Life
Apparently a native of Chester, he was brought up by William Cook, a nonconformist minister ejected from St. Michael's Church, Chester, in 1662, who died in 1684. Bold was instituted vicar of Shapwick in Dorset in 1674, but resigned or was ejected in 1688; he was instituted rector of Steeple in the Isle of Purbeck in 1682, and held the living until his death. In 1721 he succeeded to the adjacent parish of Tyneham, united to Steeple by act of parliament.
In 1682, when a brief for the persecuted Huguenots was to be read in church, Bold preached a sermon against persecution and published it. With a second edition in the same year, it raised a great outcry; Bold then published a Plea for Moderation towards Dissenters. He justified his general praise of nonconformists, mentioning amongst others Richard Baxter and Henry Hickman as "shining lights in the church of God". In 1720 Bold republished the sermon against persecution, adding a short account of his subsequent troubles.
The grand jury at the next assize presented Bold for the sermon and also for the Plea, and he was cited before the court of William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol, where he was accused of having "writ and preached a scandalous libel". Bold wrote answers to these charges, but he was commanded, on pain of suspension, to preach three recantation sermons. Meanwhile, in the civil courts, a further offence was there alleged against him that he had written a letter befriending a dissenting apothecary in Blandford. For the letter and the two publications he was sentenced to pay three fines, and Bold was seven weeks in prison before they were paid. After this the death of the bishop and of the promoter in the civil suit freed him from further annoyance.
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