Education
In 1625 Pickering graduated with a Bachelor from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and in 1629 entered Gray"s Inn.
In 1625 Pickering graduated with a Bachelor from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and in 1629 entered Gray"s Inn.
Gilbert Pickering was an Member of Parliament representing Northamptonshire and as such served in the Short Parliament of 1640 and in the Long Parliament of 1640 to 1653. He abandoned the royalist cause when Charles raised his standard at Nottingham in 1642. In 1642 Pickering joined the Northamptonshire committee and was most active as "a sequester and a committee man" although he also raised a regiment for parliament.
During the disagreement between Parliament and the New Model Army in 1648 Pickering sided with the Army and kept his seat in the Rump after Pride"s purge of the Long Parliament.
He was appointed one of the judges at the trial of Charles I in 1648 but only sat in two sessions and did not sign Charles"s death warrant. He remained Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire through the Interregnum 1648–1660 and was appointed Lord Chamberlain to Oliver Cromwell in 1657.
His public career ended in 1660. The original of the pardon delivered by Charles II on vellum in Latin is in the Pitts Theology Library of Emory University, Mississippi no 109.
Pickering"s family came to prominence at the time when Sir Gilbert"s great-great-grandfather Gilbert Pickering purchased manors in the village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire.
Pickering"s father, John Pickering, married Susannah, daughter of Sir Erasmus Dryden. Edward, the fourth to hold the title, died without issue 3 July 1749, at which time the title became extinct. Pickering was also the cousin and an early patron of the poet, John Dryden.
John Dryden grew up in the village of Titchmarsh.
Sir Gilbert and his descendants are commemorated by tombs and memorials in Titchmarsh church.
Short Parliament.