Bodley, Sir Josias

, youngest brother to sir Thomas Bodley, was, in all probability, born at Exeter, as well as his brothers. He was bred up a scholar, and spent some time in Merton-college in Oxford; but preferring a military to a studious life, he served in the Low-countries, which was then the theatre of war, and behaved so well, that he was advanced to the degree of a captain. In 1598, he was sent into Ireland, with several old companies of English out of the Netherlands, amounting in all to above a thousand men, of which he was second captain. There he signalized himself by his valour and conduct and was, at the taking of the isle of Loghrorcan at the attack of Castle-Ny park and at the siege of Kinsale, in 1601, where he was overseer of the trenches, as he was also at the sieges of Baltimore, Berchahaven, and Castlehaven, | for which, and other services, he was knighted by the lord deputy Chichester. He was living in Ireland in the year 1613, when he was director-general, and overseer of the fortifications of that kingdom, but the time of his death is not known. He wrote “Observations concerning the fortresses of Ireland, and the British colonies of Ulster,” a ms. once in the library of sir James Ware, an’d afterwards in that of Henry lord Clarendon, and “A Jocular Description of a Journey taken by him to Lecale in Ulster, in 1602,” also in manuscript. ¹