Sir Richard Bolton (January 1570 – November 1648) was an English lawyer and judge, who was an important figure in Irish political life in the 1630s and 1640s.
He was a defendant in a lawsuit about land in Fenton Calvert, Stafford, three miles from Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Queen Elizabeth I's time.
He moved to Ireland with the object, it was alleged, of avoiding the results of an unfavourable judgment passed on him by the court of Star-Chamber in this lawsuit.
Bolton was regarded as a chief adviser of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the Lord Lieutenant, in his attempts to introduce arbitrary government.
By a resolution of 21 June 1642, that no members should sit or vote until they had taken the oath of supremacy, the House of Commons excluded the Roman Catholic representatives, among whom were those who had been most active in the proceedings against Bolton and his associates.
His name appears first amongst those of the privy council who signed the proclamation issued at Dublin on 30 July 1646 announcing the conclusion of a treaty of peace between Charles I of England and his Roman Catholic subjects in Ireland.
[5] In 1621 Bolton published at Dublin, in a folio volume, a selection of statutes passed in parliaments held in Ireland.
By his first wife, Frances, daughter of Richard Walter of Stafford, he left two surviving sons, Edward and John, and several daughters, including Mary, who married Patrick Nangle, Baron of Navan, and Anne, who married Arthur Hill of Hillsborough, County Down, a political figure of some importance in the 1640s and 50s.
This marriage was advantageous for Richard as Margaret possessed considerable estates in Dublin and County Louth, which her first husband had settled on her.
Lady Bolton was still living in 1663, when she petitioned the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the arrears of salary due to her late husband.