Of the early life and habits of the future Lord President nothing positively is known. From his will we learn that he received his early classical education at Bunbury, of which school that staunch Puritan, Edward Burghall, afterwards Vicar of Acton, was at the time master; subsequently he was sent to Queen Elizabeth’s Free School at Middleton, in Lancashire, then lately remodelled and endowed by Nowell, Dean of St Paul’s, and, “as part of his thankful acknowledgment,” he at his death bequeathed to each of these institutions £500 for “amending the wages of the master and usher.” There is a very general opinion that he was at King Edward’s Grammar School in Macclesfield also for a time; though there is no evidence of the fact, this is by no means improbable. Macclesfield was conveniently near to his home, and the school had at that time obtained a high reputation from the ability and scholarly attainments of at least two of its masters, John Brownswerd, “a schoolmaster of great fame for learning,” as Webb says, “who living many years brought up most of the gentry of this shire,” and Thomas Newton, one of the most distinguished Latin poets of the Elizabethan era; and some countenance is given to this supposition by the phrase in his will, “I had part of my educa’con” at Middleton and Bunbury. The Macclesfield school at that time abutted upon the churchyard, and there is a tradition that young Bradshaw, while with some of his playmates, and in a boyish freak, wrote the following prophetic lines upon a gravestone there:—
My brother Henry must heir the land,
My brother Frank must be at his command,
Whilst I, poor Jack, will do that
That all the world shall wonder at.
The authenticity of this production may very well be questioned, for, however ambitious his mind, we can hardly suppose that this young son of a quiet, unostentatious country gentleman could have had the faintest glimmering of his future destiny any more than that his muse was moved by prophetic inspiration.
He served his clerkship with an attorney at Congleton, whence he proceeded to London, and studied for some time at Gray’s Inn, of which learned society he entered as a student for the bar in 1622, and with such assiduity did he apply himself to his studies that in later years Whitelock, in his “Memorials,” bore willing testimony that he was “a man learned in his profession.” Having completed his studies, he returned to Congleton, where he practised for some years, and, taking an active part in the town’s affairs, was elected an alderman of the borough—the house in which he resided, a quaint black and white structure, having been in existence until recent years. In 1637 he was named Attorney-General for Cheshire and Flintshire, as appears by the following entry on the Calendar of Recognizances Rolls for the Palatinate of Chester: “13 Car. I., June 7. Appointment of John Bradshawe as one of the Earl’s attorneys-at-law in the counties of Chester and Flint, during pleasure, with the same fees as Robert Blundell, late attorney there, received.” In the same year he was chosen Mayor of Congleton, an office he is said to have discharged with ability and satisfaction, being, as a local chronicler records, “a vigilant and intelligent magistrate, and well qualified to administer justice.” He certainly cannot be charged with indifference or lack of zeal while filling this position, for the corporation books show that he left his mark in the shape of “certain orders, laws, and ordinances,” he set down “for the better regiment and government of the inhabitants, and the preservation of peace and order.” These regulations, which were of a somewhat stringent character, imposed fines upon the aldermen and other dignitaries who neglected to provide themselves with halberds, and to don their civic gowns and other official bravery, when attending upon their chief, while the “freemen” of the borough were left with little freedom to boast of. It is evident that, Calvinist and Republican though he was, and a Puritan of the most “advanced” school, Bradshaw, even at that early period of his public career, had little liking for the severe simplicity affected by his political and religious associates, the regulations he laid down indicating a fondness for histrionic display and a love for the trappings and pageantry of office. As might be supposed, a small country town, the merry-hearted inhabitants of which were proverbial for their love of bear-baiting and their fondness for cakes and sack, was not a likely place to afford scope for the exercise of the talents of so resplendent a genius, so, seeking a more active sphere, he betook himself to the metropolis, where he continued to follow his profession. The year in which Cromwell gained his great victory at Marston Moor was that in which we find him for the first time employed in the service of the Parliament, being joined (Oct., 1644) with Mr. Newdegate and the notorious Prynne in the prosecution of the Irish rebels, Lords Macguire and Macmahon, before the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, which resulted in the rebel lords being condemned and executed.
It is not unlikely that Bradshaw had made the acquaintance of Prynne before he left Congleton, for the year of his mayoralty there was one in which that “pestilent breeder of sedition,” as he was called, after standing in the pillory with Bastwick and Burton, and having his ears clipped, passed through Cheshire on his way to the prison at Carnarvon, making what reads very like a triumphal progress, and creating no small stir among the disaffected Puritans in the county, who regarded the victim of a harsh and unwise persecution as a sufferer for the cause of the true Gospel. His conductors treated him with much leniency—indeed, on the whole, they seem to have had rather a pleasant outing, stopping for two or three days at a time at the principal halting-places, and enjoying themselves when and where they could. At Tarporley, Tarvin, and Chester the offender was admitted to the houses of his friends, and received visits from some of the more notable of the anti-Royalist faction in the city and county, a procedure which drew down upon him the episcopal wrath—Bridgeman, the Bishop, being greatly scandalised at the idea of the “twice-censured lawyer and stigmatised monster,” as he called him, being entertained in his own cathedral city “by a set of sour factious citizens.” The complaint, it must be admitted, was not without cause, for it seems the mayor and corporation began to waver in their orthodoxy, and became slack in going to hear sermons at the cathedral, so that the energetic prelate “could not have his eye upon their behaviour” as he desired. Whether this was due to the pleasant and moving discourses of Prynne, or that the sermons at the cathedral were too dry and lifeless to suit the tastes of the Cestrians, is not clear, but to remedy the evil Bridgeman had a brand new pulpit erected in the choir, capacious enough for all the canons to preach in at one time, had they been so minded; and, further, ordered all other preachers in the city to end their discourses before those at the cathedral began, in order that the civic authorities might have no excuse for negligence in their attendance on sound doctrine, as delivered within its walls.
The manner in which Bradshaw conducted the prosecution of the Irish rebels evidently gave satisfaction to his employers, and paved the way to his future advancement; certain it is that, after this time, he is frequently found engaged upon the business of the Parliament. When so employed he was not a pleasant person to encounter, as poor old Edmund Shallcross, the rector of Stockport—the parish in which his boyhood was spent—had good reason to know. For the particulars of this little incident in the life of the future judge, affording, as it does, an interesting side glance of the state of religious feeling in Marple when the Bradshaws were all-powerful, we are indebted to the researches of that indefatigable antiquary, Mr. J. P. Earwaker. It seems there had been a dispute of long standing between the Bradshaws and Shallcross on the vexed question of the tithes of Marple, a circumstance that in itself would no doubt be sufficient to satisfy the rector’s Presbyterian neighbours when in authority that he was “scandalous” and “delinquent.” Be that as it may, on the breaking out of the war Shallcross was turned out of his living, and his property, which included an extensive library, was confiscated. He appealed to the Commissioners of Sequestrations, and among the State papers which Mr. Earwaker has lately unearthed is an interesting series of interrogatories relating to persons in Cheshire suspected of delinquency, the following being the answer to those concerning the parson of Stockport:—