Background
He was born in 1602 probably at Wybersley (Wyberslegh) Hall in the village of High Lane near Stockport, Cheshire. He was the second son of Henry Bradshaw, of Marple and Wibersley in Cheshire.
He was born in 1602 probably at Wybersley (Wyberslegh) Hall in the village of High Lane near Stockport, Cheshire. He was the second son of Henry Bradshaw, of Marple and Wibersley in Cheshire.
He was educated at Banbury in Cheshire and at Middleton in Lancashire, studied subsequently with an attorney at Congleton, was admitted into Gray's Inn in 1620, and was called to the bar in 1627, becoming a bencher in 1647.
According to Milton he was assiduous in his legal studies and acquired considerable reputation and practice at the bar.
He continued after the king's death to conduct, as lord president, the trials of the royalists, including the duke of Hamilton, Lord Capel, and Henry Rich, earl of Holland, all of whom he condemned to death, his behaviour being especially censured in the case of Eusebius Andrews, a royalist who had joined a conspiracy against the government.
He received large rewards for his services.
He disapproved strongly of the expulsion of the Long Parliament, and on Cromwell's coming subsequently to dismiss the council Bradshaw is said, on the authority of Ludlow, to have confronted him boldly, and denied his power to dissolve the parliament.
In 1647 he was made chief justice of Chester and a judge in Wales, and on the 12th of October 1648 he was presented to the degree of serjeant-at-law.
He was returned for Stafford in the parliament of 1654, and spoke strongly against vesting power in a single person.
He failed to obtain a seat in the parliament of 1656, and in August of the same year Cromwell attempted to remove him from the chief-justiceship of Cheshire.
After the abdication of Richard Cromwell, Bradshaw again entered parliament, became a member of the council of state, and on the 3rd of June 1659 was appointed a commissioner of the great seal.
His health, however, was bad, and his last public effort was a vehement speech, in the council, when he declared his abhorrence of the arrest of Speaker Lenthall.
His body was disinterred at the Restoration, and exposed on a gibbet along with those of Cromwell and Ireton.
An ardent republican, he showed himself ever afterwards an uncompromising adversary of Cromwell.
On 3 January 1638 he was married to Mary, a daughter of Thomas Marbury. But they left no children.
