The late medieval history of Radley had many connections both with royalty and with the command of the Royal Navy, the parish church of St.James the Great in Radley holding the name of a Royal Peculiar until the 20th century. Prior to 1538 the ownership of Radley lay generally in the hands of the church under the Abbot of Abingdon. When in 1538 King Henry VIII seized the wealth of Abingdon Abbey, the King himself held the rights to the manor of Radley.
In 1547 the manor of Radley was granted to Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England, and on his execution for treason in 1549 was given by Edward VI to his sister Princess Elizabeth, who held it until she succeeded to the throne.

In 1559/60 Elizabeth sold the manor to George Stonehouse, a Clerk of the green cloth, and a succession of eight Stonehouses held the baronetcy and manorial rights to Radley. Five generations after the first George Stonehouse, James Stonehouse died in 1792 unmarried and heirless and his nephew George Bowyer inherited the Radley part of his estates. For just over a century there were four George Bowyers and one William Bowyer, who held the rights to the manor of Radley, which were finally relinquished to the Dockar-Drysdale family in 1901.

It is the first of the Bowyers who is celebrated in the name of this Inn. George Bowyer became a baronet in his own rights as heir to the Bowyer estate of Denham Court. But George's fame came in 1794 for his part in the famous sea battle in the North Atlantic against the French under Lord Howe at Ushant, known as the 'Glorious First of June', in which he lost a leg on board HMS Barfleur. For his valour he was made a baronet and given the title of Vice Admiral.
At his homecoming to Radley on 15th November 1794 he and Lady Bowyer were escorted by a company wearing blue ribbons and the Abingdon Independent Cavalry to a grand dinner at the Radley Mansion House and then to a ball at the Guildhall in Abingdon. At the Guildhall two momentoes of the battle are displayed: the tiny 'Portsea Farthing', with Admiral Lord Howe on one side and his flagship the Queen Charlotte on the other, and the silver-gilt 'Bowyer Vase' ornately decorated with Neptune astride two dolphins on the top of the lid; and, on the cup, two shields with an inscription and the Bowyer arms decorated with anchors, flags, ropes, quadrants and chronometers; and on the pedestal Venus in her chariot being drawn over waves by cupids and dolphins. Vice-Admiral Bowyer's portrait hangs in the town council offices at Stratton Lodge.

Radley's royal inheritance can be seen still in the parish church, however, for a village so far inland its naval historical connections might not be so obvious, were it not for the Bowyer Arms and the famous naval battle of the ' Glorious First of June', which it commemorates.