BOLTON, Richard

Bolton’s family is found in Lincoln at least as early as 1388 when Nicholas Bolton was among its prominent citizens sworn to support the Lords Appellant. Richard’s father was probably William Bolton, who attested four parliamentary elections in the city between 1422 and 1442.3 RP, iii. 403; C219/13/1, 5, 14/1, 15/2. As late as 1458 the MP was a plaintiff as one of William’s executors: CP40/758, rot. 95. The first references to our MP come in 1446 when he appeared in person in the court of common pleas to sue two Lincoln tailors for assault and offered surety in Chancery for a clerk of Southoe (Huntingdonshire) and a taverner of London.4 CP40/741, rot. 228; C237/42/117. The MP is not to be confused with the namesake appointed, in June 1422, as auditor of the estate officials of the late duke of Clarence in Holderness and Lincs.: CPR, 1416-22, p. 436. It was undoubtedly this Richard, styled ‘of Hedon in Holderness’, who was returned as holding land at Sudbrooke in 1431, but the proximity of this land to Lincoln is the only thing to connect him with our MP: Feudal Aids, iii. 359. These early references suggest what later ones confirm, namely that he was a lawyer, and it was thus appropriate that his first office in his native city should, in 1451-2, have been that of under sheriff. In October 1450 he was present at the city election to Parliament, and at the next election, on 1 Feb. 1453, when probably still quite a young man, he was himself returned. While a sitting MP, on 1 Mar. 1454 he witnessed a quitclaim to the dean and chapter of Lincoln cathedral of an inn in Holborn. This was the home of an inn of Chancery, Barnard’s Inn, but he appears to have been a witness as a citizen of Lincoln rather than as a student of the Inn.5 C219/16/1-2; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 120-1.

Most of what is known of Bolton concerns his part in Lincoln’s affairs. In 1459 and 1460 he attested the returns of his fellow MP of 1453, Hamon Sutton II*, on both occasions acting as his mainpernor. In November 1461 he completed the purchase of a tenement in the Lincoln parish of St. Peter at Arches, employing as his feoffees Robert Gegge* and Thomas Grantham†. At this time he was serving as the city coroner, and three years later he became mayor. In 1467 he again attested an election; his high status in the community manifest in his name appearing first of the 49 electors.6 C219/16/5-6, 17/1; Lincs. AO, Lincoln city recs., White bk. L1/3/1, ff. 21v-22v, 23v, 25. A tantalizing reference to him occurs in an early sixteenth-century list of the mayors of the city: it claims that, during the mayoralty of Richard Cotes in 1468-9, ‘Tota communitas fecerunt magnam insurrectionem super Ricardum Bolton et aliis’.7 Assoc. Archit. Socs. Reps. and Pprs. xxxix. 237. Unfortunately no other source refers to this incident which presumably relates to some lost struggle between the leading citizens and those over whom they ruled.8 In Hil. 1470, in what may be an echo of these troubles, the sheriffs of the city were fined 10s. for failing to return a writ of outlawry at the King’s suit against those, headed by the warden of the Friars Minor, Lincoln, who had been convicted of trespass against our MP: KB27/835, fines rot.d.

Clearly Bolton was an important man in his native city, but he also had an existence beyond its confines. In Hilary term 1463 he succeeded Gegge as the filacer responsible for Lincolnshire suits in the court of common pleas. Although most men who secured these remunerative clerkships usually served over many years, often, as Gegge had done, until death, our MP soon surrendered his office to a more important local lawyer, John Saynton†.9 CP40/807, rot. 11; 812, rot. 11. The reason for his resignation may have lain in the pressure of other concerns. It is probably not coincidental that he was elected as Lincoln mayor in the following September. He also had mercantile interests. In the general pardon he sued out on 10 Feb. 1469, perhaps in connexion with the disturbances in Lincoln, he is described as both ‘merchant’ and ‘gentleman’.10 C67/46, m. 6; C237/46/146. His nomination nine months later as customs controller in the port of Boston is a further indication of his involvement in trade. Later in January 1478, again styled ‘merchant’, he is named high on the list of attestors to the election to Parliament of his erstwhile feoffee, Thomas Grantham, and Thomas Fitzwilliam II*. The last reference to him dates from Hilary term 1480 when he was a plaintiff in various debt actions in the court of common pleas.11 C219/17/3; CP40/871, rots. 243d, 450.