Sir Gilbert Pickering, 1st Baronet, 10 March 1611 to 17 October 1668, was a member of the landed gentry from Northamptonshire, and a religious Independent who supported Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An MP for Northamptonshire for most of the period from 1640 to 1660, during the 1649 to 1660 Interregnum he also served as Lord Chamberlain, sat on the English Council of State, and was appointed to Cromwell's Upper House in 1658. Although appointed a judge at the Trial of Charles I in January 1649, Pickering attended only two sessions and did not sign the Execution warrant, which saved him from being classed as a regicide following the 1660 Stuart Restoration. He received a pardon with the help of his brother-in-law Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, but was banned from holding public office, and died at home in October 1668. Personal details Gilbert Pickering was born 10 March 1611 in Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire, eldest son of Sir John Pickering (1585–1628), and Susannah Dryden (d.1661). A devout Puritan, his father was arrested in January 1627 for refusing to pay "loans" imposed by Charles I, and although released from prison a few months later due to illness, died in January 1628. Gilbert had two younger brothers, John (1615–1645), who became a colonel in the New Model Army and died of fever on active service, and Edward (1617–1698), as well as a sister Mary (1615–?). In May 1638, Pickering married Elizabeth Montagu (d.1679), daughter of Sir Sidney Montagu, a judge in the Court of Requests. They had eight sons and four daughters, including his eldest child and heir John (1640–1703), Elizabeth (1642–1728), Oliver (1645–1669), Montegue (1654–1694), and Jane (1659–1685). Career Pickering graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1625, entered Gray's Inn to study law in 1629, and shortly after his 1638 marriage purchased a baronetcy in Novia Scotia. Like his brother John, he was originally a Presbyterian, who wanted to restructure the Church of England along lines similar to the reformed Church of Scotland established by the Covenanters in 1639. He later became a religious Independent, one of those who rejected any State religion, and was suspected of being an Anabaptist, a sect viewed as heretical by other Protestants, and widely persecuted in both Europe and the New England Colonies as a result. First elected as MP for Northamptonshire in April 1640, Pickering retained this seat in every Parliament