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BRADSHAW, (William,) an eminent English puritan, born in 1571, at Market Bosworth, in Leicestershire, of a family ancient, but reduced. After a school education, interrupted from pecuniary difficulty, he was admitted, in 1589, of Emmanuel college, Cambridge, together with Joseph Hall, eventually the celebrated bishop. He there took his degrees in arts; but the college statutes left only one fellowship open to natives of Leicestershire, and that was gained by Hall. Dr. Laurence Chaderton, however, the master of Emmanuel, was so much pleased with him, that he recommended him as tutor in the family of Sir Thomas Leighton, governor of Guernsey, and afterwards procured a fellowship for him in Sidney Sussex college, then newly founded. He now obtained orders, and was indulged with certain omissions to meet his scruples. Clergymen of his principles then found employment as lecturers, and he first acted in that capacity at the two churches of Abington and Steeple Morden, within easy distances of Cambridge. An appointment was afterwards obtained for him by his old friend Dr. Chaderton, at Chatham, in Kent; but before he had remained in it fully twelve months, he was suspended by the ordinary for refusing to subscribe, in spite of warm intercessions from the Chatham people. He now removed into another diocese, where he obtained a licence, most probably without subscription, some of the ecclesiastical authorities being anxious to connive at such omissions, where the parties indulged possessed any solid claims to favour. Bradshaw next removed to London, and was chosen lecturer of Christchurch, Newgate-street. He could not rest, however, there, without publishing a treatise against the litigated ceremonies. This new provocation obliged him to retire from London to a gentleman's

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house in Leicestershire, where he remained until his death, in 1618. Dissenting writers make much of the hardships and obstructions that he encountered; but without undervaluing his merits, which really were considerable, there is no reason why he should have been suffered to eat the bread of an establishment, which he not only disapproved, but was also zealously bent upon reforming after his own fashion. He really seems to have met with great indulgence. His ordination was conducted so as to please himself. When driven from Kent, he obtained permission to preach in another diocese; and for all that appears, he might afterwards have continued to preach in London, if he could have rested without printing also against existing institutions. Nor does it appear that he was inhibited from preaching during his final retirement in Leicestershire. At first he was; but we learn that " by the mediation of a couple of good angels," the restraint was removed. The probable meaning of this is, that two persons of some influence obtained permission for his preaching, on condition that it should never any more be in public situations. As an author, Bradshaw is chiefly remarkable for a small treatise, published in 1605, entitled, English Puritanism, containing the main opinions of the rigidest sort of those that went by that name in the realm of England. This was translated into Latin by Dr. Ames, for the information of foreigners, and it is valuable as a record of the principles entertained by the early English nonconformists. Neal has published a short abstract of it in his first volume (p. 432, ed. of 1837,) but his antagonist, Dr. Grey, charges it with omissions of some note. Bradshaw likewise wrote, Dissertatio de Justificatione, published at Leyden, in the year of his death, and A Plaine and Pithy

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