Bradshaw

Bradshaw, John, president of the High Court of Justice that tried Charles I., was born in 1602 near Stockport, Cheshire. Called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1627, he became a bencher in 1645, and acted for some time as judge in the sheriff-courts of London. In 1649, when the trial of the king was decided on, he was appointed president of the High Court of Justice, receiving as a reward the presidency of the Council of State, and the chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster with estates worth £2,000 a year. He opposed the Protectorate subsequently, and got into disputes with Cromwell, who tried to deprive him of the chief justiceship of Chester. After Cromwell's death he became lord-president of the Council, dying in 1659. After the Restoration his body, which had been interred, in Westminster Abbey, was disinterred and gibbeted with the bodies of Cromwell and Ireton.