Page 13 - my-people-abbie-harris-beck

Sir John Owen's Regiment of the ENGLISH CIVIL WAR 3 / 2 4 / 9 9 8:1 0 PM

His first task was to meet Threats to Dembighshire and Flintshire which had
developed during the winter, but after a diversion in Lancashire had drawn the
invaders off ,in May, he was able to attend to the defenses of Gwynedd.
Supplies were sparse and the local gentry slow to co-operate, partly from that
fear of military rule and occupation that found a spokesman in Archbishop John
Williams who, after lavishing his resources in organising local effort and
equipping his native Conway as a depot protested against his supersession by an
interloper from the wilds of Eifionydd.
Byron sought a compromise but in May (with authority from Rupert) Owen
forciblyentered the castle, appropriating its .contents and denouncing the
Archbishop in terms which drew a rebuke from the King himself.
Increasing roundhead pressure took Owen into Merioneth in August, but the day
after Charles"s defeat at Rowton Heath he sent for Owen to Denbigh to confirm
his commission, including custody of the castle at Conway. In response to Byron
urgent plea for co-operation after the fall of Chester, Williains wrote a v
conciliatory letter to Owen, but it was under Byrons orders precipitated a final
breach by impounding stores and cattle from Gwydir and so placing WilliamsMs
favourite niece and her recalcitrant husband, Sir Owen Wynne at the mercy of the
advancing roundheads. Williams helped Thomas Milton into ConwayinAugust
but Owen held out in the castle until November the 9the 1646, when honourable
terms enabled him to retire to Clenennau.

A fortnight before this, Rupert had written from France inviting Owen to bring
over a welsh brigade for the French service, an invitation he reluctantly declined
for lack of means of transport. In the second Civil War his commission was
renewed (31 March 1648), and he raised Merioneth for the king, intending to join
Rowland Laughame at Pemroke, but besieging Caernarvon instead when it
proved too late for that.
Retreating towards Bangor before superior forces, with the wounded
parliamentary sheriff, William Llyod, as his prisoner, he counter attacked on the
seashore at Y Dalar hir, Llandygai (5 June), where his men were after initial
success, scattered and he himself captured; the sheriff died of the rigours of the
journey. Owen was committed to Denbigh castle, then brought to London for trial
on charges of treason to parliament, violation of his articles of surrender, and
murder to the sheriff.
Removed to Winsor, he was brought back for trial after the Lords had vetoed an
order for his banishment with Laughame and the Rump had resolved, two days
after the Kings execution, to try him with the chief instigators of the second Civil
War. After a spirited defence without the aid of council, he was condemned to
death, but reprieved following intervention by Ireton or, by some accounts, the
intervention of foreign ambassadors and to the kidnapping of Griffith Jones of
Castellmarch as a hostage.
By July he was free to entertain John Evelyn in London with a Welsh harpist, an
he was home in September. An attempt to wring out his estate, already decimated
by a fine of £771, sums which had been earmarked in advance for repaying loans
contracted for Myddelton's campaign, was thwarted by Mytton, an Myddelton

http://village.vossnet.co.Uk/c/cliver68/jowens.htm Page 2 of 4

8