The Sealed Knot Society | The English Civil War

First Military Task
Increasing roundhead pressure took Owen into Merioneth in August, but the day after Charlesís 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, Williams wrote a conciliatory letter to Owen, but it was under Byrons orders precipitated a final breach by impounding stores and cattle from Gwydir and so placing Williamsís favourite niece and her recalcitrant husband, Sir Owen Wynne at the mercy of the advancing roundheads. Williams helped Thomas Mitton into Conway in August 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 Laugharne at Pemroke, but besieging Caernarfon instead when it proved too late for that.

His Capture
Retreating towards Bangor before superior forces, with the wounded parliamentary sheriff, William Lloyd, 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, and 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 Windsor, he was brought back for trial after the Lords had vetoed an order for his banishment with Laugharne 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.

Freedom
By July he was free to entertain John Evelyn in London with a Welsh harpist, and 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 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 abstinences on pass) in August to September 1651.

Apart from an appeal to Cromwell against his assessment against the 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 in 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 brother next month.

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