Thomas Owen (died 1598)

Thomas Owen (died 21 December 1598) was an English judge and politician.

Biography

Owen was first son of Richard Owen, merchant of Shrewsbury by Mary, daughter of Thomas Otley of Salop. He was educated at Oxford University, (variously stated to have been at Christ Church or Broadgates Hall), gaining a B.A. in 1559. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1562, and was called to the Bar in 1570.[1]

He served at his Inn of Court as Bencher in 1579, marshal 1582–83, keeper of the Black Book 1586–87, and treasurer 1588–89.[1]

From about 1583 he was a J.P. for Shropshire and other counties. He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Shrewsbury in 1584, and later Recorder of the borough in 1588–1592; promoted serjeant-at-law in 1589, and Queen’s serjeant in 1593; member of the Council in the Marches of Wales 1590; ultimately justice of the common pleas in 1595.[1]

Although Owen bought the manor of Condover, near Shrewsbury, in 1586, and built a fine red sandstone house there which was completed in 1598, he does not seem to have lived in it himself. Contrary to legend, it had not been granted him by Queen Elizabeth I, but was purchased from the previously owning family, the Vynars, having previously leased it from 1578.[2] He also bought or leased estates in Montgomeryshire and Essex.[1]

Owen was twice married: first, to Sarah, daughter of Humphrey Baskerville, having by her 5 sons and 5 daughters; second, to Alice, daughter of Thomas Wilkes of London, and widow of William Elkin, alderman of London, and of Henry Robinson, brewer of London. The latter survived him,[1] and lived to found Dame Alice Owen's School in Islington in 1613, the year she died.

Owen died on 21 December 1598 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In his will he left the bailiffs of Shrewsbury money for the relief of ‘decayed householders’ and ‘poor impotent persons’ in the parish of Saint Chad, where he was born. There were also bequests to the poor of Condover parish and Westminster, and the deans of St. Paul’s and Westminster each received a small legacy.[1] There is a tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey and he is also portrayed, kneeling facing his son Sir Roger Owen, on a monument erected in Condover church by his daughter Jane Norton (who appears facing her husband) in 1641.[3]

His son, Sir Roger Owen, succeeded to Thomas Owen's Condover and other estates.

In Legend

According to a legend recounted in 1881 by a person in Condover parish to folklorist Charlotte Burne, Owen was the son of an ostler at the Lion Inn at Shrewsbury, who rose by education into the legal profession. While studying records of past trials, he suspected, from the trial report of John Viam, an executed servant at Condover Hall accused of murdering a lord of the manor named Knevett in Henry VIII's reign, that the lord's son had committed perjury and been the actual murderer. Owen was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth who gave him licence for a retrial, with Owen as counsel for the prosecution (or judge, by other accounts). The trial was held in Shrewsbury where, because of fear for public order, Owen had the Queen invited to visit the town on pretence of seeing a play by the boys of Shrewsbury School to divert interest away from the trial. However the prosecution succeeded in finding the younger Knevett guilty before the Queen got there, for at Coventry she received a coded message from Owen: The play is played out. Condover's lord was hanged and the Queen granted Owen the forfeited estate. Despite it, a curse remained, made by John Viam before his execution, that no heir of Condover would enjoy the estate peacefully, as did a bloodstain of a hand (left by the murdered lord as he fell down running to the chapel) which resisted all attempts to clean it.[4]

The legend has some factual discrepancies; Owen's father was not an ostler but a Shrewsbury man of business; Condover Hall was not built until after Owen acquired Condover manor; Condover Hall has never had a chapel, and Owen acquired Condover manor by purchase in 1586 and not by grant from Elizabeth I. The bloodstain was eventually removed in the 20th century.

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References
  • Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). "Owen, Thomas (d.1598)" . Dictionary of National Biography. 42. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  1. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/owen-thomas-1598
  2. Victoria County History of Shropshire, Volume III. Oxford University Press. 1968. p. 38.
  3. Victoria County History of Shropshire, Volume VIII. Oxford University Press. 1968. p. 55.
  4. Burne, Charlotte (1883). Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings. Turner & Company, London. pp. 114–116.
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