Edmund Bolton

Edmund Mary Bolton (1575?–1633?), English historian and poet, was born (by his own account) in 1575.

Nothing is known of his family or origins, although he referred to himself as a distant relative of George Villiers. Brought up a Roman Catholic, he was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Bolton then lived in London at the Inner Temple. Both at Cambridge and in London, he participated in the literary life of the time. At Cambridge, he met John Selden, John Coke, and others. In London, he wrote occasional verse, contributing poems to England's Helicon, and commendatory verses to William Camden's Brittania and Ben Jonson's Volpone. He became a retainer of Villiers, and through the Duke's influence, Bolton secured a small place at the court of James I. Bolton married Margaret Porter, the sister of Endymion Porter, another of the Duke's retinue and a minor poet.

Throughout his life, Bolton was oppressed by scarcity, about which he freely informed his numerous prospective patrons. These included, at one time or another, Cecil, Henry Howard, and even Edward Alleyn. He was caught up in Charles's campaign against recusancy in 1628; he was imprisoned first in the Fleet and then in Marshalsea, where he languished for want of a person of power to intercede for him.

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