Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bradshaw, John (fl.1679)

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351744Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 06 — Bradshaw, John (fl.1679)1886Thompson Cooper

BRADSHAW, JOHN (fl. 1679), political writer, son of Alban Bradshaw, an attorney, of Maidstone, Kent, was born in that town in 1659. He was admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1674, and was expelled from that society in 1677 for robbing and attempting to murder one of the senior fellows. He was tried and condemned to death, but after a year's imprisonment was released. Wood says that Bradshaw, 'who was a perfect atheist and a debauchee ad omnia, retir'd afterwards to his own country, taught a petty school, turn'd quaker, was a preacher among them, and wrote and published "The Jesuits Countermin'd; or, an Account of a new Plot, &c.," London, 1679, 4to.' When James II came to the throne, Bradshaw 'turned papist.'

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 619.]

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