AB OWEN AP MEURIG, Lewis (by 1524-90), of Brondeg, nr. Newborough, Anglesey.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1553

Family and Education

b. by 1524, 6th s. of Owen ap Meurig of Bodeon, Llangadwaladr by Ellen, da. of Robert ap Meredydd of Glynllifon, Caern. m. (1) Alice, da. of Dafydd ab Evan ap Matto, 1da.; (2) aft. 1571 Ellen, da. of William ap William of Vaynol, Caern., 2s. 2da.1

Offices Held

Under steward to William Herbert , 1st Earl of Pembroke, and to bp. of Bangor, Anglesey and Caern. c.1553; commr. goods of churches and fraternities, Anglesey 1553, defence 1569, musters 1574; j.p. 1555-d.; custos rot. temp. Mary; sheriff 1558-9; steward, lordship of Rhosfair c.1565; escheator, Anglesey 1568-9.2

Biography

Lewis ab Owen ap Meurig came from a family long established near Newborough and rivals of the Bulkeleys of Beaumaris. In 1545 he and his nephew Owen ap Hugh appeared as defendants before the general surveyors to answer charges of wrongful dispossession brought against them by John ap Robert Lloyd. Newborough had ceased to be the shire town of Anglesey when ab Owen was returned to Parliament early in 1553. Sir Richard Bulkeley may have hoped to be elected for the island as the Parliament was summoned under the aegis of the Duke of Northumberland whose deputy he was at Beaumaris castle, but ab Owen presumably had the support of his master, the 1st Earl of Pembroke, then president of the council in the marches. Ab Owen was to feign ignorance of the Act making Beaumaris the shire town (2 and 3 Edw. VI, no.54), when in January 1556 he tried unsuccessfully to restore the county court to Newborough: the matter was referred to the Star Chamber where he deposed that ‘he knew not nor doth remember of any summons ... that the said sessions should be kept at Beaumaris’ and that the townsmen had failed to show him any authority for meeting there.3

Although ab Owen lost the office of custos rotulorum of Anglesey to the Bulkeleys by 1559, he remained a figure of importance in the island. He never became reconciled to the Bulkeleys and when he died in 1590 they referred to him as an ‘old viper’.

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, ii. 207; Griffith, Peds. 58-59; HMC Welsh i(2), 445.
  • 2. CPR, 1553, p. 419; 1563-6, p. 31; R. Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marshes of Wales, 56-57; St.Ch.5/B86/10.
  • 3. E321/8/9; St.Ch.4/8/6.