Marriage and the Law

The Owens of Oxford

“…Tanner, in the interests of consistency and followed by Foley, 13 alters this to in hostium tandem manus tertio delapsus est; but, unlike More, he could not claim the personal authority of Gerard. Finally, by taking as a reference to Nicholas Owen what was in fact a reference by the Earl of Salisbury to the intelligencer Hugh Owen, 14 Foley implies that Nicholas Owen was still alive on 28 March 1606, the day before Garnet's trial, though elsewhere he quotes an exchange between Salisbury and Garnet at the trial which makes it clear that Owen was already dead. 15 The actual date of Owen's death was established as 2 March 1606 by Anstruther in a note in The Ransomer in 1948.…”