Alexander Cosby, Esquire

Alexander inherited Stradbally Abby - The Estate. He was married in Oxford, England.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cosby-122

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LRD7-3TF

Alexander Cosby, Esq., an Englishman in Ireland, seems to have spent most of his life and career engaged in strife with local hereditary nobility, chiefly the O'Moores, the hereditary princes of Leix. In 1596 the O'Moores attempted to force passage cross the Stradbally bridge and were met in armed combat by the Cosby clan or Kern. Alexander was mortally wounded in the fight, his eldest son Francis attempted to retreat to the abbey by leaping from the bridge but was also mortally wounded, falling dead into the river. Dorcas Sydney and Francis's wife Ellen Harpole watched the battle from an abbey window and saw their husbands slain.

     Ellen Harpole persuaded Dorcas Sydney to recall and record that Alexander was slain before Francis, thus preserving to Ellen her widow's dowry share of a third of the estate passed from Alexander to Francis, albeit Francis did not long survive his father. The two widowed ladies made their way from the abbey, Ellen carrying her nine-week-old son, William. The O'Moores looted, then burned, the abbey. 

     Richard Cosby succeeded to the estates and became in turn captain of the Kern. In 1606 he avenged the death of his father and elder brother in battle at the Glyn of Aggrabily under the Rock of Dunnance. He won such a decisive victory that the O'Moores never again successfully challenged his dominance. Richard was severely wounded in that fight, however, and recuperated at Dysert House, the seat of Sir Robert Pigot, where he was nursed by Sir Robert's daughter, Elizabeth. Subsequently, Richard proposed to Elizabeth, and they were married soon after his re-establishment at Stradbelly. Richard and Elizabeth left children, among their descendants is numbered Sir William Cosby, a royal governor of Virginia and New York, and lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia. 

     Dorcas Sydney came from a distinguished family and retained the use of her family name in writing and legal documents even after her marriage. Sir Henry Sydney, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was a second cousin to Dorcas, and Sir Philip Sydney was also a cousin. Dorcas had once served as a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth I, and through her court connections the family received royal grants and were territorial lords of more than a moiety of Queens County. Dorcas and Alexander Cosby had fifteen children. After Alexander's death Dorcas returned to England and married a second time to Sir Thomas Zouche. She left all her estates in Ireland, excepting Finshoe, to the Zouches, and leased Finshoe to Sir Thomas Loftus, son of Adam Loftus and brother to her daughter-in-law Mary Loftus Cosby the wife of Charles. Sir Thomas Loftus was the second husband of Ellen Harpole Cosby, the widow of Francis. The Zouche family had extensive land grants in Virginia, and Sir John Zouche was appointed by the crown as a commissioner to inquire into the condition of the colony by patent issued in 1623.