Lancashire town where James Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby and Lord of Man, was executed in October 1651.

Derby was captured after the Royalist defeat at Worcester and tried by court martial at Chester. He argued that he had been granted quarter for his life and that the Act of 12 August 1651 under which he was prosecuted did not extend to the Isle of Man. His objection was rejected.

The court sentenced him to death by beheading at Bolton. The surviving account gives 16 October as the date fixed by the sentence, although the execution took place on 15 October.

Derby was deeply concerned by the choice of Bolton. In a final petition to William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, he offered to surrender the Isle of Man to whatever representatives Parliament appointed and asked for mercy. If his life could not be spared, he asked at least for the place of execution to be changed.

He believed death at Bolton would make his execution appear to be punishment for the bloodshed when Royalist troops had stormed the town in 1644, responsibility for which he denied.

The later Stanley account describes the people of Bolton as responding to his execution with sympathy rather than hostility.