Chapter II (3)

I am necessitated to acquaint your lordship, that in the yeare
1648, I beinge then receiver of the crowne-revenue in North-wales
and Cheshire for the state, and cominge to London to passe
accomts, and pay in some money to Mr. Fauconberg the receiver
generall, my lodgings in Kinge Street, Westminster, was broake
into by theeves the very same day the apprentises riss in
London and came down to Whitehall; and £430 was taken fourthe
of a trunke in the chamber where I lay. Though it was a tyme
of great distraction, yet I used such meanes with the warrants
and assistants of Mr. Fauconbridge, as that I found out and
apprehended the fellows the next day, in which the messenger,
Captain Compton, was assistinge to me, whoe were tryed and
condemned at the sessions in the Old Bailey as Compton very well
knowes, being the sonnes of persons of note in Covent Garden.
The prosecution of them cost me above £100, besides the greatest
trouble that ever I had in my life aboute any businesse. But
before my accompte could be declared by the commissioners for
the revenue, whereon I expected allowance for that money, I was
commanded to Hamburg; and now being to settle these accompts in
the exchequer, to have out my ultimate discharge thence, I am told
that it is not in the power of the lords commissioners for the
treasury to give allowance thereof in the way of the exchequer,
without a privy seale to pardon that sume. Therefore I humbly
request that the £430 so taken may be included in the privy seal
with the £3,461 5s. 10d., and then the whole will be £3,891 5s.
10d., which, if your lordship be satisfied with the accompts, I
pray that Mr. Milbey or Mr. Moreland may have your lordship’s
order to make ready for the seale.

The riot referred to was no doubt that of the 9th of April, when, in disregard of the strict Puritan orders in relation to religious observances, the apprentices were found playing at bowls in Moorfields during church time. They were ordered by the militia guard to disperse, but refused, fought the guard, and held their ground. Being soon after routed by cavalry, they raised the cry of “clubs,” when they were joined by the watermen. The fight lasted through the night, and in the morning they had got possession of Ludgate and Newgate, and had stretched chains across all the great thoroughfares, their cry being “God and King Charles.” The tumult lasted for forty hours, and was not put an end to until they were ridden down by a body of cavalry from Westminster.

In his petition to the Council of State, praying to be paid the full sum of £2,188 11s. 4d., Richard Bradshaw states that he had “suffered the loss of £5,000 in the late wars of this nation, without any reparation for the same, and for above seventeen years freely exposed his life at home and abroad in the service of the State; that the same was disbursed out of his affection to his country, whilst he resided as public minister in foreign parts, and, if not paid, he should be now, at his return, rent from his small estate, it being more than he hath got in the service of the Commonwealth.”

On the 9th March, 1659-60, the Council directed the amount to be paid, and on the 12th his accounts were ordered for that purpose to be laid before Parliament. It does not appear, however, to have been received, for on the 23rd and 31st he is again found petitioning Thurloe on the matter, and in the changes that were then taking place it is doubtful if he ever got anything. Whether, as he feared, he was “rent from his small estate” or not is not recorded, but it is evident that in a pecuniary sense he was not so successful as his kinsman, the Lord President; yet he was a man of much energy and ability, and his letters give an interesting account of the political affairs of foreign Courts at the time. He appears to have been continually short of money through the Government remaining indebted to him, and this fact rather suggests the idea that Cromwell, who had already broken with John Bradshaw, desired to hold him as a kind of hostage, and keep him wherever he chose to place him.

With a portion of the wealth acquired under John Bradshaw’s will, Henry, his nephew, in 1693, purchased Bradshaw Hall, in Lancashire, which, as previously stated, had for many generations been the residence of another branch of the family, that had then become extinct in the male line. It is a singular fact that within a comparatively short period, nearly all, if not all, the branches of the Bradshaw family became extinct in the male line—the Bradshaws of Haigh, of Bradshaw, and of Aspull, in Lancashire; of Bradshaw Edge, and of Barton, in Derbyshire; and finally, as we shall see, of Marple, in Cheshire, the latter by the death of the Lord President’s grand-nephew in 1743.

The subsequent history of the Bradshaws is soon told. Henry, who inherited the patrimonial estates as well as the bulk of his uncle’s property, married Elizabeth (erroneously called Magdalene in Ormerod’s, Forster’s, and Burke’s pedigrees), one of the daughters and co-heirs of Thomas Barcroft, by whom, on the death of her father in 1688, he acquired the demesne of Barcroft, in Whalley parish, Lancashire, with the hall, an ancient mansion dating from the time of Henry VIII. This Henry made considerable additions to Marple, and erected a great portion of the outbuildings, as evidenced by the frequent repetitions of his and his wife’s initials

B
H E
1669

upon the hall and the stables. By his marriage he had three sons, Henry, High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1701, who had to wife Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Legh, of the East Hall, in High Legh, and died in 1724, without issue; Thomas, who died unmarried in 1743; and John, who predeceased his brother, being also issueless; the estates, on the death of Thomas, devolving upon the only daughter, Mary, who married William Pimlot, and by him had two sons, the eldest of whom, John, succeeded to the estates under a settlement made by his uncle, Thomas Bradshaw, and had issue a daughter and only child, Elizabeth, married to Lindon Evelyn, of Keynsham Court, county Hereford, Esq., M.P. for Dundalk, whose only daughter and heir, Elizabeth, married, December 29th, 1838, Randall Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany, elder brother of the present holder of that title.

Mary Pimlot, surviving her husband, again entered the marriage state, her second husband being Nathaniel Isherwood, of Bolton, by whom she had two sons, Nathaniel, who, under his uncle’s settlement, succeeded as heir to the Marple and Bradshaw estates on the death of John Pimlot. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Henry Brabin, of Brabin’s Hall, in Marple, but died without issue in 1765, when the property passed to his younger brother, Thomas Isherwood, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Attercroft, of Gillibrand House, near Blackburn, and by her had a son, who died in infancy, and six daughters. She predeceased her husband; when he married for his second wife Mary, daughter and heir of Thomas Orrell, of Saltersley, in Cheshire. This lady, who died 18th May, 1797, bore him four sons and five daughters. Thomas Bradshaw-Isherwood, the eldest son, succeeded, but died unmarried 5th January, 1791, when the estates passed to Henry Bradshaw-Isherwood, the second son, who also died unmarried January 26, 1801, the Marple and Bradshaw properties then devolving upon his younger brother, John Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 19th June, 1776, who married, at Bolton, October 19, 1812, Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heir of the Rev. Thomas Bancroft, M.A., vicar of Bolton. In 1815 he filled the office of Sheriff of Cheshire, and by his wife, who survived him and died 1st April, 1856, he left, in addition to six daughters, a son, Thomas Bradshaw-Isherwood, Esq., the present owner of Marple and Bradshaw, born 10th February, 1820. Mr. Bradshaw-Isherwood, who is a J.P. and D.L. for Cheshire, married 22nd July, 1840, Mary Ellen, eldest surviving daughter of the late Rev. Henry Bellairs, M.A., rector of Bedworth, in Warwickshire, and Hon. Canon of Worcester, one of the heroes of Trafalgar, by his wife Dorothy Parker, daughter and co-heir (with Mary, first wife of John, Earl of Strafford, distinguished for his brilliant services in the battles of the Peninsula and at Waterloo, and Sarah, wife of Captain Carmichael) of Peter Mackenzie, of Grove House, Middlesex, descended from the Mackenzies, barons of Kintail. The issue of this marriage is two sons, John Henry Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 27th August, 1841, who married, in 1864, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Luce, Esq., formerly member for Malmesbury, and Arthur Salusbury Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 21st May, 1843.

We have said sufficient to establish the claim of Marple to rank among the most interesting of the historic homes of the Palatinate. The building, which is a good example of the early Jacobean period, with considerable additions of late seventeenth century work, has undergone comparatively few changes, having happily escaped those coarse assaults to which so many of our old mansions have been subjected by modern renovators. So little is it altered that it would require no great effort of the imagination to picture the momentous conferences of the chiefs of Cheshire Nonconformity that were held within its walls, or to re-people its sombre apartments with the buff-jerkined, jack-booted, and heavily-accoutred troopers who followed Henry Bradshaw to the field; indeed, we might almost fancy that the very chairs and tables have remained undisturbed during the whole two centuries and more that have elapsed since those eventful days. Of modern furniture there is comparatively little, almost everything the house contains being of an age gone by, and in keeping with its ancient character.

As anything like a detailed description of the interior is beyond the purpose and the limits of this sketch, we shall content ourselves with pointing out the principal apartments and some of the more notable objects they contain. The principal front is on the south side, from which a porch, supported by stone columns, forming the central projection from the house, gives admission to the entrance hall, an apartment 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, lighted at each end by long low mullioned windows. The floor is laid with alternate squares of white stone and black marble, and the ceiling, which is flat, is crossed by massive oaken beams. The want of elevation gives a somewhat gloomy and depressing effect, and this is heightened by the coloured glass in the windows, which further subdues the light. The furniture is of black oak, bright with the rubbings of many generations; and against the walls are disposed suits of mail, morions, corslets, and implements of war that have no doubt done duty in many a well-fought field. On the left of the entrance, leading from the hall, is the library, twenty feet square, lighted on the south side by a mullioned window, filled with stained glass, and having the armorial ensigns of the Bradshaws and their alliances carved upon the wainscot. On the same floor, and adjoining the library, is the dining-room, a spacious apartment, thirty feet by twenty feet, with an oriel window at the north end, commanding an extensive view of the valley of the Goyt and the surrounding country. The walls of this room are hung with portraits, and include several that are said to have been brought from Harden Hall, and to have once belonged to the Alvanley family. Among them is one of Queen Elizabeth, and others representing the Earls of Essex and Leicester, Lord Keeper Coventry, Sir Roger Ascham, and General Monk; there is also a portrait of one of the Dones of Utkinton, hereditary chief foresters of Delamere, and of his wife, who stands by his side. Close by the door, on the right of the entrance hall, is a broad oaken staircase, with decorated balustrades, leading to the upper chambers. The walls are hung with portraits, views, &c., and in one corner we noticed an antique spinning-wheel, the property apparently of some former spinster of the house. The first chamber we enter is a small ante-room, wainscotted, with a fireplace composed of ancient Dutch tiles, above which is a shield, with the arms of the Bradshaws carved in relief, with the date 1665. A flight of circular steps leads from this chamber to the drawing-room, which is immediately over the dining-room, and corresponding with it in dimensions. The walls of this apartment are hung with tapestry of Gobelins manufacture, the subjects being Diana and her Nymphs, and Time and Pleasure. On the same floor is another chamber, now occupied as a bedroom, which is interesting from the circumstance that the black and white timber gable, the only fragment apparently of the original structure remaining, is exposed to view, showing where the projecting bay has been added when the house was enlarged by Henry Bradshaw, the Lord President’s nephew, shortly after the Restoration. Opposite the wainscotted ante-room before referred to is a small tapestried bed-chamber, where tradition says the Lord President first saw the light; and here is the very bed on which, according to the same reputable authority, he slept—an antiquated four-poster, very substantial and very elaborately ornamented, with a cornice round the top, with the following admonitory sentences,[14] in raised capitals, carved on three sides of it, though it is to be feared the Lord President did not study them with much advantage:—

HE THAT IS UNMERCIFUL, MERCY SHALL MISS;
BUT HE SHALL HAVE MERCY THAT MERCIFUL IS.

And on the inside:—

LOVE GOD AND NOT GOLD,
SLEEP NOT UNTIL U CONSIDER HOW U HAVE SPENT THE TIME;
IF WELL, THANK GOD; IF NOT, REPENT.

[Note 14: At Bradshaw Hall, in Chapel-en-le-Frith, the ancient patrimonial seat of the stock from which the Marple Bradshaws sprang, there is on the landing of one of the staircases a similar inscription:—

Love God and not gould.

He that loves not mercy
Of mercy shall miss;
But he shall have mercy
That merciful is.]

There were formerly in this room, and may be now, a helmet, breastplate, and pair of spurs that were supposed to have belonged to John Bradshaw, but which are more likely to have been worn by his elder brother Henry, the Parliamentarian soldier. On the window of the same chamber is inscribed the well-known prophetic lines that John is said to have written when a lad attending the Macclesfield Grammar School. On the right of the entrance hall are two small chambers, of comparatively little interest; and adjoining them is the servants’ hall, the most noticeable feature in which is a moulding in stucco, and here also is repeated the family arms—argent, two bendlets sable, between as many martlets of the second; with the crest, a stag at gaze under a vine tree fructed ppr., and the motto, “_Bona Benemerenti Benedictio_.” A passage in the rear of the house communicates with a door on the north or terrace front, on the lintel of which is carved the date 1658. The outbuildings are extensive. They are partly of stone and partly of brick, and with their quaint gables, pinnacles, and clock tower form a very picturesque grouping. They are commonly supposed to have been erected by “Colonel” Henry Bradshaw, for the accommodation of his Roundhead troopers; but the idea is dispelled by the initials

B
H E

and the date, 1669, which may still be discerned—an evidence that they were erected in more peaceable times by Henry, the Colonel’s son and successor, who, as we have seen, married Elizabeth Barcroft, and became heir to much of his uncle’s wealth. Altogether, the old place is a deeply-interesting memorial of times now happily gone by. Its history is especially instructive, and it is impossible to wander through its antiquated chambers without recalling some of the momentous scenes and incidents in the country’s annals. Happily, evil hands have not fallen upon it. It is preserved with jealous care; and from the few changes it has undergone we gather the idea—always a pleasant one—that here antiquity is reverenced for its worth.