Richard Bolton (lawyer)

Sir Richard Bolton (1570? – November 1648) was an English lawyer, an important figure in the politics of Ireland in the 1630s and 1640s.

He was son of John Bolton, of Fenton, Staffordshire, and born about 1570. He practised for a time as a barrister in England and was defendant in a suit about land in Fenton Calvert, Stafford, three miles from Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Queen Elizabeth I's time. Which he left for Ireland with the object, it has been alleged, of avoiding the results of a censure passed on him by the court of Star-chamber. At the end of 1604 he obtained employment as temporary Recorder of Dublin, and was confirmed in the post in 1605.

Through government influence he was elected in 1613, in opposition to the Roman Catholic candidate, one of the representatives of Dublin in the Irish House of Commons of which Sir John Davies became the speaker. He resigned the recordership of Dublin in the same year.

Bolton received a knighthood in 1618 from Sir Oliver St John, lord-deputy of Ireland. At the end of 1618 Bolton was appointed Solicitor-general for Ireland.

Bolton became Attorney-General to the Court of Wards at Dublin in 1622, and was appointed Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1625.

In December 1639 Bolton was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. As Chancellor, Bolton presided in the Irish Parliament which commenced at Dublin in March 1640. Bolton was regarded as a chief adviser of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford in his attempts to introduce arbitrary government. The Privy Council of Ireland was dominated by four of Strafford's allies: Sir George Radcliffe, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, Robert Dillon who was a connection by marriage, and Bolton. On 11 February 1641 the House of Lords acquitted him from a charge of having endeavoured to prevent the continuance of the existing parliament. In a letter dated 11 February 1641 Bolton transmitted to the committee of the house attending the king in England a schedule of grievances of Ireland voted by the Irish House of Lords at Dublin on the same day.

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