Protectorate. In 1654, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Stafford and Cheshire, but because he refused to sign the recognition pledge put on Members to declare their recognition of the new army-backed government, he took no seat for either constituency. In 1655, the Major-General in charge of Cheshire, Tobias Bridge, persuaded leading gentry not to enter Bradshaw as the county's parliamentary candidate at elections to the next parliament. After Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, his son Richard succeeded him as Lord Protector and reinstated Bradshaw as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Bradshaw was elected MP for Cheshire in the Third Protectorate Parliament in 1659. During the same year, Bradshaw moved to Westminster after falling dangerously ill with a 'quartan ague' or malaria. In October 1659, various subordinate members of the army sabotaged General Lambert's and General Ludlow's support of the Long Parliament. Colonel Morley, Major Grimes, and Colonel Sydenham eventually gained their points, and placed guards both by land and water, to hinder the members of Parliament from approaching the House. During these disorders, the Council of State still assembled at the usual place and the: He died on 31 October 1659, aged 57. He was buried with great honours at Westminster Abbey. The eulogy was given by John Rowe. On his deathbed Bradshaw said that if called upon to try the King again he would be "the first man in England to do it". Posthumous execution Charles II returned to power in 1660. On 30 January 1661, the twelfth anniversary of the regicide, the bodies of Bradshaw, Cromwell and Henry Ireton were ordered to be exhumed and displayed in chains all day on the gallows at Tyburn. At sunset, the three bodies that had been displayed publicly as those of the three judges being executed posthumously were all beheaded. The bodies were thrown into a common pit and the heads displayed on pikes at Westminster Hall. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary that he saw the heads there on 5 February. The body of Bradshaw's wife was also exhumed from Westminster Abbey and, along with the remains of other Parliamentarians buried at Westminster, reburied in a common pit at St Margaret's, Westminster. Jamaica connection Some sources claim that the body of Bradshaw had previously been removed by his son, James or John Bradshaw, who re-buried his father's remains on a hill near Martha's Brae on Jamaica