MARPLE HALL—THE BRADSHAWS—COLONEL HENRY BRADSHAW THE STORY OF THE
REGICIDE.
Cheshire abounds with ancient houses, but few, if any, of them are more
interesting from their historical or traditional associations than
Marple Hall, the home of Colonel Henry Bradshaw, the noted Cromwellian
soldier, and the place where his younger brother, “Judge” Bradshaw,
passed the earlier years of his eventful life. It is one of the few old
mansions of the county that have remained to the descendants of the
earlier possessors, and though located in close proximity to a district
singularly at variance with associations awakened by the time-honoured
memorials of bygone days, is yet surrounded by much that is picturesque
and attractive.
The house, which stands a mile or more away from the straggling village
from which it takes its name, is within the compass of a pleasant walk
from Stockport or Hazel Grove, but it is more readily approached from
the Rose Hill Station of the Macclesfield and Bollington Railway.
It cannot be seen from the highway, but an antiquated and somewhat
stately looking gateway, a few yards from the station, gives admission
to a tree-shaded drive that leads across the park, at the further end
of which the quaint old pile comes in view, standing upon a natural
platform or terrace, with a lichened and moss-grown wall on the further
side, all grey and weather-worn, that extends along the edge of the
precipice on which it is built. The shelving slopes below are clothed
with shrubs and trees that furnish a pleasant shade in the summer time;
wild flowers in abundance peep out from the clefts and crevices; and
were our visit made in the earlier months of the year, while the white
fringe of nature’s weaving yet lingers upon the skirts of winter’s
mantle, we should find the acclivities plentifully besprinkled with
the pale and delicate blossoms of the snowdrop—the firstling of the
year awakening from its lengthened sleep to proclaim the reanimation
of the vegetable world. At the foot of the cliff is a sequestered
dingle with a still pool, the remains, possibly, of a former moat or
mere,[4] that gleams in the green depths, and a tiny rivulet that looks
up through the overhanging verdure as it wanders on in pastoral and
picturesque seclusion. The well-wooded heights of Thorncliffe shut
in this bosky dell from the valley of the Goyt, across which, from
the terraced heights, there is a delightful view in the direction of
Werneth Low, the Arnfield and Woodhead Moors, and the range of green
uplands and dusky eminences which stretch away in long succession to
the pale blue hills that in the remote distance bound the landscape.
There this interesting memorial of the stormiest period of England’s
history stands in peaceful serenity, lifting its dark stone front above
the surrounding offices and outbuildings, with its high-peaked gables
draped with a luxurious mantle of ivy that softens the sterner outlines
into beauty, its long, low, mullioned windows, and its entrance tower
and balcony above, now protected by a latticed railing, so as to form a
kind of observatory, and which once had the addition of a cupola.
[Note 4: The name, anciently written Mer-pull, seems to be a corruption
of Mere-pool. A little lower down the river is Otters-pool, and these
two point to the conclusion that the Goyt had at one time a much
greater breadth here than it has now.]
High on a craggy steep it stands,
Near Marple’s fertile vale,
An ancient ivy-covered house
That overlooks the dale.
And lofty woods of elm and oak
That ancient house enclose,
And on the walls a neighb’ring yew
It sombre shadow throws.
A many-gabled house it is,
With antique turret crowned,
And many a quaint device, designed
In carvings rude, is found.
So says Mr. Leigh, in one of his “Legendary Ballads of Cheshire.” The
first glimpse gives evidence of the fact that it has been erected at
different periods, additions having been made from time to time as the
convenience or requirements of successive occupants have dictated;
but none of these are of modern date, or in any way detract from its
venerable aspect. On the south a lofty wall encloses the garden and a
court that occupies the entire front of the house. Tall pillars of the
Carolinian period, supporting a pair of gates of metal-work, forming
the principal entrance, give admission to this court; and if the
wayfarer is fortunate enough to be provided with an introduction, or if
with a taste for antiquarian investigation he unites the manners of a
gentleman, he may rely upon a courteous reception.
The time of our visit is a pleasant autumn afternoon. The trees and
hedges are in the fulness of their summer verdure; but the waning of
the year is evidenced by the lengthened shadows, the warm golden hue
that is deepening upon the landscape, and the russet, purple, and
yellow with which the woods, though green in the main, are touched.
Turning suddenly to the right, we quit the highway, and saunter
leisurely along the broad gravelled path. As we approach the gates
we become conscious that something unusual is astir. Pedestrians are
wending their way towards the hall; occasionally a carriage rattles
past; and then, as we draw near, the sounds of mirth and minstrelsy
break upon the ear. Passing through the old gateway leading to the
court, we find groups of people on the lawn, and the lady of the house
is flitting to and fro with a pleasant word and a kindly greeting for
every one. A _fête champêtre_ is being held in the grounds, and a fancy
fair is going on in one of the outbuildings, which has been smartened
up and decorated for the occasion, the proceeds of the sale, we are
told, going towards the rebuilding of
The decent church that tops the neighbouring hill,
or rather the building of a new one by its side, which, when finished,
is to supersede it. A “steeple-house,” forsooth! At the very mention
of the name a host of memories are conjured up. For a moment the mind
wanders back along the dim avenues of the past to the stormy days
of Cavalier and Roundhead, and we think of the mighty change the
whirligig of time has brought about since Bradshaw’s fanatical soldiery
bivouacked here, ready to plunder and profane the sanctuary, and to
destroy, root and branch, hip and thigh, the “sons of Belial” who
sought solace within its walls, or, as Hudibras has it:—
Reduce the Church to Gospel order,
By rapine, sacrilege, and murder.
Happily, fate has not ordained that we should sleep here this night;
for Marple, be it remembered, has its ghost chamber—what ancient house
with any pretensions to importance has not?—and if the shades of the
departed can at the “silent, solemn hour, when night and morning meet,”
revisit this lower world, those of the stern old Puritan colonel and
the grim-visaged “Lord President” would assuredly disturb our slumber.
But let us quit the shadowy realms of legend and romance, and betake
ourselves to that of sober, historic fact. After the overthrow of
Harold on the fatal field of Hastings, Marple passed into the hands
of Norman grantees, and in the days of the earlier Plantagenet Kings
formed part of the possessions of the barons of Stockport, being held
by them under the Earl of Chester on the condition of finding one
forester for the Earl’s forest of Macclesfield. The lands, with those
of Wyberslegh, in the same township, were, some time between the years
1209 and 1229, given by Robert de Stockport as a marriage portion to
his sister Margaret on her marriage with William de Vernon, afterwards
Chief Justice of Chester, a younger son of the Baron of Shipbrooke, who
through his mother had acquired the lands of Haddon, in Derbyshire;
and from that time Marple formed part of the patrimony of the lords
of Haddon until the death of Sir George Vernon, the renowned “King
of the Peak,” in 1567, a period of three centuries and a half, the
estates being then divided between his two daughters, Haddon with other
property in Derbyshire devolving upon Dorothy Vernon, the heroine of
the romantic elopement with Sir John Manners, the ancestor of the Dukes
of Rutland, whilst Marple and Wyberslegh fell to the lot of Margaret,
the wife of Sir Thomas Stanley of Winwick, the second son of Edward
Earl of Derby—that Earl of whom Camden says that “with his death the
glory of hospitality seemed to fall asleep.” Their son, Sir Edward
Stanley, of Tonge Castle, in Shropshire, having no issue, sold the
manor and lands of Marple in small lots to Thomas Hibbert,[5] chaplain
to Lord Keeper Bridgman, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry
Bradshaw, of Marple, and who was the grandfather of the celebrated
divine, Henry Hibbert.
[Note 5: Thomas Hibbert was the direct ancestor of the Hibberts of
Birtles, and (until recently) of Hare Hill, near Alderley.]
Some time about the year 1560 the Henry Bradshaw here named, who
was a younger son of William Bradshaw, of Bradshaw Hall, near
Chapel-en-le-Frith, the representative of an old Lancashire family of
Saxon origin, seated at Bradshaw, near Bolton, from a time anterior
to the Conquest, and which had been dispossessed and repossessed
of its estates by the Norman invaders, married Dorothy, one of the
daughters and co-heirs of George Bagshawe, of the Ridge, in the parish
of Chapel-en-le-Frith, a family that in a later generation numbered
amongst its members the eminent Nonconformist divine, William Bagshawe,
better known as the “Apostle of the Peak,” and became tenant of a
house in Marple called The Place, still existing, and forming part
of the Marple estate. By this marriage he had a son bearing his own
baptismal name, and, in addition, two daughters, Elizabeth, who became
the wife of Thomas Hibbert as already stated, and Sarah, who is said
by some genealogists—though on what authority is not clear—to have
been the wife of John Milton, the wealthy scrivener, of Bread Street,
London, and the mother of England’s great epic poet, whom John Bradshaw
in his will spoke of as his “kinsman John Milton.”
In 1606, as appears by a deed among the Marple muniments, dated 7th
July, 4 James, Henry Bradshaw the elder, therein styled a “yoman,”
purchased from Sir Edward Stanley, for the sum of £270, certain
premises in Marple and Wyberslegh, comprising a messuage and tenement,
with its appurtenances, another tenement situate in Marple or
Wibersley, and a close commonly called The Place, the said premises
being at the time, as is stated, partly occupied by Henry Bradshaw
the elder and partly by Henry Bradshaw the younger, his son and
heir-apparent. The estate at that time must have been comparatively
small. Two years later (30th June, 1608), as appears by the Calendar
of Recognizance Rolls of the Palatinate of Chester, now deposited
in the Record Office, London, Henry Bradshaw, to further secure his
title, obtained an enrolment of the charter of Randal Earl of Chester,
granting in free-forestry Merple and Wibreslega, as they are there
called, with lands in Upton and Macclesfield, to Robert, son of Robert
de Stockport; and another enrolment of the charter of Robert de
Stockport, granting to William Vernon, and Margery his wife, the lands
of Marple and Wybersley, from which William and Margery the property
passed, as we have said, by successive descents to Sir Edward Stanley,
from whom Bradshaw acquired it.
Henry Bradshaw the younger, following the example of his father,
also married an heiress, thus further adding to the territorial
possessions, as well as to the social status, of his house, his wife
being Catherine, the younger of the two daughters and co-heirs of
Ralph Winnington, the last male representative of a family seated for
seven generations at Offerton Hall, a building still standing near
the highroad midway between Stockport and Marple, though now shorn of
much of its former dignity. The registers of Stockport show that they
were married there on the 4th February, 1593. To them were born four
sons and two daughters. William, the eldest, died in infancy. With
Henry, born in 1600, and John, born in 1602, we are more immediately
concerned, for it is round them that the interest and the associations
of Marple chiefly gather.
The elder Bradshaw, the founder of the Marple line, died in 1619-20,
when Henry, his son, who had then been a widower sixteen years,
succeeded to the family estates. No records of his private life have
been preserved, but it may not be unreasonably assumed that, after the
death of his wife, and as he did not remarry, he lived in comparative
retirement, leading the life of an unostentatious country gentleman,
improving his estate, and supervising the education of his children.
Two years after he had entered upon the possession of his inheritance,
that important functionary the Herald made his official visitation of
Cheshire, when the gentlemen and esquires of the county were called
upon to register their descents and show their claim to the arms
they severally bore; and it is worthy of note, as indicating his
indifference to, or disdain of, the “noble science,” that though, as we
have seen, of ancient and honourable lineage and entitled to bear arms,
Henry Bradshaw did not obey the Herald’s summons,[6] probably “feeling
assured,” as Macaulay said of the old Puritan, “that if his name was
not found in the Registers of Heralds, it was recorded in the Book of
Life; and hence originated his contempt for territorial distinctions,
accomplishments, and dignities.”
[Note 6: Whilst the head of the Cheshire Bradshaws risked the
displeasure of the Herald by neglecting his summons, his kinsmen in
Lancashire, who were steady and decided Royalists, with more regard
for constituted authority, attended the Court, entered their descents,
and, in further proof of his right to the honourable distinction of
arms, John Bradshaw, of Bradshaw, produced a precious letter from Henry
Percy, the first Earl of Northumberland, K.G., the father of Hotspur,
to his “well-beloved friende” John Bradshaw, a progenitor who had
probably served and fought at Chevy Chase and elsewhere in the reign of
the second Richard.]
Surrounded by home affections, Bradshaw appears to have taken little
interest in public affairs; though, as a strict Calvinist and
stern moralist, he could not but have looked with disfavour on the
republication of the “Book of Sports,” and the revival of the Sunday
wakes and festivals, in which religion and pleasure were so strangely
blended; nor, as an Englishman, could he have been an indifferent
spectator of the breach which was gradually widening between the King
and his people.
A cloud was then gathering which presaged a great religious and
political tempest. The year in which Bradshaw lost his wife was that
which closed the long and brilliant reign of the last of the Tudor
sovereigns. James of Scotland succeeded—a King who reigned like a woman
after a woman who had reigned like a man. The Puritans in Elizabeth’s
time were comparatively insignificant in numbers, but the strictness
of the Queen’s ecclesiastical rule acted upon their stubborn nature,
and those who were averse to Episcopacy, and impatient of uniformity in
rites and ceremonies and the decorous adjuncts of a National Church,
grew formidable under James, and turbulent and aggressive after the
accession of Charles. The policy of Elizabeth gave a political standing
ground to Puritanism, and Puritanism gave to the political war in which
the nation became involved a relentless character that was all its
own. In 1634 was issued the writ for the levying of Ship-money—“that
word of lasting sound in the memory of this kingdom,” as Clarendon
calls it—a word which lit the torch of revolution, and for a period
of eleven years kept the country in almost uninterrupted strife. The
occasion was eagerly availed of by the discontented; pulpits were
perverted by religious fanatics, and violent appeals made to the
passions of the populace, who were preached into rebellion; while more
thoughtful, yet brave and strong-minded men, impressed with a stern,
unflinching love of justice, and a determination to maintain those
liberties they held to be their birthright, contended to the death
against “imposts” and “levies” and “compositions,” and against the
worse mockery of “loans” which no man was free to refuse, as well as
the despotism that more than threatened their common country. It was
a fatal time for England. Dignified by some high virtues, possessing
many excellent endowments both of head and heart, Charles yet lacked
sincerity, forethought, and decision, and the capacity required for
the wise conduct of affairs. The blame for the strifes and contentions
which arose does not, however, attach wholly to the sovereign, nor yet
to his subjects. The absolutism of the Tudors was, in a measure, the
cause of the sins of the Stuarts, and the sins of the Stuarts brought
about the miseries of the Rebellion, just as in turn the despotic rule
and grinding social tyranny of the Commonwealth period led to the
excesses of the Restoration. Charles was born out of season, and lived
too much in a world of his own ideas to comprehend the significance
of events that were passing around him. The twining of the Red and
White Roses upon the ensanguined field of Bosworth was followed by the
break-up of the feudal system, and the effacement of many of the old
landmarks of English society; a new class of landowners had sprung into
existence, eager for the acquirement of political freedom, and the king
was unable or unwilling to recognise the changed condition of things.
He inherited from his father inordinate notions of kingly power, and
he resolutely shut his eyes to the fact that he had to deal with an
entirely different state of public opinion. The power of the sovereign
had waned, but that of the people had increased; Parliament, while bent
upon abridging the ancient constitutional prerogative of the Crown, was
equally resolute in the extension of its own. The King persisted in
his determination to reign and govern by “divine right”—he refused to
yield anything—and in the fierce struggle which he provoked he fell.
Moderation was no longer thought of; the time for compromise was past;
the seeds of strife were sown and nurtured both by King and Parliament,
who, distrusting and wearied of each other, no longer cared for peace.
At length the storm burst. At Manchester, on the 15th July, 1642—a
month before the unfurling of the Royal standard at Nottingham—very
nearly upon the spot where now stands the statue of Cromwell, the first
shot was fired and the first blood shed in that great conflict which
drenched the country in civil slaughter.
When the first shot was fired which proclaimed to anxious England
that the differences between the King and the Parliament were only to
be settled by an appeal to arms, the two sons of Henry Bradshaw had
attained to the fulness of manhood, Henry, the eldest, having then
lately completed his forty-second year, while John was his junior only
by two years.
Henry Bradshaw, the third of the name, who resided at Marple, was
born, as previously stated, in 1600, and baptised at the old church at
Stockport on the 23rd June in the same year. Following with admirable
consistency the practice of his progenitors, he further added to the
territorial possessions of his house by marrying a rich heiress—Mary,
the eldest of the two daughters and co-heirs of Bernard Wells,[7]
of Holme, in the parish of Bakewell. The marriage settlement bears
date 30 Sep., 6 Charles I. (1631), and Mr. Ormerod, the historian of
Cheshire, says that he had bestowed upon him by his father-in-law the
hall of Wyberslegh, but this is evidently an error, for, as we have
previously seen, his father and grandfather between them purchased
Wyberslegh, along with Marple, from Sir Edward Stanley, a quarter of a
century previously, and the hall continued, as it had been from time
immemorial, appendant to that of Marple. It is more than probable,
however, that he took his young bride to Wyberslegh, and resided there
during his father’s lifetime, so that it would appear that the first
of the Bradshaws settled at Marple lived at The Place, where he died
in 1611, after which it ceased to be occupied as the family residence.
Henry, his son, resided at the hall, and the youngest of the three
occupied Wyberslegh until he succeeded to the family estate. Mary
Wells, by whom he had a son who succeeded as heir, and two daughters,
predeceased him, and he again entered the marriage state, his second
wife being Anne, daughter of George Bowdon, of Bowdon, in Cheshire, by
whom he had five sons and one or more daughters, Though by no means
insensible to the advantages accruing from the possession of worldly
wealth, it does not appear that he added materially to his temporal
estate by his second marriage. The Bowdons were a family of ancient
rank, who at one time owned one-fourth part of Bowdon, but their
estates had gradually dwindled away, and were finally alienated by sale
to the Booths of Dunham, in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign.
[Note 7: This marriage is recorded on a brass to the memory of Bernard
Wells, affixed to the north wall of the chancel in Bakewell Church.]
Inheriting from his father the Puritan sentiments of the age, Henry
Bradshaw carried those feelings with him into a more active arena.
Living in close neighbourship with Colonel Dukenfield, Edward Hyde,
of Norbury, Ralph Arderne, of Harden, Ralph Holland, of Denton, and
holding intimate relations with the Booths of Dunham, the Breretons of
Handforth, the Stanleys of Alderley, and other influential Presbyterian
families, their friendship doubtless helped to shape the part he took
in public affairs. When the storm which had been long gathering burst,
he took his stand with the Parliament against the King, and became
one of the most active officers on the side of the Commonwealth. He
served as sergeant-major in the regiment commanded by his neighbour,
Robert Dukenfield, and would, therefore, in all probability, take
part in the lengthened siege of “Mr. Tatton’s house of Whittenshaw
(Wythenshawe),” in the winter of 1643-4, as well as in the fruitless
attempt, a few months later, to defend Stockport Bridge against
Rupert and his Cavaliers, who were hastening to the relief of Lathom
House, in Lancashire, where the heroic Countess of Derby was bravely
defending her husband’s home against greatly superior forces. Though a
Cheshire man, he held a lieutenant-colonel’s commission in Assheton’s
Lancashire regiment, and subsequently was appointed to the command of
the entire militia within the Macclesfield hundred, in his own county.
He was present also with the Cheshire men at the final overthrow of
the Royalist army—the “crowning mercy,” as Cromwell phrased it—at
Worcester, Sept 3, 1651, where it was said he was wounded, but if so
the injury must have been only slight, for before the end of the month
he was acting as one of the members of the court-martial appointed
under a commission from Cromwell for the trial of the Earl of Derby.
After the disaster at Worcester, the Earl had accompanied the King
in his flight, until he was safe in the care of the Pendrells, when,
with Lord Lauderdale, Lord Talbot, and about 40 troopers, he started
northwards, in the hope of overtaking the remnant of the Scotch army,
but when near Nantwich the fugitives fell into the hands of Oliver
Edge,[8] a captain in the Manchester regiment, also returning from
Worcester. Quarter having been given by his captor, the Earl naturally
believed that he would be entitled to the immunities of a prisoner
of war, but he soon found himself under close confinement in Chester
Castle, of which Colonel Dukenfield was at the time governor. Cromwell,
having got his most formidable foe in his power, resolved to get for
ever rid of him by the shortest process that time and circumstances
admitted. The Earl was therefore at once brought for trial before
Bradshaw and the other members appointed on the court-martial, on the
charge of high treason in contravening an Act of Parliament passed only
a few weeks before, and of which, as his accusers were well aware, he
could have no knowledge, and, in defiance of the recognised laws of war
and the conditions on which he had surrendered, was pronounced guilty
and sentenced to be beheaded at Bolton. Dr. Halley, in his history of
“Lancashire Puritanism and Nonconformity,” says that Colonel Bradshaw,
notwithstanding that he had voted for the rejection of the Earl’s
plea; “earnestly entreated his brother, the Lord President, to obtain
a commutation of the punishment,” but, if he did, his efforts were
unsuccessful. Seacombe attributed the execution of the Earl to the
“inveterate malice” of (President) Bradshaw, Rigby, and Birch, which
originated, he says, as to Bradshaw, because of the Earl’s refusing
him the Vice-Chamberlainship of Chester;[9] Rigby, because of his
ill-success at Lathom; and Birch, in his lordship having trailed him
under a hay cart at Manchester on the occasion of the outbreak in July,
1642, by which he got, even among his own party, the epithet of “Lord
Derby’s Carter.” He adds that, “Cromwell and Bradshaw had so ordered
the matter that when they saw the major part of the House inclined to
allow the Earl’s plea, as the Speaker was putting the question, eight
or nine of them quitted the House, and those left in it being under
the number of forty, no question could be put.” The latter statement,
however, is hardly borne out by the _Commons Journal_,[10] which, under
date “14 October, 1651,” makes this brief mention of the reception of
the Earl’s petition:—
Mr. Speaker, by way of report, acquaints the House with a letter
which he had received from the Earl of Derby; and the question
being put—That the said letter be now read, the House was divided.
The yeas went forth, Sir William Brereton and Mr. Ellis tellers
for the yeas, with the yeas, 22; Mr. Bond and Major-General
Harrison, tellers for the noes, with the noes, 16, so it passed in
the affirmative. A letter from the Earl of Derby, of the 11th of
October, 1651, with a petition therein enclosed, entitled, “The
Humble Petition of the Earl of Derby,” was this day read.
[Note 8: Oliver Edge, to whom Lord Derby surrendered, resided at Birch
Hall Houses, in Rusholme. To his credit it should be said that, whilst
strictly faithful to his oath, he treated his illustrious captive with
the respect due to fallen greatness when conducting him and his friends
as prisoners to Chester. In one of his letters to his Countess, the
Earl speaks of Captain Edge as “one that was so civil to me that I, and
all that love me, are beholden to him.”]
[Note 9: If so, this must have been in 1640, when the Earl, who was at
that time Chamberlain, gave the appointment (27 July, 14 Car. I.) to
Orlando Bridgeman, son of the Bishop of Chester, in succession to Roger
Downes, of Wardley Hall, near Manchester.]
[Note 10: vii.—27.]
In the administration of affairs in his own county, Colonel Bradshaw
took an active part. He was one of the commissioners for the
Macclesfield hundred for the sequestration of the estates of those
who retained Royalist opinions, or who refused to take the national
covenant, and his name appears first among the signataries to the
famous Lancashire and Cheshire petition to the Parliament, praying
for the establishment of the Presbyterian religion, and urging that
“the frequenters of separate conventicles might be discountenanced
and punished.” The petitioners who had previously pleaded conscience
having gained the ascendancy were now anxious to stifle freedom of
thought, and to exercise a tyranny over their fellow-men, justifying
the remark of Fuller, that “those who desired most ease and liberty for
their sides when bound with Episcopacy, now girt their own garments
closest about the consciences of others.” In those troublous times
marriage as a religious ceremony was forbidden, and became merely a
civil contract entered into before a justice of the peace, after three
“publications” at the “meeting place,” or in the “market place,” the
statute declaring that “no other marriage whatsoever shall be held or
accounted a marriage according to the laws of England.” Bradshaw, as a
county justice, officiated at many of these civil marriages, and his
neat and carefully-written autograph frequently appears in the church
books of the period, with his heraldic seal affixed (for, however he
might affect to contemn such vanities, he was yet careful to display
the armorial ensigns of his house when acting officially with his more
aristocratic neighbours), sometimes as appointing parish registrars,
and at others ordering the levying of church rates and sanctioning
the parish accounts, which at the time could not be passed without
magisterial confirmation.
[Illustration]
Colonel Bradshaw lived to see the fall of the Commonwealth, and the
overthrow of that form of government he had done so much to establish,
but he did not long survive the restoration of monarchy. After that
event had taken place, he was brought before the Lords Committee to
answer for the part he had taken in the court-martial on Lord Derby,
and committed to the custody of the Messenger of Black Rod. He appears,
however, to have been leniently dealt with, for, after submitting to
what reads very like an apology for his conduct, he was set at liberty,
and permitted to pass the remainder of his days in peace. Those days
were but few: the anxiety consequent upon the changed aspect of affairs
was too much for him—his spirit was broken, and he died at Marple a
few months after (11th March, 1661-2). On the 15th March, 1661-2, in
accordance with his previously-expressed desire, his remains were
laid beside those of his father and grandfather in the little chapel
belonging to his family, then standing on the south side of the chancel
of Stockport Church.
It does not appear that a copy of his will, which was proved at
Chester, by the executor, 27th February, 1662, has at any time been
published, but the following abstract, made by Mr. J. Fred. Beever, and
contributed by him to “Local Gleanings,” appeared in the _Manchester
Courier_ of October 15, 1875:—
2 July 12 Car. II (1660) I Henry Bradshaw of Marple co. Chester
doe ... buried in my father’s grave in Marple Quire in the par.
Churche of Stockport if I depart this life in Cheshire ... my
sonne John Bradshawe ... all my lands in Bowden Medlarie (Bowdon
Edge?) and Mellor in the county of Darbie ... my sonne William
Bradshawe ... my lands in Chapel-le-Frith and Briggeworth
(Bugsworth?) co. Derby ... Godfrey Bradshawe, Francis Bradshawe
and Joseph Bradshawe, my three youngest sonnes ... all my lands
in Torkington co. Chester ... Anne my lovinge wife ... she having
a jointure out of my lands in Cheshire and Wibersley ... my sonne
and heire Henery Bradshawe ... all my bookes ... my twoe daughters
Barbara and Catharine, they being by their grandfather Wells and
his wife well provided for. To my daughter Dorothy ... £400, to my
daughter Rachel ... £500, to my youngest daughter Anne ... £400
... my said sonne Henery Bradshawe ... (the residuary legatee and
executor) ... my good friend Edward Warren, of Poynton esq....
(overseer).
Bradshaw was wont to lament that he had “a small estate and eleven
children.” The whole eleven, as well as his second wife survived him.
Among the family portraits at Marple was (and may be still) one of a
young maiden, said to be a daughter of the colonel. Round this lady
the glamour of romance has been cast, and a tradition tells the story
of her unhappy fate. In those times, when not unfrequently members of
the same family took opposite sides, when father contended with son,
and brother met brother in mortal conflict, Miss Bradshaw, with scant
regard for the religious and political principles of her house, had
formed an attachment for a young officer in the Royalist army, whose
family had in happier days been on terms of intimacy with her own.
Though he had espoused the cause of his sovereign, the Puritan colonel,
in consideration of former friendships, treated him with personal
kindness and welcomed him to his house. On one occasion, when entrusted
with the conveyance of despatches to the King, who was then with
his army at Chester, having occasion to pass near Marple, the young
cavalier halted and stayed the night with the family of his betrothed.
Mistress Bradshaw, with a woman’s intuitiveness, suspecting the nature
of his mission, and fearing the letters he was commissioned to deliver
might bode no good to her husband’s house, resolved, with the help of
a trusty waiting-maid, to secretly ascertain their contents. Having
done this, and found that her worst fears were realised, her next
thought was how to prevent their reaching the King’s hands without
awakening the suspicions of their bearer. Summoning to her councils
an old servitor of the family, it was decided to partially sever the
straps by which the saddle-bags containing the dreaded missives were
attached, so that the attendant, when guiding their bearer across the
ford, might detach and sink them in the Goyt, when they would be lost
for ever. On the early morrow the gay young soldier, having taken leave
of his lady-love, hastened upon his mission; the old retainer, who was
nothing loth to speed the parting guest, accompanying him towards the
river, but, giving a somewhat free interpretation to his instructions,
concluded that if it was desirable to get rid of the letters it might
be equally desirable to get rid of their bearer, and so, instead of
conducting him to the ford, he led him to the deepest part of the
river, which had become swollen with the storm of the previous night.
The young cavalier plunged into the stream, and in an instant both
horse and rider were swept away by the surging flood. Miss Bradshaw
witnessed the act of treachery from the window of her chamber, but was
powerless to prevent the catastrophe. She saw the fatal plunge, gave
one long piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the ground. Reason had
for ever left her.
Such is the legend that has floated down through successive
generations, and still obtains credence with many of the neighbouring
villagers, who, with a fondness for the supernatural, delight to tell
how the shade of the hapless maid of Marple is sometimes seen lingering
at nightfall about the broad staircases and corridors of what was once
her home, or, as the pale cold moon sheds her silvery radiance on wood
and sward, wandering along the grassy margin of the river and by the
deep dark pool where her lover lost his life. Mr. Leigh has made the
incidents of this tradition the basis of one of the most pathetic of
his recently-published Cheshire ballads. Another writer on Marple has,
however, given a different version. He says the lady was Miss Esther
Bradshaw, and that her lover was “Colonel Sydenham, the Royalist
commander,” whom she ultimately married. It is a pity to spoil so
pretty a story, but strict regard for prosaic fact compels us to avow
our disbelief in it, and that for a twofold reason—(1) that Colonel
Sydenham was not a “Royalist,” but had been an active officer during
the war on the Parliament side; and (2) that Colonel Bradshaw never
had a daughter Esther. The story so circumstantially related rests,
we believe, on no better foundation than the once popular though now
almost forgotten romance of “The Cavalier,” written under the _nom de
plume_ of Lee Gibbons, by Mr. Bennett, of Chapel-en-le-Frith, some
sixty years ago.
Henry Bradshaw, the Parliamentarian soldier, as the eldest surviving
son, inherited the family estates, while John, his younger brother,
was left to push his fortunes as best he could. Possessing much natural
shrewdness and ability, with no lack of energy and self-confidence, he
was content with the position, strong in the belief that
The world’s mine oyster,
and in the bitter struggle between monarchy and democracy he was quick
to avail himself of the opportunities which tended to his own wealth
and aggrandisement.
He first saw the light in 1602, but the exact place of his birth has
not been ascertained. In an article in Britton and Brayley’s “Beauties
of England and Wales,” believed to have been written by Watson, the
historian of the Earls of Warren, it is stated that he was born at
Wyberslegh; but Mr. Ormerod, in his “History of Cheshire,” doubts the
probability of this, “inasmuch,” he says, “as the family only became
possessed of that seat by the marriage of his elder brother Henry with
the daughter of Mr. Wells,” but this, if we may venture to differ from
so deservedly high an authority, must be an error, for Wyberslegh,
which had for many generations been appendant to the hall of Marple,
was in the occupation of his father or grandfather when the Marple
property was purchased by them in 1606; it is not unlikely, therefore,
that the younger Bradshaw was residing at Wyberslegh at the time of
his son John’s birth. His baptism is thus recorded in the Stockport
register:—
1602. Dec. 10. John, the sonne of Henrye Bradshawe, of Marple,
baptized.
At a later date some zealous Royalist has written in the margin the
word “traitor.” It has been said that his mother died in giving him
birth. This, however, is not strictly correct, though her death
occurred a few weeks after that event, the register of Stockport
showing that she was buried there January 24, 1603-4, and her son
Francis, who would seem to have been a twin with John, was baptised at
the same place three days later.
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:—
Edward Hill, of Stopforth (Stockport), glazier, knew Mr.
Shallcrosse, formerly minister at Stopforth, who about the
yeare 1641 refused to lett to farme the tythes of Marple to the
townsmen of Marple att their own rates, but offered them the same
at such rates as was conceived they might well gaine att. And
that aboute two yeares after Articles were exhibited against the
said Mr. Shallcrosse for delinquency, who thereupon appealed to
the Committee of Lords and Commons for sequestracons, and went
severall times to London about the same busines, and was once
goeing to have the same heard, and had a convoy of horse of the
Parliament’s partye, and some of the King’s partye came forth of
Dudley Castle, and (he) then was by them slayne. And this deponent
further saith that he was servaunt to the said Mr. Shallcrosse for
seaven yeares before his death, whoe did acquaint this examinante
that hee had found much opposition by Sergeant Bradshawe, whoe
then was solicitor for the Commonwealth.
He also saith that the tythes of Stopforth are reputed to be
worth 400li. by the yeare or thereabouts, and saith that hee
hath heard generally reported that Sir William Brereton had a
power invested in him to place or displace such ministers as were
scandalous or delinquents. And he further saith that hee believed
if the said Mr. Shallcrosse had complied with the desires of the
said Mr. Bradshawe and his father and brother, that the said Mr.
Shallcrosse would not have been sequestrated.
Bradshaw’s next step in advancement was in 1646, when, on the 6th
October, the House of Commons appointed him, in conjunction with Sir
Rowland Wandesford and Sir Thomas Bedingfield, Commissioners of the
Great Seal for six months, an appointment that was, however, overruled
by the House of Lords. From this time his rise was rapid, honours and
emoluments seeming to crowd upon him. On the 22nd February following
both Houses voted him to the office of Chief Justice of Chester, an
appointment that would amply compensate for the disappointment he had
experienced in Lord Derby’s previous refusal to bestow on him the
vice-chamberlainship of the city. On being relieved of his office as
one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, he was named (March 18,
1647) as one of the judges for Wales, an office he appears to have held
conjointly with his post at Chester. Three months later we find him
again associated with Prynne, the two, with Serjeant Jermyn and Mr.
Solicitor St. John, being appointed by the Parliament to conduct the
proceedings against the intrepid Judge Jenkins, who, when impeached of
treason before the Commons, not only refused to kneel at the bar of the
House, but had the temerity to call the place “a den of thieves.”
On the 12th October, 1648, as we learn from Whitelocke, Parliament,
in accordance with a recommendation of the Commissioners of the Seal,
ordered a new call of serjeants-at-law, and Bradshaw’s name is found
among those then voted to receive the coif.
It has been suggested by a local writer that, in this, Parliament
had an ulterior object in view, the purpose of Bradshaw’s promotion
being to secure an efficient instrument for conducting the proceedings
against the Sovereign, which were then contemplated. This, however,
is extremely improbable, for Parliament, it should be remembered, was
averse to any extreme measure, and was, in fact, anxious to come to
terms with the beaten King, its agents being at the very time engaged
in negotiating with him the abortive treaty of Newport. But Cromwell
had determined that Charles’s life should be sacrificed, and the will
of the army and its guiding genius had become paramount, for a military
despotism was already usurping the powers of the State. The breach
between the army and Parliament was widening daily, and the great
struggle which was to decide the future destinies of England was at
hand. The army, flushed with victory, had returned from the destruction
of its enemies; conscious of its own power, it demanded vengeance on
the “chief delinquent,” as the King was called, and sent an expedition
to the Isle of Wight to seize his person, and convey him to Hurst
Castle. Meanwhile, the Commons had discussed the concessions made by
Charles, and by a majority of 140 to 104 had decided that they “were
sufficient grounds for settling the peace of the kingdom.” Scarcely
had the vote been recorded when a decisive blow was struck by the
army at the independence of Parliament, for on the following morning,
Colonel Pride, at the head of his regiment of foot, and accompanied
with a regiment of horse, blockaded the doors leading to the House
of Commons, and seized in the passage all those members who had been
previously marked on a list as hostile or doubtful, and placed them in
confinement, none being allowed to enter the House but the most furious
and determined of the known friends to “the cause.”[11] The obnoxious
element having been thus effectually got rid of, the sword waved openly
over the legislative benches, and the army in effect constituted the
government. The next day this remnant of the House—the “Rump,” as it
was thereafter designated—rescinded the obnoxious vote, and appointed
a day of humiliation, selecting Hugh Peters, Caryl, and Marshall
to perform the service. The “purge” of the Commons had secured the
certainty of concurrence in the wishes of the army, and accordingly,
on the 23rd December, a committee was appointed to prepare charges
for the impeachment of the King, and on the 28th an ordinance for his
trial was read. In order to give their designs some resemblance to the
form and principle of law, the House on the 1st January voted “that by
the fundamental law of the land, it is treason for the King of England
to levy war against the Parliament and kingdom.” This vote, when sent
up to the Lords for their concurrence, was rejected without a single
dissentient voice, a procedure that led the remnant of the Commons a
few weeks later to declare that “the House of Peers was useless and
dangerous, and ought to be abolished.” On the 4th January an ordinance
was presented for erecting a new High Court of Justice for the trial of
the King, which was read the first, second, and third time, assented
to, and passed the same day. The Commissioners named in it included
all the great officers of the army, four peers, the Speaker, and
principal members of the expurgated House of Commons. The twelve judges
unanimously refused to be of the commission, declaring its purpose
and constitution to be contrary to the principles of English law;
Whitelocke, who had received the coif at the same time as Bradshaw
and his colleague Widdrington, two of the most eminent lawyers of the
time, also refused to sit on the tribunal. The Commissioners met on
the 10th, and appointed Bradshaw, who was absent, their president. It
would seem to have been originally intended that he should only take a
subordinate part in the business, for on the 3rd January the committee
had decreed that Serjeants Bradshaw and Nichols, with Mr. Steel, should
be “assistants.” Steel acted as Attorney-General, but Nichols could not
be prevailed upon to give attendance.
[Note 11: This extraordinary outrage, perpetrated in the name of
freedom and justice, has ever since been familiarly known as “Pride’s
Purge.”]
It is not known with certainty whether Bradshaw was aware of the
intention to elect him president of the commission for the trial
of the King, but it is more than probable he had been informed of
what was contemplated, and he certainly cannot be said to have been
averse to the office, for undoubtedly he had resolution and courage
enough to decline it had he felt so disposed. He attended the court
in obedience to the summons on the 12th, and, when called to take the
place of president, after asking to be excused, submitted to the order
and took his place, whereupon it was ordered, “that John Bradshaw,
serjeant-at-law, who is appointed president of this court, should be
called by the name and have the title of Lord President, and that
as well without as within the said court, during the commission and
sitting of the said court.” Clarendon says that “when he was first
nominated he seemed much surprised, and very resolute to refuse it;
which he did in such a manner, and so much enlarging upon his own
want of abilities to undergo so important a charge, that it was
very evident he expected to be put to that apology. And when he was
pressed with more importunity than could have been used by chance, he
required time to consider of it, and said ‘he would then give his final
answer,’ which he did the next day, and with great humility accepted
the office, which he administered with all the pride, impudence, and
superciliousness imaginable.”
[Illustration: PRESIDENT BRADSHAW.]
Clarendon was evidently of opinion that he had been previously informed
of the position he would be asked to fill, and the “pride” spoken of
in the administration of the office was only in accord with that
fondness for display to which allusion has already been made. Suddenly
raised to a position of pre-eminence as the head of a tribunal wholly
unprecedented in the extent and nature of its assumed authority, he
was not the man to dispense with any of those outward manifestations
which might give dignity and impressiveness to his dread office. He
had 20 officers or other gentlemen appointed to attend him as a guard
going and returning from Westminster Hall; lodgings were provided
for him in New Palace Yard during the sittings of the court; and Sir
Henry Mildmay, Mr. Holland, and Mr. Edwards were deputed to see that
everything necessary was provided for him. A sword and mace were
carried before him by two gentlemen, 21 gentlemen that were near
carried each a partizan, and he had in the court 200 soldiers as an
additional guard. A chair of crimson velvet was placed for him in the
middle of the court, and a desk on which was laid a velvet cushion;
many of the commissioners, as Whitelocke says, donned “their best
habits,” and the President himself appeared in a scarlet robe, and
wearing his celebrated peaked hat, remaining covered when the King was
brought before him, though he expressed himself as greatly offended
that his Sovereign did not remove his hat while in his presence.
Into the particulars of the trial we do not desire to enter—they are
matters which history has made known; nor do we wish to dwell upon
the incidents attendant upon it—the calm and dignified demeanour of
the ill-starred King; his denial of the authority of the court, and
consistent refusal to recognise a power founded on usurpation; the
ill-concealed vanity of the judge; the imposing pomp and glitter of the
regicidal court; the intrepid loyalty of Lady Fairfax, who startled
the commission by her vehement protest when the charge was made, and
the scarcely less courageous conduct of her companion, Mrs. Nelson;
the rancorous hatred displayed by the King’s accusers; the mockery of
proof; the refusal to hear the fallen monarch’s appeal; the revilings
of the excited soldiery; the expressions of sympathy of the people; or
the brutal blow bestowed upon the poor soldier who ventured to implore
a blessing on his Sovereign’s head—all these are recorded and are
embalmed in the hearts of the English people. The bloody episode which
will for ever darken our national annals was an event without precedent
in the world’s history. For the constitution of the court no authority
could be found in English law, it was illegal, unconstitutional,
and, in its immediate results, dangerous to liberty. Whatever might
be the faults of Charles—and they were many—his death was not a
political necessity, nor can it be justly said to have been the act
of the nation, for the voice of public opinion had never been heard,
and therefore the country must be exonerated of any participation by
approval or otherwise in the criminality of that unfortunate deed—it
was the act of a faction in the House of Commons, acting under the
influence of a faction in the army. In this momentous business Bradshaw
may have persuaded himself that he was performing a solemn act of duty
to his country, but, looked at in the light of after history, that act
can only be pronounced a criminal blunder.
Tradition says that the warrant for the King’s execution was signed
in Bradshaw’s house[12] at Walton-on-Thames, a building still
standing near Church Street in that pleasant little town, though now
subdivided into several small tenements, and shorn of much of its
ancient splendour—his own signature, of course, appearing first on that
well-known document.
[Note 12: Though now closed in by humbler dwellings, the house must have
been in Bradshaw’s time far away from any other building of equal size
and pretensions. There is a common belief in the neighbourhood that an
underground passage led from it to Ashley Park, where Cromwell, it is
said, at that time resided.]
[Illustration: Autograph of John Bradshaw]
Now, after a lapse of more than two centuries, and when the welfare of
the throne and the people are identical, we can afford to look back
upon the great tragedy in which Bradshaw played so profound a part
calmly and without bitterness of spirit. From the anarchy, the foulness
of the tyranny of those times, the nation, the Church, and the people
have emerged with a firm hold on better things. Prelacy, which had been
trampled under foot, and Presbyterianism, which became to Independency
much what Prelacy had been to Presbyterianism, have reappeared, but
the severe asceticism and religious fervour of the Puritan, and the
catholicity and breadth of view of the Churchman have commingled and
become elements of the national life, fruitful for good by reason that
they no longer come into violent collision with each other.
When Bradshaw had brought his Sovereign to the block, he may be said to
have fulfilled the prediction of his early youth, for assuredly he had
Done that
Which all the world did wonder at.
He had accepted an office which sounder lawyers shrank from
undertaking, and had entitled himself to the gratitude of those who,
by compassing the death of the King, sought to accomplish their own
ambitious ends; and it must be admitted that those who benefited by
his daring were neither slow nor niggardly in rewarding him for his
services to the “cause,” for never was a royal favourite so suddenly
raised to a position of power, and wealth, and consequence, and never
was monarch more lavish in the favours bestowed upon a courtier than
was the newly-appointed Government in doing honour to and enriching its
legal chief. The Deanery House at Westminster was given as a residence
to him and his heirs, and a sum of £5,000 allowed to procure an
equipage suitable to his new sphere of life, and such as the dignity of
his office demanded. “The Lord President of the High Court of Justice,”
writes Clarendon, “seemed to be the greatest magistrate in England.
And, though it was not thought seasonable to make any such declaration,
yet some of those whose opinion grew quickly into ordinances, upon
several occasions declared that they believed that office was not to be
looked upon as necessary _pro hac vice_ only, but for continuance, and
that he who executed it deserved to have an ample and liberal estate
conferred upon him for ever.”
As his office did not expire with the King’s trial, Parliament on
the 6th February allowed him to appoint a deputy to supply his place
at Guildhall, where he had sat as judge, and on the 14th of the same
month, when Parliament made provision for the exercise of the executive
authority by the appointment of a Council of State, he was selected by
the House as one of the thirty-eight members. Of this body Bradshaw
was chosen president, and his kinsman, John Milton, Latin secretary.
At the first meeting (March 10), if we are to believe our old friend
Whitelocke, he seemed “but little versed in such business,” and spent
much of the time in making long speeches. Two days afterwards he was
appointed Chief Justice of Wales, but he did not go there immediately,
for on the 20th of the same month he sat again as Lord President of
the Council, at whose discussions it would seem he was not disposed
to remain a mere passive instrument, for, as Whitelocke remarks, he
“spent much of their time in urging his own long arguments, which are
inconvenient in State matters.” “His part,” as he adds, “was only to
have gathered the sense of the council, and to state the question, not
to deliver his own opinion.”
Whatever may have been his demeanour in the council, outside, at least,
the duties of his office were discharged with firmness and energy, as
the townsmen of Manchester had cause to know. When, in 1642, the town
was threatened with an attack by Lord Derby, the Presbyterians had
entrusted its defence to Colonel Rosworm, a German engineer, who had
been trained in the wars of the Low Countries, and who had agreed to
give his services for six months for the modest sum of £30. A faithful
and valuable servant he proved, though a provokingly ill-tempered one,
for he never ceased to bewail the beggarly remuneration he had agreed
to accept, or to rail at the “despicable earthworms,” as he termed
those who had offered it. As he refused to sign the national covenant,
that not being included in the contract, and being, as he thought, no
part of a soldier’s duty, his employers took an irreconcileable hatred
against him, and, when the danger was past, repudiated their share of
the bargain. Unable to obtain the pittance for which he had risked his
life, he left the town in disgust, and repaired to London to lay his
grievances before the Government, and implore their interference. As a
consequence, the following peremptory letter was addressed to the town
by Bradshaw, which no doubt had a salutary effect on the “despicable
earthworms,” whom the angry old soldier had charged with being
“matchless in their treachery, and setting the devil himself an example
of villainy”:—
For the town of Manchester, and particularly for those who
contracted with Lieut.-Colonell Roseworme, these are.
Gentlemen,—The condition of the bearer being fully made known,
and his former merit attested to us by honourable testimony, and
very well known to yourselves, himself also being by birth a
stranger, and unable to present his complaints in the ordinary
legall forme, give us just occasion to recommend him to you for
a thorough performance of what, by your contract and promise, is
become due unto him for his speciall service done to your town
and country, whereto we conceive there is good cause for you to
make an addition, and that there can be no cause at all for your
backwardness to pay him what is his due.
As touching that which is otherwise, due to him from the State,
after some other greater businesses are over, he may expect to be
put in a way to receive all just satisfaction. In the meane time
we committ him and the premises to your consideration for his
speedy relief, and we doe require you to give us notice of your
resolutions and doings herein, within one month after the receipt
thereof.
Signed in the name and by order of the Council of State appointed
by authority of Parliament.
JO. BRADSHAWE, Pr. Sedt.
Whitehall, 7th July, 1649.
It must be confessed that the President, with all his “rare modesty”
and patriotism, was not so self-denying but that he looked sharply
after the main chance. On the 19th June, 1649, Parliament voted him a
sum of £1,000, and on the same day ordered that it should be referred
to a committee to consider how he was to be put into possession of the
value of £2,000 a year, to be settled as an inheritance upon him and
his heirs for ever.
Wealth and honours were literally showered upon him, and for a time the
history of the Government was little else than a history of Bradshaw.
On the 30th June he was re-appointed to the office of Chief Justice
of Chester, Humphrey Macworth, of Shrewsbury, who afterwards acted as
President of the court-martial which tried Lord Derby, being named
as his deputy. On the 15th July a Bill passed through Parliament
settling £2,000 a year on him and his heirs, and nine days later (July
24th) another £2,000 per annum was granted to him and them out of the
sequestrated estates of the Earl of St Albans at Somerhill, in Kent,
and those of Lord Cottington in Wiltshire, the latter including the
famous Fonthill. This last-named grant was in all probability the one
referred to in the order of June 19, when a committee was ordered to
consider how an annual payment of that amount could be settled.
Four days after these grants were made, an Act was passed constituting
him Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, an office that subsequently,
when others were abolished, was on his account specially retained, and
on the 2nd April, 1652, secured to him. His name appears on the list of
Justices of the Peace for his native county in 1650; in the same year
he was again named of the Council of State, and retained his office
of President. The following letter, extracted from the State papers,
is interesting as showing the relations existing between Bradshaw and
Cromwell, and the estimation in which he was held by the Lord General:—
My Lord,—I return you my humble and heartie thanks for your
late noble and friendly letter, whereby I have the comfort and
assurance of your lordship’s faire interpretation of my past,
and (so I dare call them) well ment actions, which I shall not
desyre to account for or justify to any man lyving so soon as to
yourself; of whome I shall ever have that esteeme as becomes me
to have of one who daylie approves himself religion’s and his
countrey’s best friend, and who may justly challenge a tribute of
observance from all that syncerely wysh them well, in which number
I shall hope ever to be found.
My Lord, I have (’tis true) taken the boldness to write some
few letters to you since your late departure hence, and I
have satisfaction enough that they were receyved, and are not
dyspleasing to you. Your applycation to the gentleman, named in
yours, who is of so knowne fytnesse and abylytie to procure you
effectuall returnes, was an act, in my apprehension, savouring
of your usuall prudence, and tending to the advantage of the
publique affayres committed to your trust and care; neither can
any wyse man justifie any charge of seeming neglect of others
in that respect. I am sorry your lordship hath bene put to any
expense of your so pretious tyme, for removing any such doubts;
but these my over carefull fryends, who have created your lordship
this trouble, have, I must confess, occasyonally contrybuted to my
desyred contentment, which is, and ever hath been, synce I had the
honour to be knowne unto you, to understand myself to be reteyned
and preserved in your good opinion. And if my faithfull endeavours
for the publique, and respects unto your lordship in everything
wherein I may serve you, may deserve a contynuance thereof, I
may not doubt still to find that happiness; and this is all the
trouble I shall give your lordship as to that matter.
We are now beginning with a new councell another yeare. I might
have hoped, either for love or something els, to have been spared
from the charge, but I could not obtaine that favour; and I dare
not but submyt, where it is cleare to me that God gives the call.
He also will, I hope, give His poore creature some power to act
according to His mynd, and to serve Him in all uprightness and
syncerytie, in the way wherein He hath placed me to walk.
My Lord, I have no more, but to recommend you and all your great
affaires to the guydance, mercy, and goodness of our good God, and
to subscrybe myself, in all truth of affection,
Your lordship’s ever to be disposed of
JO. BRADSHAWE.
Whytehall, 18 Feb., 1650.
The customer who wronged Sir James Lidod is ordered to restore and
satisfie, and to come up to answer his charge, which, probably,
will fall heavy upon him.
For his Excellency the Lord General Cromwell, These.
Bradshaw acted as President of the Council of State in 1651, and again
in the year following. So far his success had been uninterrupted, and
as the supreme magistrate his power and influence was second only
to that of Cromwell himself. His authority was almost absolute. The
amiable Evelyn, in his diary, records that he could not witness the
burial of Dorislaus, “the villain,” as he writes, “who manag’d the
trial against his sacred Majesty,” until “I got a passe from the rebell
Bradshaw, then in great power;” and again, when he went to Paris with
only “an antiquated passe, it being so difficult to procure one of the
rebells without entering into oathes, which I never would do,” and he
had to bribe the officials at Dover, he found “money to the searchers
and officers was as authentiq as the hand and seale of Bradshawe
himselfe,” “where,” he adds, “I had not so much as my trunk open’d.”
The very rapidity with which Bradshaw had attained to power made him
a formidable competitor with, if not indeed a dangerous rival to, the
man in whose goodwill he had said it was his “desyred contentment” “to
be reteyned and preserved;” and there can be little doubt that his
boldness and unflinching adherence to the principles he had espoused
brought about his own undoing, for it was not long before an incident
occurred which for ever alienated Cromwell’s friendship from him. The
occasion was one memorable in the annals of England—the dissolution of
the Long Parliament, on the 20th April, 1653. Finding the action of
the “Rump,” as it was called, inimical to his designs, Cromwell, who
seems to have begun to think that government by a single person was
desirable, went down to Westminster with a force of 300 men, broke up
the House, expelled the members, and, pointing to the mace, directed
Col. Worsley—Manchester’s first Parliamentary representative—to “take
away that bauble,” which having been done, he ordered the doors to be
locked, and then returned to his lodgings at Whitehall. And so, without
a struggle or a groan, unpitied and unregretted, the Long Parliament,
which for 12 years had under a variety of forms alternately defended
and invaded the liberties of the nation, fell by the parricidal hands
of its own children.
Bradshaw, refusing to submit in silence to such a daring infringement
of the liberties of Parliament, resolved upon taking his place as head
of the Council of State the same afternoon, thinking, probably, that
his presence might deter Cromwell from committing any further acts of
violence; but the Lord General was not to be so easily diverted from
his purpose. Taking Lambert and Major-General Harrison with him, he
proceeded to the Council, and expelled its members in the same abrupt
and arbitrary manner that he had dismissed the Commons. Addressing
Bradshaw and those assembled with him, he said,—
Gentlemen, if you are met here as private persons, you shall not
be disturbed; but if as a Council of State, this is no place for
you; and, since you cannot but know what was done at the House in
the morning, so take notice that the Parliament is dissolved.
To which Bradshaw replied,—
Sir, we have heard what you did at the House in the morning,
and before many hours all England will hear. But, sir, you are
mistaken to think that Parliament is dissolved, for no power under
heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore, take you
notice of that.
The President’s spirited reply cost him Cromwell’s friendship, who,
though he continued to treat him with the outward manifestations of
respect, ever afterwards regarded him with feelings of distrust.
Exasperated though he was, Cromwell must have felt the justice of
the rebuke, for in a conference afterwards with his brother-in-law,
Desborough, he remarked that his work in clearing the House was not
complete until he had got rid of the Council of State, which, he said,
“I did in spite of the objection of honest Bradshaw, the President.”
The Republican leaders, indignant at the forcible expulsion of the
Rump Parliament, denounced it as an illegal act, which undoubtedly it
was, but Cromwell was not the man to be bound by the ordinary laws of
constitutional liberty. The miserable remnant of the Parliament, it
must be admitted, had become a reproach; it had become supreme through
similar unconstitutional violence, and was itself violating its own
contract in refusing to vote its own dissolution. The spirit manifested
by Bradshaw has been likened to that of an ancient Roman; but whether
in the resistance he offered he was influenced by purely patriotic and
disinterested motives may be very well questioned, for it must not
be forgotten that he had looked with complacency on the illegal and
high-handed proceeding which had laid the Parliament at the feet of the
army, when that sharp medicine, “Pride’s Purge,” was administered—an
act of daring violence by virtue of which alone he held his office and
had acquired his wealth.
Up to this time, as we have said, his career had been characterised by
uninterrupted success; but the uniform good luck which had hitherto
shown what daring could accomplish when upheld by an intelligent
head and dauntless heart, now forsook him. Cromwell, who was aiming
at arbitrary government in his own person, could not, on finding his
authority thus openly disputed by the President of the Council, but
have had misgivings that the man who had sufficient resolution to pass
sentence of death upon the King might not be unwilling, should occasion
arise, to perform the same office upon himself. It became necessary,
therefore, for the accomplishment of his plans that Bradshaw’s power
should be abridged; and though Parliament, on the 16th September, 1653,
enacted that the continuance of the palatinate power of Lancaster
should be vested in him, and he was also named one of the interim
Council of State that was to meet relative to a settlement of the
Government, he was no longer permitted to occupy an office of actual
power and authority.
On the 16th December, 1653, Cromwell was inaugurated Lord Protector
of the Commonwealth. Bradshaw, who was a thorough Republican, and who
certainly had the courage of his convictions, was equally opposed to
unlimited power, whether exercised by the King or by the Protector,
at once set himself to counteract the authority of his former patron.
In the first Parliament of the Protectorate he sat for his native
county, but it was only for a very brief period, for scarcely had the
representatives of the people assembled than they fell to questioning
the Protector’s authority, when Cromwell, after surrounding the
House with his guards, administered a corrective in the shape of a
declaration promising allegiance to himself, which he required every
member to sign, shortly after which he dismissed them unceremoniously
to their homes.
For a year and nine months England was left without a Parliament, the
supreme power being exercised by the Protector, and every one holding
office was required to take out a commission from him. This Bradshaw
refused to do, alleging that he held his office of Chief Justice of
Chester by a grant from the Parliament of England to continue _quamdiu
se bene gesserint_, and should therefore retain it, though willing to
submit to a verdict of twelve Englishmen as to whether he had carried
himself with that integrity which his commission exacted; and shortly
after this protest he set out on the circuit without any further
attempt being made to hinder him. His daring and firmness, as might be
expected, widened the breach and still further provoked the anger of
Cromwell, who wrote a letter to Major-General Bridge, at Middlewich,
requesting that he might be opposed by every means at the approaching
election at Chester. By some accident this letter fell into the hands
of Bradshaw’s friends, and was publicly read in the city. In spite of
this opposition he succeeded in securing his election, but, there being
a double return, neither representative took his seat. The Protector
had not only used his power against Bradshaw at Chester, but he also
succeeded in preventing his election for London, a position he had
aspired to.
Cromwell and his Independents had gone beyond the Puritan Republicans,
who, joining with the Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchy men, and other
fanatics, protested against any earthly sovereignty. Plots for
restoring the Commonwealth were rife, and there is good reason to
believe that in some of these Bradshaw was implicated; certain it is
that he was in correspondence with Okey and Goodgroom, whom he assured
that “the Long Parliament, though under a force, was the supreme
authority in England.”
The feeling of jealousy and distrust entertained by Cromwell and
Bradshaw for each other, though not openly avowed, became evident
to all, and Whitelocke says that in November, 1657, “the dislike
between them was perceived to increase.” These mutual jealousies were
not, however, to be of long continuance, for in less than a year the
grave had closed over the object of Bradshaw’s distrust. On the 3rd
September, 1658, the anniversary of his victories over the Scots at
Dunbar, and the Royalists at Worcester—his “Fortunate Day” as he was
wont to call it, Cromwell passed away, and his son and successor, even
had he been so disposed, was too weak to continue any very energetic
resistance.
On Richard Cromwell’s accession, a new Parliament was called, when
Bradshaw was again returned to the House of Commons for Chester. Though
he did not scruple to take the oath of fidelity to the new Protector,
he, nevertheless, entered into active co-operation with Haslerig, Vane,
and other Republicans, in their opposition to the Government. This
Parliament came to an end on the 22nd April, 1659, the dissolution
having been forced by the officers of the army, and with it Richard
Cromwell’s power and authority were gone, and the Protectorate was at
an end.
It is about this time that we discover the first indications of
Bradshaw’s health failing him. At the Easter assizes, in 1659, he was
lying sick in London, and unable to attend the Welsh circuit; and
as Thomas Fell, who had been associated with him—the Judge Fell, of
Swarthmoor in Furness, whose widow George Fox, the founder of the
Society of Friends, afterwards married—had died in September of the
previous year, John Ratcliffe, Recorder of Chester, was appointed to
act as his deputy _pro hac vice tantum_.
That anomalous authority, the “Rump,” which the elder Cromwell had so
ignominiously expelled from the House of Commons, was, on the 17th May,
restored by the same power of the army that, six years previously, it
had been dismissed. Six days after, a Council of State was appointed,
in which Bradshaw obtained a seat, and was elected president; and
on the 3rd June following he was named, with Serjeants Fountain and
Tyrrel, a Commissioner of the Great Seal. His health, however, had
now seriously given way, and as he had been for some months suffering
from “aguish dystemper,” he asked to be relieved of the duties of
the office. For the following copy of a letter written at this time,
while he was lying sick at Fonthill—one of the few of Bradshaw’s which
have escaped destruction—the author is indebted to the courtesy of
that industrious labourer in the field of literature, the late Mr.
John Timbs, F.S.A., by whom it was transcribed from the original in
the possession of Mr. F. Kyffin-Lenthall, a descendant of “Speaker”
Lenthall, to whom it was addressed:—
Honourable Sir,—I have, by Mr. Love, a member of this happie
P’liament, receyved the Howse’s pleasure touching myself in
relation to ye Great Seale, wherein, as I desire wth all humble
thankfulnes to acknowledge ye respect and favour done me in
honouring me with such a trust, so I should reckon it a great
happiness if I were able immediately to answer ye call and
personallie attend ye service wch at present I am not, laboring
under an aguish dystemper of about 8 months’ continuance; for
removing whereof (after much Physicke in vaine) according to
advyce on all hands, I have betaken myself to the fresh ayre, and
hope (though my fitts have not yet left me) to receive benefit and
advantage thereby. And for this I humbly begge ye Parliamts leave
and permission, if upon this just occasion they shall not in their
wysdome think fit otherwise to dyspence with me. In ye meane time
it hath been and is noe small addition to my other afflictions
that for want of health it hath not bene in my power according to
my Heart’s earnest desire to be serviceable in my poor measure to
the publiq. But by ye helpe of God when through his goodnes my
strength shal be restored (of wch I despayre not) I shal be most
free and willing to serve ye Parliment and Commonwealth in anie
capacity and that through dyvine assistance wth all diligence,
constancy and faithfulness, and to ye utmost of my power.
Sir, I judged it my dutie to give this account of myself to ye
House, and humbly desyre by your hand it may be tendered to them;
for whom I daylie praye that God would blesse all their counsels
and consultations, and succeede all their unwearyed endevors for
ye happie setling and establishment of this latelie languyshing
and now revived Commonwealth upon sure and lasting foundations.
Sir, I rest and am
Your humble Servant
JO. BRADSHAWE.
(Fonthi) "ll in Wyltshire
... in 1659
... scentis Respublica, Primo.
(Read June 9, 1659)
For the Right Honble William Lenthall, Speaker
of ye Parliament of the Commonwealth
of England. These.
Consider what it is we ask, and consider whether it be not the
same thing we have asserted with our lives and fortunes—_a Free
Parliament_. And what a slavery is it to our understandings, that
these men that now call themselves a Parliament, should declare
it an act of illegality and violence in the late aspiring General
Cromwell to dissolve their body in 1653, and not make it the
like in the garbling of the whole body of the Parliament from
four hundred to forty in 1648? What is this but to act what they
condemn in others? _A new free Parliament!_ This is our cry.
On the 1st of August, Sir George Booth appeared in arms, and in a few
days was at the head of several thousand men. Through the influence of
Mr. Cook, a Presbyterian minister in Chester, he and his troops gained
admission to the city. Colonel Lambert, with a well-disciplined force,
was sent by the Parliament after them, and an engagement took place at
Winnington Bridge, near Northwich, when Sir George and his army—which
Adam Martindale likened to “Mahomet’s Angellical Cockes, made up of
fire and snow”—were completely routed.
On the return of the victorious army to London a schism broke out
between the officers and the Parliament, which was followed by one of
those outrages upon the liberties of the Parliament with which the
country had become only too painfully familiar. Lambert and his troops
surrounded the House, which Lenthall, the Speaker, and the other
members were prevented by the soldiery from entering. Bradshaw felt
the insult, and, anticipating that the break-up of the House would be
followed by the dissolution of the Council of State, went the same
day, ill as he was, to the meeting, in the hope that he might serve
the cause of the Republic, and when Colonel Sydenham, the member for
Dorsetshire, and one of the Committee of Safety, in attempting to
justify the arbitrary act of the army by affirming, in the canting
phraseology of the day, that “a particular call of the Divine
Providence” had necessitated its having recourse to this last remedy,
Bradshaw, says Ludlow, “weak and attenuated as he was, yet animated
by his ardent zeal and constant affection to the common cause, stood
up, and, interrupting him, declared his abhorrence of that detestable
action, and told the Council that, being now going to his God, he had
not patience to sit there to hear His great name so openly blasphemed.”
This was his last public act—the last office he was permitted to render
to the Commonwealth he had so long served, as he said, “with all
diligence,” for he passed out of the world a few days after, his death
occurring on the 22nd November, 1659, in his 57th year. His remains
were deposited with great pomp in the Sanctuary of Kings, from which,
however, they were soon to be ignominiously ejected. His funeral sermon
was preached by Mr. Row, who took for his text Isaiah lvii., 1. His
Republican spirit animated him to the last, for Whitelocke says that,
so little did he repent of his conduct towards his Sovereign, that “he
declared a little before he left the world, that if the King were to be
tried and condemned again, he would be the first man that should do it.”
John Bradshaw married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Marbury, of Marbury,
Cheshire, by his first wife Eleanor, daughter of Peter Warburton, of
Arley, and he thus connected himself with some of the best families
in the county. This lady, who was some years his senior, predeceased
him without having borne any issue; and when the President died he
had not a child to continue his name or inherit the vast wealth he
had accumulated. The closing years of his life were for the most part
spent at his pleasant retreat at Walton-on-Thames, of which mention
has already been made; and there is very little doubt but that within
the wainscotted rooms of that quaint old mansion many and frequent
were the consultations touching the fate of England. A popular writer,
who visited the house some years ago, in describing it, says that an
aged woman, who then occupied a portion of the building, summed up her
account of it with the remark that “it was a great house once, but full
of wickedness; and no wonder the spirits of its inhabitants troubled
the earth to this day.” Though we are not of those who “see visions and
dream dreams,” and hold familiar converse with visitants from the world
of shadows, we may yet echo the remark of the writer referred to: “It
is trite enough to say what tales these walls could tell, but it is
impossible to look into them without wishing ‘these walls had tongues.’”
The character of Bradshaw has been variously estimated and depicted in
every hue, though it would seem to have been little understood, for his
admirers have refused to see any defects in him, while those who abhor
his principles have denounced him as a “monster of men.” It does not
come within our province to offer any critical opinion on his life and
actions—to pronounce upon the purity of his motives or the sincerity
of his doings. His cousin Milton, who, however, can hardly be accepted
as an impartial witness, has written his eulogy in an eloquent passage
in the “Second Defence of the People of England;” and Godwin, in his
“History of the Commonwealth,” thus speaks of him:—
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.
[Note 13: Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had taken part in the Duke of
Monmouth’s rebellion, was executed on the judgment of the notorious
Jefferies, as an outlaw without trial, though his year had not expired.]
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.
Bradshaw makes allusion in his will to the fact that “God had not
vouchsafed him issue.” Though no children were born to him by his wife,
he is said to have had “an illegitimate son, whose last descendant,
Sarah Bradshaw, married, in 1757, Sir Henry Cavendish, ancestor of
Lord Waterpark.” In the absence, however, of any substantial evidence,
the accuracy of this statement may well be questioned, for we can
hardly suppose the testator would have bequeathed so large a property
to his nephew, and have made no provision for his own offspring,
while permitting him to bear and perpetuate his name. Though the bar
sinister was the reverse of an honourable augmentation, the stigma
of illegitimacy did not attach so much in those days as now. Sir
Henry Cavendish, the ancestor of Lord Waterpark, who was himself
descended from an illegitimate son of Henry, the eldest son of Sir
William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, by his third wife, the renowned
“Bess of Hardwick,” married, August 5, 1757, Sarah (or, according to
some authorities, Mary) only child and heiress of Richard Bradshaw,
who, during her husband’s lifetime, was, in her own right, created
(15th June, 1792) Baroness Waterpark, of Waterpark, in Ireland; and
the supposition that John Bradshaw left an illegitimate son seems
to rest upon the statement made by Playfair, in his “British Family
Antiquities,” and reiterated by Burke, and still more recently in the
“Peerage” of Forster, that this lady was “lineally descended from the
Lord President Bradshaw.”
Another member of the family employed in the public service during the
Commonwealth period was Richard Bradshaw. His name does not appear in
any of the pedigrees of the Marple line, nor has his identity been
established, though it is very probable he was a nephew of the Lord
President’s, and he was certainly present as one of the mourners at
his funeral. He held the office for some time of Receiver of the Crown
Revenues in Cheshire and North Wales, and was subsequently appointed
to the post of English Resident at Hamburg, whence he was transferred
to Russia, and other of the northern Courts. A great number of his
letters are given in Thurloe’s “State Papers,” and they are especially
interesting as showing the care taken to watch the movements of
Charles II., and the actions of the European Powers likely to render
him assistance in any attempt to recover the throne. In one of these
letters addressed on his return to England to Secretary Thurloe, and
dated from Axeyard, 1st November, 1658, requesting that the sum of
£2,188 0s. 9d. then due to him from the Government might be paid, some
curious circumstances are related in connection with his previous
official life. He says:—
I am necessitated to acquaint your lordship, that in the yeare
1648, I beinge then receiver of the crowne-revenue in North-wales
and Cheshire for the state, and cominge to London to passe
accomts, and pay in some money to Mr. Fauconberg the receiver
generall, my lodgings in Kinge Street, Westminster, was broake
into by theeves the very same day the apprentises riss in
London and came down to Whitehall; and £430 was taken fourthe
of a trunke in the chamber where I lay. Though it was a tyme
of great distraction, yet I used such meanes with the warrants
and assistants of Mr. Fauconbridge, as that I found out and
apprehended the fellows the next day, in which the messenger,
Captain Compton, was assistinge to me, whoe were tryed and
condemned at the sessions in the Old Bailey as Compton very well
knowes, being the sonnes of persons of note in Covent Garden.
The prosecution of them cost me above £100, besides the greatest
trouble that ever I had in my life aboute any businesse. But
before my accompte could be declared by the commissioners for
the revenue, whereon I expected allowance for that money, I was
commanded to Hamburg; and now being to settle these accompts in
the exchequer, to have out my ultimate discharge thence, I am told
that it is not in the power of the lords commissioners for the
treasury to give allowance thereof in the way of the exchequer,
without a privy seale to pardon that sume. Therefore I humbly
request that the £430 so taken may be included in the privy seal
with the £3,461 5s. 10d., and then the whole will be £3,891 5s.
10d., which, if your lordship be satisfied with the accompts, I
pray that Mr. Milbey or Mr. Moreland may have your lordship’s
order to make ready for the seale.
The riot referred to was no doubt that of the 9th of April, when,
in disregard of the strict Puritan orders in relation to religious
observances, the apprentices were found playing at bowls in Moorfields
during church time. They were ordered by the militia guard to disperse,
but refused, fought the guard, and held their ground. Being soon after
routed by cavalry, they raised the cry of “clubs,” when they were
joined by the watermen. The fight lasted through the night, and in
the morning they had got possession of Ludgate and Newgate, and had
stretched chains across all the great thoroughfares, their cry being
“God and King Charles.” The tumult lasted for forty hours, and was not
put an end to until they were ridden down by a body of cavalry from
Westminster.
In his petition to the Council of State, praying to be paid the full
sum of £2,188 11s. 4d., Richard Bradshaw states that he had “suffered
the loss of £5,000 in the late wars of this nation, without any
reparation for the same, and for above seventeen years freely exposed
his life at home and abroad in the service of the State; that the same
was disbursed out of his affection to his country, whilst he resided as
public minister in foreign parts, and, if not paid, he should be now,
at his return, rent from his small estate, it being more than he hath
got in the service of the Commonwealth.”
On the 9th March, 1659-60, the Council directed the amount to be paid,
and on the 12th his accounts were ordered for that purpose to be laid
before Parliament. It does not appear, however, to have been received,
for on the 23rd and 31st he is again found petitioning Thurloe on the
matter, and in the changes that were then taking place it is doubtful
if he ever got anything. Whether, as he feared, he was “rent from
his small estate” or not is not recorded, but it is evident that in
a pecuniary sense he was not so successful as his kinsman, the Lord
President; yet he was a man of much energy and ability, and his letters
give an interesting account of the political affairs of foreign Courts
at the time. He appears to have been continually short of money through
the Government remaining indebted to him, and this fact rather suggests
the idea that Cromwell, who had already broken with John Bradshaw,
desired to hold him as a kind of hostage, and keep him wherever he
chose to place him.
With a portion of the wealth acquired under John Bradshaw’s will,
Henry, his nephew, in 1693, purchased Bradshaw Hall, in Lancashire,
which, as previously stated, had for many generations been the
residence of another branch of the family, that had then become extinct
in the male line. It is a singular fact that within a comparatively
short period, nearly all, if not all, the branches of the Bradshaw
family became extinct in the male line—the Bradshaws of Haigh, of
Bradshaw, and of Aspull, in Lancashire; of Bradshaw Edge, and of
Barton, in Derbyshire; and finally, as we shall see, of Marple, in
Cheshire, the latter by the death of the Lord President’s grand-nephew
in 1743.
The subsequent history of the Bradshaws is soon told. Henry, who
inherited the patrimonial estates as well as the bulk of his uncle’s
property, married Elizabeth (erroneously called Magdalene in Ormerod’s,
Forster’s, and Burke’s pedigrees), one of the daughters and co-heirs
of Thomas Barcroft, by whom, on the death of her father in 1688, he
acquired the demesne of Barcroft, in Whalley parish, Lancashire, with
the hall, an ancient mansion dating from the time of Henry VIII. This
Henry made considerable additions to Marple, and erected a great
portion of the outbuildings, as evidenced by the frequent repetitions
of his and his wife’s initials
B
H E
1669
upon the hall and the stables. By his marriage he had three sons,
Henry, High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1701, who had to wife Elizabeth,
daughter of Richard Legh, of the East Hall, in High Legh, and died in
1724, without issue; Thomas, who died unmarried in 1743; and John, who
predeceased his brother, being also issueless; the estates, on the
death of Thomas, devolving upon the only daughter, Mary, who married
William Pimlot, and by him had two sons, the eldest of whom, John,
succeeded to the estates under a settlement made by his uncle, Thomas
Bradshaw, and had issue a daughter and only child, Elizabeth, married
to Lindon Evelyn, of Keynsham Court, county Hereford, Esq., M.P. for
Dundalk, whose only daughter and heir, Elizabeth, married, December
29th, 1838, Randall Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany, elder brother of
the present holder of that title.
Mary Pimlot, surviving her husband, again entered the marriage
state, her second husband being Nathaniel Isherwood, of Bolton, by
whom she had two sons, Nathaniel, who, under his uncle’s settlement,
succeeded as heir to the Marple and Bradshaw estates on the death
of John Pimlot. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Henry
Brabin, of Brabin’s Hall, in Marple, but died without issue in 1765,
when the property passed to his younger brother, Thomas Isherwood,
who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Attercroft, of Gillibrand
House, near Blackburn, and by her had a son, who died in infancy, and
six daughters. She predeceased her husband; when he married for his
second wife Mary, daughter and heir of Thomas Orrell, of Saltersley, in
Cheshire. This lady, who died 18th May, 1797, bore him four sons and
five daughters. Thomas Bradshaw-Isherwood, the eldest son, succeeded,
but died unmarried 5th January, 1791, when the estates passed to Henry
Bradshaw-Isherwood, the second son, who also died unmarried January
26, 1801, the Marple and Bradshaw properties then devolving upon his
younger brother, John Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 19th June, 1776, who
married, at Bolton, October 19, 1812, Elizabeth, eldest daughter and
co-heir of the Rev. Thomas Bancroft, M.A., vicar of Bolton. In 1815 he
filled the office of Sheriff of Cheshire, and by his wife, who survived
him and died 1st April, 1856, he left, in addition to six daughters,
a son, Thomas Bradshaw-Isherwood, Esq., the present owner of Marple
and Bradshaw, born 10th February, 1820. Mr. Bradshaw-Isherwood, who
is a J.P. and D.L. for Cheshire, married 22nd July, 1840, Mary Ellen,
eldest surviving daughter of the late Rev. Henry Bellairs, M.A., rector
of Bedworth, in Warwickshire, and Hon. Canon of Worcester, one of the
heroes of Trafalgar, by his wife Dorothy Parker, daughter and co-heir
(with Mary, first wife of John, Earl of Strafford, distinguished for
his brilliant services in the battles of the Peninsula and at Waterloo,
and Sarah, wife of Captain Carmichael) of Peter Mackenzie, of Grove
House, Middlesex, descended from the Mackenzies, barons of Kintail. The
issue of this marriage is two sons, John Henry Bradshaw-Isherwood,
born 27th August, 1841, who married, in 1864, Elizabeth, daughter of
Thomas Luce, Esq., formerly member for Malmesbury, and Arthur Salusbury
Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 21st May, 1843.
We have said sufficient to establish the claim of Marple to rank among
the most interesting of the historic homes of the Palatinate. The
building, which is a good example of the early Jacobean period, with
considerable additions of late seventeenth century work, has undergone
comparatively few changes, having happily escaped those coarse assaults
to which so many of our old mansions have been subjected by modern
renovators. So little is it altered that it would require no great
effort of the imagination to picture the momentous conferences of the
chiefs of Cheshire Nonconformity that were held within its walls, or to
re-people its sombre apartments with the buff-jerkined, jack-booted,
and heavily-accoutred troopers who followed Henry Bradshaw to the
field; indeed, we might almost fancy that the very chairs and tables
have remained undisturbed during the whole two centuries and more that
have elapsed since those eventful days. Of modern furniture there is
comparatively little, almost everything the house contains being of an
age gone by, and in keeping with its ancient character.
As anything like a detailed description of the interior is beyond the
purpose and the limits of this sketch, we shall content ourselves with
pointing out the principal apartments and some of the more notable
objects they contain. The principal front is on the south side,
from which a porch, supported by stone columns, forming the central
projection from the house, gives admission to the entrance hall, an
apartment 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, lighted at each end by long
low mullioned windows. The floor is laid with alternate squares of
white stone and black marble, and the ceiling, which is flat, is
crossed by massive oaken beams. The want of elevation gives a somewhat
gloomy and depressing effect, and this is heightened by the coloured
glass in the windows, which further subdues the light. The furniture
is of black oak, bright with the rubbings of many generations; and
against the walls are disposed suits of mail, morions, corslets, and
implements of war that have no doubt done duty in many a well-fought
field. On the left of the entrance, leading from the hall, is the
library, twenty feet square, lighted on the south side by a mullioned
window, filled with stained glass, and having the armorial ensigns of
the Bradshaws and their alliances carved upon the wainscot. On the
same floor, and adjoining the library, is the dining-room, a spacious
apartment, thirty feet by twenty feet, with an oriel window at the
north end, commanding an extensive view of the valley of the Goyt
and the surrounding country. The walls of this room are hung with
portraits, and include several that are said to have been brought from
Harden Hall, and to have once belonged to the Alvanley family. Among
them is one of Queen Elizabeth, and others representing the Earls
of Essex and Leicester, Lord Keeper Coventry, Sir Roger Ascham, and
General Monk; there is also a portrait of one of the Dones of Utkinton,
hereditary chief foresters of Delamere, and of his wife, who stands by
his side. Close by the door, on the right of the entrance hall, is a
broad oaken staircase, with decorated balustrades, leading to the upper
chambers. The walls are hung with portraits, views, &c., and in one
corner we noticed an antique spinning-wheel, the property apparently
of some former spinster of the house. The first chamber we enter is
a small ante-room, wainscotted, with a fireplace composed of ancient
Dutch tiles, above which is a shield, with the arms of the Bradshaws
carved in relief, with the date 1665. A flight of circular steps leads
from this chamber to the drawing-room, which is immediately over the
dining-room, and corresponding with it in dimensions. The walls of this
apartment are hung with tapestry of Gobelins manufacture, the subjects
being Diana and her Nymphs, and Time and Pleasure. On the same floor
is another chamber, now occupied as a bedroom, which is interesting
from the circumstance that the black and white timber gable, the only
fragment apparently of the original structure remaining, is exposed to
view, showing where the projecting bay has been added when the house
was enlarged by Henry Bradshaw, the Lord President’s nephew, shortly
after the Restoration. Opposite the wainscotted ante-room before
referred to is a small tapestried bed-chamber, where tradition says the
Lord President first saw the light; and here is the very bed on which,
according to the same reputable authority, he slept—an antiquated
four-poster, very substantial and very elaborately ornamented, with a
cornice round the top, with the following admonitory sentences,[14] in
raised capitals, carved on three sides of it, though it is to be feared
the Lord President did not study them with much advantage:—
HE THAT IS UNMERCIFUL, MERCY SHALL MISS;
BUT HE SHALL HAVE MERCY THAT MERCIFUL IS.
And on the inside:—
LOVE GOD AND NOT GOLD,
SLEEP NOT UNTIL U CONSIDER HOW U HAVE SPENT THE TIME;
IF WELL, THANK GOD; IF NOT, REPENT.
[Note 14: At Bradshaw Hall, in Chapel-en-le-Frith, the ancient
patrimonial seat of the stock from which the Marple Bradshaws sprang,
there is on the landing of one of the staircases a similar inscription:—
Love God and not gould.
He that loves not mercy
Of mercy shall miss;
But he shall have mercy
That merciful is.]
There were formerly in this room, and may be now, a helmet,
breastplate, and pair of spurs that were supposed to have belonged
to John Bradshaw, but which are more likely to have been worn by his
elder brother Henry, the Parliamentarian soldier. On the window of the
same chamber is inscribed the well-known prophetic lines that John is
said to have written when a lad attending the Macclesfield Grammar
School. On the right of the entrance hall are two small chambers, of
comparatively little interest; and adjoining them is the servants’
hall, the most noticeable feature in which is a moulding in stucco,
and here also is repeated the family arms—argent, two bendlets sable,
between as many martlets of the second; with the crest, a stag at gaze
under a vine tree fructed ppr., and the motto, “_Bona Benemerenti
Benedictio_.” A passage in the rear of the house communicates with a
door on the north or terrace front, on the lintel of which is carved
the date 1658. The outbuildings are extensive. They are partly of stone
and partly of brick, and with their quaint gables, pinnacles, and clock
tower form a very picturesque grouping. They are commonly supposed to
have been erected by “Colonel” Henry Bradshaw, for the accommodation of
his Roundhead troopers; but the idea is dispelled by the initials
B
H E
and the date, 1669, which may still be discerned—an evidence that they
were erected in more peaceable times by Henry, the Colonel’s son and
successor, who, as we have seen, married Elizabeth Barcroft, and became
heir to much of his uncle’s wealth. Altogether, the old place is a
deeply-interesting memorial of times now happily gone by. Its history
is especially instructive, and it is impossible to wander through its
antiquated chambers without recalling some of the momentous scenes and
incidents in the country’s annals. Happily, evil hands have not fallen
upon it. It is preserved with jealous care; and from the few changes
it has undergone we gather the idea—always a pleasant one—that here
antiquity is reverenced for its worth.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]