Bradshaw makes allusion in his will to the fact that “God had not vouchsafed him issue.” Though no children were born to him by his wife, he is said to have had “an illegitimate son, whose last descendant, Sarah Bradshaw, married, in 1757, Sir Henry Cavendish, ancestor of Lord Waterpark.” In the absence, however, of any substantial evidence, the accuracy of this statement may well be questioned, for we can hardly suppose the testator would have bequeathed so large a property to his nephew, and have made no provision for his own offspring, while permitting him to bear and perpetuate his name. Though the bar sinister was the reverse of an honourable augmentation, the stigma of illegitimacy did not attach so much in those days as now. Sir Henry Cavendish, the ancestor of Lord Waterpark, who was himself descended from an illegitimate son of Henry, the eldest son of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, by his third wife, the renowned “Bess of Hardwick,” married, August 5, 1757, Sarah (or, according to some authorities, Mary) only child and heiress of Richard Bradshaw, who, during her husband’s lifetime, was, in her own right, created (15th June, 1792) Baroness Waterpark, of Waterpark, in Ireland; and the supposition that John Bradshaw left an illegitimate son seems to rest upon the statement made by Playfair, in his “British Family Antiquities,” and reiterated by Burke, and still more recently in the “Peerage” of Forster, that this lady was “lineally descended from the Lord President Bradshaw.” Another member of the family employed in the public service during the Commonwealth period was Richard Bradshaw. His name does not appear in any of the pedigrees of the Marple line, nor has his identity been established, though it is very probable he was a nephew of the Lord President’s, and he was certainly present as one of the mourners at his funeral. He held the office for some time of Receiver of the Crown Revenues in Cheshire and North Wales, and was subsequently appointed to the post of English Resident at Hamburg, whence he was transferred to Russia, and other of the northern Courts. A great number of his letters are given in Thurloe’s “State Papers,” and they are especially interesting as showing the care taken to watch the movements of Charles II., and the actions of the European Powers likely to render him assistance in any attempt to recover the throne. In one of these letters addressed on his return to England to Secretary Thurloe, and dated from Axeyard, 1st November, 1658, requesting that the sum of £2,188 0s. 9d. then due to him from the Government might be paid, some curious circumstances are related in connection with his previous official life. He says:—