Nicholas Owen--Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

This is the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's entry for Nicholas Owen.

For a previous post on Owen, click here

Owen, Nicholas [St Nicholas Owen, called Little John, Little Michael] (d. 1606), carpenter and Jesuit lay brother, was born in Oxford, probably in St Peter le Bailey. On 2 February he was apprenticed for eight years to William Conway, an Oxford joiner. He sometimes used the aliases Draper and Andrews. He had three brothers: John (b. 1560), a seminary priest; Walter (1568–1591), who died as a deacon at the English College in Valladolid; and Henry, who was apprenticed to the university printer Joseph Barnes and later ran secret presses in the Clink prison in London and in Northamptonshire. All four may have been sons by a previous marriage of Walter Owen (d. 1607), a carpenter who leased 3 Castle Street from Magdalen College from 1566 onwards and whose wife Agnes (d. 1609) was a recusant in 1603–4.

In 1588 Nicholas Owen became servant to the Jesuit superior Henry Garnet. From then on

his chief employment was in making of secret places to hide priests and church stuff … in all shires and in the chiefest Catholic houses of England … of several fashions in several places, that one being taken might give no light to the discovery of another. (Catholics under James I, 182–4)

From documentary and architectural evidence it is possible to identify the characteristics of his work: a liking for sites away from outside walls; an ability to think in three dimensions and in curves; and the inventiveness noted by John Gerard and not shown by some other builders. Surviving examples include those at Oxburgh, Norfolk (1589?); Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (1588–91); Braddocks, Essex, and Sawston, Cambridgeshire (both 1592–3); Scotney Old Castle, Kent (by 1598); and Harvington, Worcestershire (about 1602).

On 23 April 1594 Owen was arrested with John Gerard at a house in London. He was tortured, but gave nothing away and was released for ‘a good round sum of money’ (Catholics under James I, 183). In October 1597 he helped Gerard to escape from the Tower of London. About 1600 he became a Jesuit lay brother and an accident with a restive horse left him with a slight limp. Both he and Henry Garnet were finally taken at Hindlip, Worcestershire, during a twelve-day search in January 1606 when ‘eleven secret corners and conveyances were found in the said house’ (BL, Harleian MS 360, fol. 101r). Owen and a companion, Ralph Ashley alias Chambers, were starved out of a hide in the long gallery on Thursday, 23 January, after four days with one apple to eat between them. Owen was imprisoned first in the Marshalsea and then in the Tower, where he was ruthlessly tortured despite suffering from a rupture. He died of the torture on the night of 1–2 March; according to Gerard, ‘his bowels gushed out together with his life’, and the official version was that he had ‘ripped up his own belly with a knife without a point’ (BL, Stowe MS 168, fol. 364r). According to Henry More he was buried within the Tower, in ipsa arce (Historia provinciae Anglicanae, 1660, 322). He was beatified by Pope Pius XI on 15 December 1929 and canonized by Paul VI on 25 October 1970.

Michael Hodgetts

Sources

The condition of Catholics under James I: Father Gerard's narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, ed. J. Morris, 2nd edn (1872) · John Gerard: the autobiography of an Elizabethan, trans. P. Caraman, 2nd edn (1956) · J. Morris, Life of Fr John Gerard (1881) · M. Hodgetts, Secret hiding-places (1989) · M. Hodgetts, ‘The Owens of Oxford’, Recusant History, 24 (1998–9), 415–30 · A. Hogge, ‘Closing the circle: Nicholas Owen and Walter Owen of Oxford’, Recusant History, 26 (2002–3), 291–300

Archives

TNA: PRO, two brief confessions of 26 Feb and 1 March 1606, SP 14/216/ii/192, 194

Likenesses

engraving, repro. in M. Tanner, Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis et vitae profusionem militans (Prague, 1675), 74

© Oxford University Press 2004–9 All rights reserved: see legal notice
Michael Hodgetts, ‘Owen, Nicholas (d. 1606)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21023, accessed ] Nicholas Owen (d. 1606): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21023 [Previous version of this biography available here: September 2004] Back to top of biography	Site credits

Moxon, Nicholas Owen, and the Gunpowder Plot

Every once in a while, i look for tenuous links between my research on Early Modern England and traditional woodworking. Naturally, i was so stoked to see Christopher Schwarz's work on Moxon, as well as his edition of the section on joinery. Other bloggers have written about Moxon, and Schwarz seems to have have ignited the woodworking world with enthusiasm for craftsmanship in early modern England. Seriously--by no means an easy or common achievement. Let me back up here. For those of you used to scouring EEBO, Moxon should be a familiar name in his capacity as a printer. Ring any bells? How about the Royal society? He was the first tradesmen to be allowed membership (in 1678).

Recently, i came across this cool book. It's quite helpful in understanding the religious environment in early modern England. I'm not up to the Gunpowder Plot yet. Elizabeth has just died, and so have many, many, English Jesuit priests who came over from their seminary in Spain to save English Catholic souls. Pretty sad. But, there is a pretty cool angle that Hogge goes into (thankfully, with photos!), and that is the hiding places for the priests. It's pretty mind-boggling that the deadly cat-and-mouse game between the pursuivants and the Jesuits, in fact the outcome of the religious power struggle in early modern England (perhaps one of the most important historical turning points) was heavily dependent on a dude called Nicholas Owen, a joiner from Oxford.

He was instrumental in creating 'priest holes' in country homes of wealthy Catholics. These were so good, they couldn't be detected by knocking on walls, etc. Father Henry Garnet (head of the Jesuit mission) employed Owen, who was so dedicated to his craft and its importance, that even servants of the households had no idea where the hiding places were! In fact, Hogge provides photographs of a priest hole that was discovered accidentally in 1879 by boys who were playing in a derelict country home. Who knows how many more priest holes the masterful and discreet Owen created which have yet to be uncovered?! Not a job i would mind having!

Sadly, Owen was captured and tortured, and like many other Jesuits, this layman gave no information before dying on the rack. In 1970, Owen was canonised as one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, and his feast day is actually a week from today--16th of March. {Confusingly, it's also listed as the 25th of October (i guess it's a communal feast day for the other 39), and 2nd of March (the day he died).} Well, whenever it is, to students of early modern England and traditional woodworking, happy (bittersweet?) St. Owen's day...