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3 / / W o . \ J o r m
Sir John Owen's Regiment of the ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

seems to have behaved considerately over the work of sequestration.

Owen now lived absorbed in dogs and hawks at Clenennau, forbidden to travel
without a pass and 3 times put under preventative restraint at Denbigh (with
several abstanances on pass) in August to September 1651. _ . .
Apart from an appeal to Cromwell against his assessment against he decimation
tax in 1655 he took no known part in politics until he began openly consorting
with Cavaliers in May 1659, and on receiving a letter from the Duke of York m
exile in July, joined Booth's revolt, bringing on himself a fresh sequestration
order in (November, which was, however, suspended through the efforts of his

Orr the King's, (Charles II), return he petitioned for redress for his wrongs, and
was given the vice-admiralty of north Wales, while as deputy Lieutent he joined
William Griffiths of Cefnamwlch in rounding up the fallen faction in
Caernarvonshire, turning the tables on some who had been busy with his
sequestration buf fourteen months earlier.

He died at Clenennau in 1666: his tomb is in Penmortha church. His best epitaphs
were written by two bards when he first became sheriff.

"Gwr a nerthai'r Goron," and, "mae rhinwedd ar rich cledd clau";
For he was fundamentally a soldier, adapt in tactics (the only branch of
knowledge in which he enriched the family library) than in speculative
nolitics or theology or the sort of diplomacy needed in public attairs(
(in Archbishop Williams's phrase) "Valour will not do the business .

His brother William Owen (1607-1670), who inherited Porkingfonjnow ^ _
Bfogyntyn), Salop, also received a colonel's commission from the King (15
June 1643) helped to organise supplies as sheriff of Merioneth, 1645-6 and was
governor of Harlech from 16th May 1644 to its surrender on honourable terms
on 13th March 1647, the last Royalist garrison to surrender.
In 1648 he went to Scotland with Langdale to join in Hamilton's invasion, was
imprisoned in Nottingham castle on its defeat, and having compounded at £400
for his estates (which were freed by 1651) was allowed to go abroad. He was back
at Porkington by the end of 1655, when he successfully pleaded exemption from
the decimation tax.

After the Restoration he petitioned frequently for preferment in compensation for
his losses, but little came of it beyond a colonelcy in the Denbighshire militia. He
was the patron of the Royalist poet Huw Morys. His marriage with Mary, widow
of bishop John Hanmcr producing no heir, his estate was reunited on his death
with Clenennau, inherited by Sir John's son William Owen, who had been with his

father at the siege of Bristol.

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