In the administration of affairs in his own county, Colonel Bradshaw took an active part. He was one of the commissioners for the Macclesfield hundred for the sequestration of the estates of those who retained Royalist opinions, or who refused to take the national covenant, and his name appears first among the signataries to the famous Lancashire and Cheshire petition to the Parliament, praying for the establishment of the Presbyterian religion, and urging that “the frequenters of separate conventicles might be discountenanced and punished.” The petitioners who had previously pleaded conscience having gained the ascendancy were now anxious to stifle freedom of thought, and to exercise a tyranny over their fellow-men, justifying the remark of Fuller, that “those who desired most ease and liberty for their sides when bound with Episcopacy, now girt their own garments closest about the consciences of others.” In those troublous times marriage as a religious ceremony was forbidden, and became merely a civil contract entered into before a justice of the peace, after three “publications” at the “meeting place,” or in the “market place,” the statute declaring that “no other marriage whatsoever shall be held or accounted a marriage according to the laws of England.” Bradshaw, as a county justice, officiated at many of these civil marriages, and his neat and carefully-written autograph frequently appears in the church books of the period, with his heraldic seal affixed (for, however he might affect to contemn such vanities, he was yet careful to display the armorial ensigns of his house when acting officially with his more aristocratic neighbours), sometimes as appointing parish registrars, and at others ordering the levying of church rates and sanctioning the parish accounts, which at the time could not be passed without magisterial confirmation. [Illustration] Colonel Bradshaw lived to see the fall of the Commonwealth, and the overthrow of that form of government he had done so much to establish, but he did not long survive the restoration of monarchy. After that event had taken place, he was brought before the Lords Committee to answer for the part he had taken in the court-martial on Lord Derby, and committed to the custody of the Messenger of Black Rod. He appears, however, to have been leniently dealt with, for, after submitting to what reads very like an apology for his conduct, he was set at liberty, and permitted to pass the remainder of his days in peace. Those days were but few: the anxiety consequent upon the changed aspect of affairs was too much for him—his spirit was broken, and he died at Marple a few months after (11th March, 1661-2). On the 15th March, 1661-2, in accordance with his previously-expressed desire, his remains were laid beside those of his father and grandfather in the little chapel belonging to his family, then standing on the south side of the chancel of Stockport Church.