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 (25 May 1659), restored to Bradshaw some of his lost influence. The reassembled Long parliament nominated him on 13 May one of the ten members of the reestablished council of state who were not to be members of parliament. On 3 June 1659 he was appointed a commissioner of the great seal for five months with Serjeants Fountaine and Tyrrel. But Bradshaw's health was rapidly failing, and on 9 June he wrote to the parliament asking to be temporarily relieved during indisposition of the duties of commissioner of the seal. On 22 July he took the necessary oath in the house to be faithful to the Commonwealth, but was still unable to attend to the work of the office. Matters went badly in his absence. The Long parliament again fell a victim to the army, and on hearing of the speaker's (Lenthall) arrest, 13 Oct., by Lieutenant-colonel Duckenfield on his way to Westminster, Bradshaw rose from his sick bed, and presented himself at the sitting of the council of state. Colonel Sydenham endeavoured to justify the army's action, but Bradshaw, 'weak and extenuated as he was,' says Ludlow, 'yet animated by ardent zeal and constant affection to the common cause, stood up and interrupted him, declared his abhorrence of this detestable action; and telling the council, that being now going to his God, he had not patience to sit there to hear His great name so openly blasphemed.' According to George Bate, his royalist biographer, he raved like a madman, and flung out of the room in a fury (The Lives &hellip; of the prime actors &hellip; of that horrid murder of &hellip; King Charles, 1661). On arriving home at the deanery of Westminster, which he had continued to occupy since his appointment as lord president, he became dangerously ill, and 'died of a quartan ague, which had held him for a year,' on 31 Oct. 1659 (Mercurius Politicus, 31 Oct.) '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 would do it' (, Desiderata Curiosa, xiv. 32). He was buried with great ceremony in Westminster Abbey (22 Nov.), and his funeral sermon—an elaborate eulogy—was preached by John Howe, preacher at the abbey since 1654 (Merc. Pol. 22 Nov.) Whitelocke describes him as 'a strict man, and learned in his profession; no friend of monarchy.' Clarendon writes of him with great asperity, while Milton's stately panegyric, written in Bradshaw's lifetime (1654), applauded his honest devotion to the cause of liberty. He was not a great man, but there is no reason to doubt his sincere faith in the republican principles which he consistently upheld. He was apparently well read in history and law. According to the pamphleteers, he had built a study for himself on the roof of Westminster Abbey, which was well stocked with books. Charles II, in a letter to the mayor of Bristol (8 March 1661-2), states that Bradshaw's papers, which were then in the hands of one George Bishop, included 'divers papers and writings' taken by Bradshaw 'out of the office of the King's Library at Whitehall, which could not yet be recovered' (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. p. 328). Bradshaw is stated to have supplied 'evidences' to Marchmont Needham, when translating Selden's 'Mare Clausum' (, Hist. Libr. iii. 124). He fully shared the piety of the leaders of the parliament, and, in spite of his high-handed conduct as lord president of the commission, does not seem to have been of an unkindly nature. Mr. Edward Peacock found a document a few years ago which proved that Bradshaw, after obtaining the grant of the estates of a royalist named Richard Greene at Stapeley, heard of the destitute condition of Greene's three daughters; whereupon he ordered (20 Sept. 1650) his steward to collect the rent and pay it to them (Athenæum, 23 Nov. 1878). Similarly, on receiving the tithes of Feltham, Middlesex, he issued an address (4 Oct. 1651) to the inhabitants of the parish, stating that his anxiety 'touching spyritualls' had led him to provide and endow a minister for them without putting them to any charge (Athenæum for 1878, p. 689).

On 15 May 1660 it was resolved that Bradshaw, although dead, should be attainted by act of parliament, together with Cromwell, Ireton, and Pride, all of whom died before the Restoration. As early as 3 May 1654 Bradshaw had been specially excepted from any future pardon in a proclamation issued by Charles II. On 12 July 1660 the sergeant-at-arms was ordered to deliver to the house Bradshaw's goods (Commons Journal, viii. 88). On 4 Dec. 1660 parliament directed that the bodies of Bradshaw, Cromwell, and Ireton 'should be taken up from Westminster' and hanged in their coffins at Tyburn. This indignity was duly perpetrated 30 Jan. 1660-1. The regicides' heads were subsequently exposed in Westminster Hall and their bodies reburied beneath the gallows ( Diary, 4 Feb. 1660-1).

Bradshaw married Mary (b. 1596), daughter of Thomas Marbury of Marbury, Cheshire, but had no children. She died between 1655 and