native simplicity of feeling which sometimes reminds the reader of Homer.” Most readers will probably adopt a view between these extremes. Bradshaw expresses the humblest opinion of his own abilities, and he certainly had no delicate ear for rhythm. His sincerity is abundantly evident, and his piety is admitted even by John Bale[1], hostile as he was to monkish writers. W. Herbert[2] thought that a Lyfe of Saynt Radegunde, also printed by Pynson, was certainly by Bradshaw. The only extant copy is in the Britwell library.
Pynson’s edition of the Holy Lyfe is very rare, only five copies being known. A reprint copying the original type was edited by Mr. Edward Hawkins for the Chetham Society in 1848, and by Dr Carl Hortsmann for the Early English Text Society in 1887.
BRADSHAW, HENRY (1831–1886), British scholar and librarian, was born in London on the 2nd of February 1831, and educated at Eton. He became a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and after a short scholastic career in Ireland he accepted an appointment in the Cambridge university library as an extra assistant. When he found that his official duties absorbed all his leisure he resigned his post, but continued to give his time to the examination of the MSS. and early printed books in the library. There was then no complete catalogue of these sections, and Bradshaw soon showed a rare faculty for investigations respecting old books and curious MSS. In addition to his achievements in black-letter bibliography he threw great light on ancient Celtic language and literature by the discovery, in 1857, of the Book of Deer, a manuscript copy of the Gospel in the Vulgate version, in which were inscribed old Gaelic charters. This was published by the Spalding Club in 1869. Bradshaw also discovered some Celtic glosses on the MS. of a metrical paraphrase of the Gospels by Juvencus. He made another find in the Cambridge library of considerable philological and historical importance. Cromwell’s envoy, Sir Samuel Morland (1625–1695), had brought back from Piedmont MSS. containing the earliest known Waldensian records, consisting of translations from the Bible, religious treatises and poems. One of the poems referred the work to the beginning of the 11th century, though the MSS. did not appear to be of earlier date than the 15th century. On this Morland had based his theory of the antiquity of the Waldensian doctrine, and, in the absence of the MSS., which were supposed to be irretrievably lost, the conclusion was accepted. Bradshaw discovered the MSS. in the university library, and found in the passage indicated traces of erasure. The original date proved to be 1400. Incidentally the correct date was of great value in the study of the history of the language. He had a share in exposing the frauds of Constantine Simonides, who had asserted that the Codex Sinaiticus brought by Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai was a modern forgery of which he was himself the author. Bradshaw exposed the absurdity of these claims in a letter to the Guardian (January 26, 1863). In 1866 he made a valuable contribution to the history of Scottish literature by the discovery of 2200 lines on the siege of Troy incorporated in a MS. of Lydgate’s Troye Booke, and of the Legends of the Saints, an important work of some 40,000 lines. These poems he attributed, erroneously, as has since been proved, to Barbour (q.v.). Unfortunately Bradshaw allowed his attention to be distracted by a multiplicity of subjects, so that he has not left any literary work commensurate with his powers. The strain upon him was increased when he was elected (1867) university librarian, and as dean of his college (1857–1865) and praelector (1863–1868) he was involved in further routine duties. Besides his brilliant isolated discoveries in bibliography, he did much by his untiring zeal to improve the standard of library administration. He died very suddenly on the 10th of February 1886. His fugitive papers on antiquarian subjects were collected and edited by Mr F. Jenkinson in 1889.
An excellent Memoir of Henry Bradshaw, by Mr G. W. Prothero, appeared in 1888. See also C. F. Newcombe, Some Aspects of the Work of Henry Bradshaw (1905).
BRADSHAW, JOHN (1602–1659), president of the “High Court of Justice” which tried Charles I., was the second son of Henry Bradshaw, of Marple and Wibersley in Cheshire. He was baptized on the 10th of December 1602, 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. He was mayor of Congleton in 1637, and later high steward or recorder of the borough. According to Milton he was assiduous in his legal studies and acquired considerable reputation and practice at the bar. On the 21st of September 1643 he was appointed judge of the sheriff’s court in London. In October 1644 he was counsel with Prynne in the prosecution of Lord Maguire and Hugh Macmahon, implicated in the Irish rebellion, in 1645 for John Lilburne in his appeal to the Lords against the sentence of the Star Chamber, and in 1647 in the prosecution of Judge Jenkins. On the 8th of October 1646 he had been nominated by the Commons a commissioner of the great seal, but his appointment was not confirmed by the Lords. 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. On the 2nd of January 1649 the Lords threw out the ordinance for bringing the king to trial, and the small remnant of the House of Commons which survived Pride’s Purge, consisting of 53 independents, determined to carry out the ordinance on their own authority. The leading members of the bar, on the parliamentary as well as on the royalist side, having refused to participate in proceedings not only illegal and unconstitutional, but opposed to the plainest principles of equity, Bradshaw was selected to preside, and, after some protestations of humility and unfitness, accepted the office. The king refused to plead before the tribunal, but Bradshaw silenced every legal objection and denied to Charles an opportunity to speak in his defence. 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 was appointed in 1649 attorney-general of Cheshire and North Wales, and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and was given a sum of £1000, together with confiscated estates worth £2000 a year. He had been nominated a member of the council of state on the 14th of February 1649, and on the 10th of March became president. 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. An ardent republican, he showed himself ever afterwards an uncompromising adversary of Cromwell. He was returned for Stafford in the parliament of 1654, and spoke strongly against vesting power in a single person. He refused to sign the “engagement” drawn up by Cromwell, and in consequence withdrew from parliament and was subsequently suspected of complicity in plots against the government. 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. He died on the 31st of October 1659, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His body was disinterred at the Restoration, and exposed on a gibbet along with those of Cromwell and Ireton. Bradshaw married Mary, daughter of Thomas Marbury of Marbury, Cheshire, but left no children.
BRADWARDINE, THOMAS (c. 1290–1349), English archbishop, called “the Profound Doctor,” was born either at Hartfield in Sussex or at Chichester. He was educated at Merton
