Richard Osbaldeston (Attorney General)

Margaret's father was head of the family which later acquired the title Earl of Sefton, and her mother was a daughter of the prominent judge Sir Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Rolls.

[2] While his practice was undoubtedly lucrative, few details of his career as a barrister survive, but it is likely that he practised in York, where he was living at the time of his first marriage in 1612.

[4] Richard is said to have been a close associate of the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, a fellow Yorkshireman, who may have known him in his younger days.

[2] It was Wentworth who in 1638 instructed Osbaldeston to bring proceedings for quo warranto (i.e. a writ arguing that a person or public body is asserting a legal jurisdiction it does not possess, and requiring them to justify it) against those corporations in Munster which challenged the jurisdiction of the central Court of Admiralty; this was apparently at the request of Dr Alan Cooke, the Leinster Admiralty judge.

Dr Cooke, the Admiralty judge, wrote to London with the terse message that "the old Attorney (General) is dead" and asked for a replacement to be sent quickly, to continue the quo warranto campaign.

[2] By his first marriage he had at least five children, but of these only William and Frances are known to have reached adult life; Lambert, the eldest son, died young.