OWEN, Arthur (1606/9-1678), of Moat, New Moat, Pemb.

Owen, his elder brother Sir Hugh and their kinsman John Wogan* – all prominent members of their county’s ‘puritan party’ – were appointed to the delegation that Parliament sent down to Pembrokeshire in August 1642 with instructions to execute the Militia Ordinance.16LJ v. 304a-305b; Pemb. Co. Hist. iii. 165. In contrast to his brother, however, Owen, like Wogan, remained steadfast in his adherence to the parliamentarian cause throughout the first civil war.17Infra, ‘Hugh Owen’; Some Particular Animadversions of Marke (1646), 11-12; A. L. Leach, Civil War in Pemb. 33, 39, 52; Pemb. Co. Hist. iii. 166; L. Bowen, John Poyer, the Civil Wars in Pemb. and the British Revolutions (Cardiff, 2020), 48, 49. In 1643-4, he was one of the ‘commissioners of the militia’ who assisted his cousin Rowland Laugharne† in driving the royalist forces under Richard Vaughan†, 2nd earl of Carbery out of Pembrokeshire.18True Relation of the Procs. of Col. Langharne (1644), 1 (E.42.19); Phillips, Civil War in Wales, ii. 147. Like Laugharne, Owen was allied with the regional supporters of Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, against a rival parliamentarian faction in south Wales headed by Roger Lort and other trimmers during the early years of the war.19Infra, ‘Herbert Perrot’; Bowen, Poyer, 34, 66, 81, 91. In 1645, Owen was closely involved in supplying Laugharne’s forces, apparently at some personal expense, for on 25 October the House established a committee to consider ways of relieving his ‘great necessities’. He had ‘merited our trust to agitate for us to the state’, explained Laugharne in a letter to the Speaker that autumn, by reason of his ‘constant integrity and resolution for the public’.20HMC Portland, i. 270, 338. In February 1646, the House awarded him £500 out of a sequestered debt owing to a prominent Welsh royalist judge David Jenkins, and later that month it assigned him £1,000 from the excise revenues towards recruiting Laugharne’s horse.21CJ iv. 111a, 321b, 445a, 458a; LJ vii. 270a, 322b, 522a; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 414.

A writ for a new election for Pembrokeshire was issued on 15 January 1646, and at some point before late March, Owen was returned for the county as a ‘recruiter’, defeating a challenge from the Lort faction, which had put up Herbert Perrot* as a rival candidate.22Supra, ‘Pembrokeshire’; C231/6, p. 35; Bowen, Poyer, 95. Owen had taken his seat by 25 March, when he was one of 11 new Members who took the Covenant.23CJ iv. 489a. Lort and his confederates persuaded Francis Annesley†, Viscount Valentia (the father of Arthur Annesley*), to petition the committee of privileges in the name of the freeholders, alleging the ‘undueness of the election and offering scandalous informations to blast the credit of the gentleman [Owen] elected’. But despite their best efforts to smear Owen both at Westminster and in Pembrokeshire, his election was allowed to stand.24LPL, Ms 679, pp. 155-7.

Owen’s first, and only, Commons appointment of 1646 was to a committee set up on 4 August to determine which field and garrison forces in south-west Wales should be maintained in situ and which could be spared for service in Ireland.25CJ iv. 634a. In December 1646 (or possibly December 1647), he wrote to the Committee of Accounts*, accusing Perrot, Lort, John Eliot and Griffith White (brother of John White II*) – members of the Pembrokeshire sub-committee of accounts – of defrauding the state.26SP28/260, f. 347. Eliot would later claim that Owen had ‘often’ tried to persuade the House that Lort and his adherents had abetted the royalists during the war, ‘but could never prove it’.27Bowen, Poyer, 183, 188. On 22 June 1647, Owen was appointed with John Glynne* and four other Members to assist John Bradshawe*, William Prynne* and Gabriel Becke* in prosecuting Jenkins for his ‘scandalous and seditious books and pamphlets’. That same day (22 June), he was named to a committee on an ordinance for a new seal for south Wales, and the House ordered him and Michael Oldisworth* to supply the names of the gentry involved in a recent insurrection in Glamorgan and to ensure the dismissal of any magistrates among them.28CJ v. 220b.

Owen was evidently present in the House when it was called on 9 October 1647, for he was not listed among the absent Members. Nevertheless, he received no appointments at Westminster between 22 June and 23 December, when he was named to committee for going to south Wales to expedite the collection of assessment money.29CJ v. 402b. In mid-April 1648, he wrote to the Commons from Swansea – probably with news of growing resistance in the region to Parliament – and on 24 April he was declared absent and excused at the call of the House.30CJ v. 535a, 543b. A few weeks later, however, in mid-May, Thomas Wogan* wrote from Bridgend, Glamorgan, informing the Commons that Owen had had ‘many close consultations’ with the ringleaders of the insurrection against Parliament in south Wales and that his recent arrival at Bridgend ‘to disband the soldiery gave great encouragement to their disobedience’. Wogan also claimed that 14 of Sir Hugh’s Owen’s servants and ‘retainers’ had voluntarily enlisted under the rebel officer, John Poyer.31Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 62; Bowen, Poyer, 154-5. Owen’s summons to attend the Derby House Committee* early in September was possibly in connection with his activities that summer.32CSP Dom. 1648-9. p. 268. On the other hand, the committee may simply have wished to question him concerning allegations by its provost marshal, Colonel John Moore*, that he had misappropriated public revenues in the early 1640s.33CCAM 946.

That both Arthur and Sir Hugh were out of favour at Westminster by the end of 1648 is clear from their omission from the Pembrokeshire commission in the militia ordinance of 2 December (to which Eliot, Lort and Perrot were named).34A. and O. i. 1248. And something in Owen’s conduct or opinions certainly did not please the army, for he was among those secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648. Thus when he came to take his seat on 7 December he was turned away by the soldiers guarding the Commons’ door, whereupon he joined a group of secluded Members in a letter to the Speaker, ‘telling him what interruptions we had in the way of our duties’.35CJ vi. 94b; Clarke Pprs. ii. 137. He may also have joined what seems to have been much the same group of MPs on 12 December in trying once again to enter the House, only to be rebuffed a second time by the soldiers, who bid them ‘go drink and whore, or warm their nails at home in the chimney corner, there being neither privilege nor room in the House for reprobates at that time’.36Mercurius Pragmaticus, 38 (12-19 Dec. 1648), sig. Ddd2v (E.476.35). Omitted from the Pembrokeshire commission of peace in March 1649, he received no local appointments under the Rump.37Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 218.

Owen’s political fortunes revived following the establishment of the protectorate; and in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament, in July 1654, he was returned for Pembrokeshire, where his brother Sir Hugh was serving as county sheriff.38Infra, ‘Sir Hugh Owen’. The following month both men were appointed 'ejectors' of clergy in south Wales and commissioners for taking the accounts of revenues for propagating the gospel in the principality.39A. and O. ii. 976, 991. Owen received no appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate. In November 1655, the council of state appointed him and several other gentlemen – probably all commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth – to investigate a petition from the ‘well-affected’ of Haverfordwest concerning ‘malignants’ holding municipal office in the town.40CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 35. Allegations made to the protectoral council in about 1657 that Arthur and Sir Hugh were part of an implausible-sounding plot to bring down Protector Oliver* and restore the Long Parliament were almost certainly groundless.41TSP i. 750.

It is possible that Owen was elected to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656. On 23 September 1656, the clerk of the Commons recorded the nomination of Major Henry Owen (an officer in the Cromwellian army in Ireland) and a ‘Mr Owen’ to a committee set up that day for Irish affairs.42CJ vii. 427a. Assuming this is not a clerical error, then it is possible that Owen was the civilian thus named – although what constituency he might have represented is a mystery. A ‘Mr Owen’ was named to a total of five committees in this Parliament.43CJ vii. 427a, 436b, 441b, 452a, 505b.

In the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, Owen was a late competitor against Sampson Lort – the brother of Roger – for the single seat at Pembroke Boroughs. The contest resulted in a double return that the Commons ‘appointed to be heard’ on 2 April 1659, but there is no evidence that the dispute was decided before Parliament was dissolved some three weeks later.44Supra, ‘Pembroke Boroughs’. Having been restored to the Pembrokeshire bench in 1656, both Arthur and Sir Hugh were removed again in the summer of 1659 and were omitted from the county militia commission.45Justices of the Peace ed. Phillips, 220-1. Clearly the Rump doubted the Owens’ loyalty, but there is no firm evidence to indicate their complicity that summer with Sir George Boothe* and the royalists.46Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (2nd edn.), 162, 165, 175. Neither man appears to have returned to Westminster following the re-admission of the secluded Members in February 1660.

In the elections to the 1660 Convention, Owen was returned for Pembrokeshire and was listed by Philip, 4th Baron Wharton as a likely supporter of a Presbyterian church settlement.47G. F. T. Jones, ‘The composition and leadership of the Presbyterian party in the Convention’, EHR, lxxix. 347. At some point shortly after the Restoration he was lauded by one Welsh commentator as the pride of the people of Pembrokeshire: a royalist among ‘rigid Presbyterians...and among the unlimited royalists a Presbyterian: firm to his principles, zealous to justice, delighting in good offices, the credit and benefit of his country’.48E. D. Jones, ‘The gentry of south west Wales in the civil war’, NLWJ, xi. 143. Re-elected for Pembrokeshire to the Cavalier Parliament, he was marked ‘doubly worthy’ by the leader of the ‘country’ interest, the earl of Shaftesbury (Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*) in 1677.49HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Arthur Owen I’.

Owen was buried at Steynton, a few miles south of Haverfordwest, on 8 September 1678, having died at nearby Johnston at the house of Mrs Eleanor Horsey, his nephew’s mother-in-law, with whom he had sojourned ... many years’.50Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry ed. M. H. Lee, 276. No will is recorded. His nephew and namesake represented Pembroke Boroughs in six Parliaments between 1679 and 1690.51HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Arthur Owen II’.