Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owen, David (d.1642)
OWEN, DAVID, D.D. (fl. 1642), controversialist, a native of the Isle of Anglesea, was educated at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1598. He afterwards migrated to Clare Hall, where he commenced M.A. in 1602. He was incorporated in the latter degree at Oxford on 14 June 1608. He took the degree of B.D. at Cambridge in 1609, and was created D.D. in 1618. For many years he was chaplain to John Ramsay, viscount Hadington, afterwards Earl of Holderness.
His works are: 1. ‘Herod and Pilate reconciled; or the Concord of Papist and Pvritan (against Scripture, Fathers, Councels, and other Orthodoxall Writers), for the Coercion, Deposition, and Killing of Kings, discovered,’ Cambridge, 1610, 4to, dedicated to John Ramsay, viscount Hadington. The original manuscript, entitled ‘The power of Princes and the dutie of Subjects,’ is in the King's collection in the British Museum, 18 B.v. This work was reprinted, without the dedication, under the title of ‘A Perswasion to Loyalty, or the Svbiects Dvtie. Wherein is proved that resisting or deposing of Kings (under what specious pretences soever couched) is utterly unlawfull. Collected by D.O.,’ London, 1642, 4to. A Dutch translation, entitled ‘Herodes ende Pilatus vereenight,’ by Johann Wtenbogaert or Utenbogaert, appeared in 1660. 2. ‘Anti-Paræus, sive Determinatio de Jure Regio, habita Cantabrigiæ in Scholis Theologicis 19 April. 1619, contra Davidem Paræum cæterosq. reformatæ et Romanæ Religionis Antimonarchas,’ Cambridge, 1622, 8vo, dedicated to James I. An English translation by Robert Mossom [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Derry, was published at York, 1642, 4to. David Paræus or Wängler was professor of divinity at Heidelberg, and his work, entitled ‘Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos,’ published at Frankfort in 1609, being regarded as an attack upon the royal authority, was publicly burnt in St. Paul's Churchyard, London, on 21 June 1622 (Birch, Court and Times of James I, ii. 317). 3. ‘Detectio Calumniarum, Sophismatum, et Imposturarum Anonymi Papistæ, qui Dialogo sub ementito titulo, Deus et Rex, conatus est astruere Potestatem Populo-Papalem ad coercionem et depositionem Regum,’ manuscript in the Royal collection, British Museum, 10 B. xiii. The dedication, to the Earl of Holderness, is dated 21 July 1621.
[Information from J. W. Clark, esq., M.A.; Addit. MS. 5877, f. 104; Baillet, Traité des Anti, ii. 144; Birch's Court and Times of James I, ii. 328; Casley's Cat. of MSS. p. 277; Heywood and Wright's Cambridge University Transactions, ii. 292; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 328.]