Inheriting from his father the Puritan sentiments of the age, Henry Bradshaw carried those feelings with him into a more active arena. Living in close neighbourship with Colonel Dukenfield, Edward Hyde, of Norbury, Ralph Arderne, of Harden, Ralph Holland, of Denton, and holding intimate relations with the Booths of Dunham, the Breretons of Handforth, the Stanleys of Alderley, and other influential Presbyterian families, their friendship doubtless helped to shape the part he took in public affairs. When the storm which had been long gathering burst, he took his stand with the Parliament against the King, and became one of the most active officers on the side of the Commonwealth. He served as sergeant-major in the regiment commanded by his neighbour, Robert Dukenfield, and would, therefore, in all probability, take part in the lengthened siege of “Mr. Tatton’s house of Whittenshaw (Wythenshawe),” in the winter of 1643-4, as well as in the fruitless attempt, a few months later, to defend Stockport Bridge against Rupert and his Cavaliers, who were hastening to the relief of Lathom House, in Lancashire, where the heroic Countess of Derby was bravely defending her husband’s home against greatly superior forces. Though a Cheshire man, he held a lieutenant-colonel’s commission in Assheton’s Lancashire regiment, and subsequently was appointed to the command of the entire militia within the Macclesfield hundred, in his own county. He was present also with the Cheshire men at the final overthrow of the Royalist army—the “crowning mercy,” as Cromwell phrased it—at Worcester, Sept 3, 1651, where it was said he was wounded, but if so the injury must have been only slight, for before the end of the month he was acting as one of the members of the court-martial appointed under a commission from Cromwell for the trial of the Earl of Derby. After the disaster at Worcester, the Earl had accompanied the King in his flight, until he was safe in the care of the Pendrells, when, with Lord Lauderdale, Lord Talbot, and about 40 troopers, he started northwards, in the hope of overtaking the remnant of the Scotch army, but when near Nantwich the fugitives fell into the hands of Oliver Edge,[8] a captain in the Manchester regiment, also returning from Worcester. Quarter having been given by his captor, the Earl naturally believed that he would be entitled to the immunities of a prisoner of war, but he soon found himself under close confinement in Chester Castle, of which Colonel Dukenfield was at the time governor. Cromwell, having got his most formidable foe in his power, resolved to get for ever rid of him by the shortest process that time and circumstances admitted. The Earl was therefore at once brought for trial before Bradshaw and the other members appointed on the court-martial, on the charge of high treason in contravening an Act of Parliament passed only a few weeks before, and of which, as his accusers were well aware, he