God's Battleaxe

Until now the history of John Bradshawe, Lord President of England’s short-lived Republic, has been confined to footnotes in the biographies of other men. The author of this first full-length survey of Bradshawe’s life draws from unpublished material to tell of a remarkable career during England’s most turbulent period. John Milton said he exceeded the glory of all former tyrannicides. Dr. George Bate called him a “viper of hell.” In 1775 Benjamin Franklin said John Bradshawe’s deeds presented the most glorious example of unshaken virtue, love of freedom, and impartial justice ever exhibited on the blood-stained theater of human actions and urged that his memory be forever blessed.