Sir Gilbert Pickering, 1st Baronet

Sir Gilbert Pickering, 1st Baronet (1611 – October 1668) was a regicide, a member of the English Council of State during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, and a member of Cromwell's Upper House.

In 1625 Pickering graduated with a BA from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and in 1629 entered Gray's Inn.

Gilbert Pickering was an MP representing Northamptonshire and as such served in the Short Parliament of 1640 and in the Long Parliament of 1640 to 1653. He abandoned the royalist cause when Charles raised his standard at Nottingham in 1642.

In 1642 Pickering joined the Northamptonshire committee and was most active as "a sequester and a committee man" although he also raised a regiment for parliament.

As the decade went on he move Presbyterian, by stages until he was an Anabaptist, (later during the Interregnum he voted against the immediate abolition of Church tithes but favoured the banning Christmas).

During the disagreement between Parliament and the New Model Army in 1648 Pickering sided with the Army and kept his seat in the Rump after Pride's purge of the Long Parliament. He was appointed one of the judges at the trial of Charles I in 1648 but only sat in two sessions and did not sign Charles's death warrant.

He remained MP for Northamptonshire through the Interregnum 1648–1660 and was appointed Lord Chamberlain to Oliver Cromwell in 1657. His public career ended in 1660. With the help of his brother-in-law Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, Pickering obtained a pardon from King Charles II before his restoration. The original of the pardon delivered by Charles II on vellum in Latin is in the Pitts Theology Library of Emory University, MS no 109.

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