John Godbolt or Godbold (c. 1582 – 3 August 1648) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640. He presided over

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

trials in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

. Godbolt was the son of Thomas Godbolt, of

Tannington Tannington is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around ten miles south-east of Diss, Norfolk, Diss, in 2005 its population was 110. At the 2011 Census the population had fallen below 100 ...

, Suffolk. He was at school at Worlingworth, Suffolk and admitted to

Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

on 29 June 1599 aged 17. He was scholar from 1600 to 1602 and was admitted at

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

on 16 November 1605. In 1633 he recorder of

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...

. He became Chief Justice of the Isle of

Ely, Cambridgeshire Ely ( ) is a cathedral city in the East Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England, about north-northeast of Cambridge and from London. Ely is built on a Kimmeridge Clay island which, at , is the highest land in the Fens. It was d ...

in 1638. In April 1640, Godbolt was elected

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on the 20th of February 1640 and sat from 13th of April to the 5th of May 1640. It was so called because of its short life of only three weeks. Aft ...

. Godbolt was Judge at the Bury St Edmunds assizes in 1645 for the trial of alleged witches of whom two men and sixteen women were sentenced to death and 120 suspects were kept in gaol. However he forbade the use of the swimming test for witches. The sessions were adjourned because of the approach of

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

forces, but subsequently another fifty were hanged as witches.Montague Summers Geography of Witchcraft
/ref> Godbolt was made Justice of the Common Pleas in 1647. Godbolt died in 1648 at the age of 66.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Godbolt, John 1580s births 1648 deaths 17th-century English judges English MPs 1640 (April)