On his death in 1622, Owen was buried in the old St Paul's Cathedral, London, memorialised with a Latin epitaph, thanks to his countryman and relative, Bishop John Williams of Lincoln, who is also said to have supported him in his later years.
[2] His Latin epigrams, which have both sense and wit in a high degree, gained him much applause, and were translated into English, French, German, and Spanish.
Owen had started writing epigrams while at Winchester – indeed, education there was largely devoted to the production of them – and his were good enough by the time he reached 16 years of age to be used in a ceremony held when Queen Elizabeth I paid a state visit to Sir Francis Drake on his ship at Deptford, on his return from sailing around the world.
Owen started publishing his epigrams in 1606,[citation needed] whereupon they met with almost instant success throughout Europe, and the Continental scholars and wits of the day used to call him "the British Martial".
[4] Book XI is a collection of 128 moralising epigrams, titled Monosticha Quaedam Ethica et Politica Veterum Sapientum, and are not due to Owen: they are from the Disticha de Moribus of Michel Verino.
He was a staunch Protestant, and could not resist the temptation of turning his wit against the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in Epigrammata being placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1654, and lead to his uncle Hugh Owen, a recusant involved in the Ridolfi plot, to cut him out of his will.