Inn, but appears to have always resided in Pembrokeshire, where he held the office of vice-admiral for the counties of Pembroke and Cardigan, and was sheriff for the former county in 1587 and in 1602. In his capacity as magistrate of a maritime county he was active in the time of the Spanish scare, and letters addressed by him and some colleagues to the council are still preserved (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 30 July and 28 Oct. 1599; cf. Spurrell, Carmarthen, p. 115). In 1592, on the attainder of Sir John Perrott [q. v.], Owen was one of the commissioners appointed by the crown to survey Perrott's property (Owen, Pembrokeshire, pp. 136 n. 2, 191). He died in 1613.
