Thomas Owen

Son of Rich. Owen Gent. by Mary his Wife, one of the Daughters and Co-heirs of Tho. Oteley of Shropshire Esq; was born at, or near to, Condover in that county, and for some time was conversant among the Muses either in Broadgates hall, or in Ch. Church. From thence (having first taken a degree in Arts as it seems) he retired to Lincoln’s Inn, where by his unwearied industry, advanced by a good natural genie and judgment, he became a noted Councellour, and much resorted to for his advice. In 25. Elizab. dom. 1583. he was elected Lent-Reader of that house, in 1590. he was by Writ called to the degree of Serjeant at Law, and about that time made the Queen’s Serjeant, and at length one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, and not of the King’s Bench as one (n)(n) Will. Dugdale in chronica serie, at the end of Orig. Jurid. falsly tells us; which last place he executed for 5 years with great integrity, equity, and prudence. He was a learned man, and a great lover of learning and those that professed it; but all the Writings which I have seen of his that are extant, are only

Reports in the Common Pleas, wherein are many choice Cases, most of them throughly argued by the learned Serjeants, and after argued and resolved by the grave Judges of those times, with many Cases, wherein the differences in the Year-books are reconciled and explained. Lond. 1656. fol. What else is published under his Name I know not, nor any more of him, only that he dying 21. Decemb. in fifteen hundred ninety and eight, 1598 was buried on the S. side of the Choire of St. Peter’s Church in Westminster. Over his grave was soon after erected a noble monument of Alabaster, Marble, and divers coloured stones, adorned with Arms, and gilt with Gold, with his Image in scarlet robes lying thereon, which remains to this day. He left behind him a Son named named Roger, who was a Knight, and (o)(o) Camden, in Britan. in Salop. for his manifold learning, a right Worthy Son of so Good a Father. This Sir Roger, who had been a Gent. Com. of Ch. Church, and a great Friend to the Clergy, by vindicating them when aspersed in open Parliament, 11 Jac. 1. dyed in a distracted condition, to their great reluctancy, 29. May, being Holy Thursday, in 1617.