BRADSHAW, JOHN, descended of an ancient family, originally from Derbyshire, and born in 1586, officiated as president of the court, assembled at Whitehall, which tried Charles I. and condemned that unfortunate prince to lose his head on the scaffold. Being appointed speaker or president of the Parliament under Cromwell, he had a guard assigned him for the safety of his person, together with apartments in Westminster, a sum of £5000 sterling, and considerable territorial domains. But he was not destined to enjoy long the recompense of the judicial service he had rendered; for, according to the pamphlets
of the time preserved in the British Museum, he withdrew from Parliament, and died in obscurity on the 31st October 1659, a year after the death of the Protector. On the restoration of Charles II. the bodies of Bradshaw, Cromwell, and Ireton, were disinterred, suspended on the gallows at Tyburn, and then burned. But several collectors of anecdotes have asserted that Bradshaw's remains escaped this posthumous indignity; for, according to them, having caused a report of his death to be circulated, he passed into the colonies under a feigned name, in order there to enjoy the fortune he had acquired; and signalized himself in various contests in which the colonists were involved with the native Indian tribes. Some suppose that he retired to Barbadoes; others that he sought refuge in Jamaica, the conquest of Cromwell, where his epitaph is said to have been met with, written in the style of the most ardent republican. (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liv. p. 834.) In Peteril of the Peak this story is put into the mouth of one of the characters, Major Ralph Bridgenorth, and told with admirable felicity, though, of course, with very considerable embellishment.