An individual who was rising into eminence at this time was John Bradshaw, the kinsman of Milton. He was bred to the profession of the law, and his eloquence is praised by Lilburn. Milton, who seems to have known him thoroughly, speaks of him in the highest terms, as at once a professed lawyer and an admirable speaker, an uncorrupt patriot, a man of firm and entrepid cast of temper, a pleasant companion, most hospitable to his friends, most generous to all who were in need, most peaceable to such as repented of their errors.
The same writer adds: “In December, 1644, he was appointed high sheriff of his native county of Lancashire.” This last statement is an error which has gained currency by frequent repetition. Bradshaw was not a Lancashire man; and his namesake, who held the shrievalty of that county by virtue of the ordinance of the 10th February, 1644, when Parliament, exercising the Royal functions, assumed the powers of the Duke of Lancaster, and who, in contravention of the Act of 28 Edward III., retained it for four successive years, was the head of the line of Bradshaw, in the parish of Bolton, and, therefore, only remotely connected with the Marple stock.
After the Restoration both Houses of Parliament decreed (4th December, 1660) that his body, with those of Cromwell and Ireton, should be exhumed and drawn to the gallows at Tyburn, and there hanged and buried beneath it. Evelyn, in his “Diary,” thus describes the revolting spectacle he saw on the 30th January, the anniversary of the King’s execution, and the “first solemn fast and day of humiliation to deplore the sinns which so long had provok’d God against His afflicted Church and people”:—
This day (O the stupendous and inscrutable judgments of God!) were the carcases of those arch rebells Cromwell, Bradshaw the Judge who condemned his Majestie, and Ireton, sonn-in-law to the Usurper, dragg’d out of their superb tombs in Westminster among the Kings, to Tyburne, and hang’d on the gallows there from nine in the morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deepe pitt; thousands of people who had seene them in all their pride being spectators. Looke back at Nov. 22, 1658 (Cromwell’s funeral) and be astonish’d! and feare God and honour the King; but meddle not with them who are given to change.
It has been asserted, though without any apparent authority, that Bradshaw was buried at Annapolis, in America, and Mr. St. John says the following inscription was engraved on a cannon placed at the head of his supposed grave:—
Stranger! ere thou pass, contemplate this cannon, nor regardless behold that near its base lies deposited the dust of John Bradshaw, who, nobly superior to selfish regards, despising alike the pageantry of courtly splendour, the blast of calumny, and the terror of regal vengeance, presided in the illustrious band of heroes and patriots who firmly and openly adjudged Charles Stuart, tyrant of England, to a public and exemplary death, thereby presenting to the amazed world, and transmitting down to applauding ages, the most glorious example of unshaken virtue, love of freedom, and impartial justice ever exhibited in the blood-stained theatre of human action. Oh! reader, pass not on till thou hast blessed his memory, and never, never forget that rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God!
The heads of the three regicides were undoubtedly placed upon Westminster Hall, and Bradshaw’s and Cromwell’s remained fixed on the spikes in 1684, when Sir Thomas Armstrong’s[13] was placed between them.
Among the papers still preserved at Marple is the probate copy of the President’s will, a lengthy abstract of which has been given by Ormerod in his “History of Cheshire.” It bears date March 22, 1653, and there are two codicils appended, dated respectively March 23, 1653, and September 10, 1655. By it he bequeaths to his wife, Mary Bradshaw, all his manors, lands, and hereditaments in Kent and Middlesex for her life, as jointure in lieu of dower; and devises to her, and her executors in case of her decease, his manors, &c., in Kent, for the term of five years, to commence immediately after her decease, with liberty in her lifetime to dispark the park at Somerhill, for her subsistence, and for making provision for her kindred, “God not havinge vouchsafed me issue.” He further devises his manors, &c., in the counties of Berks, Southampton, Wilts, and Somerset, with his reversions in Middlesex, in trust to his friend Peter Brereton, his nephew Peter Newton (the son of his sister Dorothy), and his trustie servant, Thomas Parnell, and their heirs, for the payment of his debts, &c., for the payment of £100 per annum, for ten years after his decease, to his nephew Henry Bradshaw, and £20 per annum to his cousin Katherine Leigh, for life, with further trust to pay £300 per annum to his brother Henry Bradshaw, until the estates settled by the will descend to him; and also to expend £700 in purchasing an annuity for “manteyning a free schoole in Marple, in Cheshire; £500 for increasing the wages of the master and usher of Bunbury schoole; and £500 for amending the wages of the schoolmaster and usher of Midleton schoole, in Lanc’r (in which twoe schooles of Bunb’rie and Midleton I had part of my educac’on, and return this as part of my thanfull acknowledgement for the same). These two sums of £500 to be laid out in purchaseing annuities.” Then follow a number of small bequests—an annuity of £40 for seven years to Samuel Roe, his secretary, for maintaining him at Gray’s Inn, and remunerating his assistance to his executors; £250 to the poor of Fonthill, Stopp, Westminster, and Feltham; a bequest of the impropriation of Feltham, for the use of a proper minister to be established there; an annuity of £20 for providing a minister at Hatch, in Wiltshire, charged on his estate there; legacies to his chaplain, Mr. Parr, Mr. Strong, the preacher at the Abbey, and Mr. Clyve, a Scottish minister; his houses and lodgings at Westminster to the governors of the almshouses and school there; and the residue of the estate to his brother Henry, excepting £100 to his niece Meverell and her sister of the whole blood. The first codicil directs his executors to sell the Hampshire estates and to fell timber not exceeding the value of £2,000 on his estates in the county of Kent for payment of his debts; and the sum of £50 “to my cozen Kath. Leigh who now liveth with me;” and he further bequeaths all his law books, and such divinity, history, and other books as his wife shall judge fit, “to his nephew Harrie Bradshawe.” It may be mentioned that the library thus bequeathed remained at Marple until the close of the last century, when, after having been augmented by later generations of the family, it was sold to Mr. Edwards, of Halifax. Subsequently it was offered for sale by Messrs. Edwards, of Pall Mall, being then catalogued with the library of Mr. N. Wilson, of Pontefract, and those of two deceased antiquaries, the entire collection, according to a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine (v. lxxxvi., part 1), being more splendid and truly valuable than any which had been previously presented to the curious, and such as “astonished not only the opulent purchasers, but the most experienced and intelligent booksellers of the metropolis.” The second codicil gives to his wife’s assignees seven years’ interest in his Kentish estates after her death, confirms her right to dispark Somerhill, dispose of the deer, and convert the same to the uses of husbandry. It further confirms the Middlesex estates to her for life, and gives her his house at Westminster, held on lease from the governors of the school there, and directs that £1,000 due from the State on account of his office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Chief Justice of Chester, Flint, Denbigh, and Montgomery, be applied to discharge his debts. It annuls several legacies, and bequeaths others, among them one of £10 to John Milton; appoints a legacy of £5 each to all his servants living at the time of his decease; and makes several additional legal provisions. The will was proved in London, December 16, 1659, by Henry Bradshaw, the nephew—Mary Bradshaw, the late wife and sole executrix of the testator, being then dead, and Henry Bradshaw, the brother, having renounced execution.
The will is interesting, as showing the extent to which the Lord President had contrived to enrich himself out of the sequestrated estates of obnoxious Royalists during the period of the usurpation. Shortly before the Restoration his nephew Henry was ejected from Fonthill by the heir of Lord Cottington, who recovered possession of his ancestral home; and though he managed to secure a large proportion of the property bequeathed by the will, the benevolent intentions of the testator were in a great measure frustrated by the changes made in the disposition of the estate after the return of Charles II. through the operation of the Act of Confiscation.