Edmund Bohun, an English writer of the 17th century, born at Ringsfield, Suffolk. He was a descendant of the lords of the manor of Westhall, and was educated at Queen's college, Cambridge, which he entered in 1663. He edited Filmer's treatise on the origin of government, wrote an answer to the paper which Algernon Sidney had delivered to the sheriffs on the scaffold, and subsequently published a geographical dictionary and other works. He swore allegiance to William and Mary, though he was a stanch tory and had been a persecutor of nonconformists and a champion of the doctrine of passive obedience; and in 1692 he was appointed by the earl of Nottingham as licenser, in place of Fraser. He at once opposed the publication of "A History of the Bloody Assizes," and of other writings which he considered schismatic and revolutionary, but sanctioned that of an anonvmous volume entitled "King William and Queen Mary Conquerors," which reflected his own peculiar views, but which roused public indignation chiefly by its title, and led in January, 1693, to his removal from office, to his arrest, and to the public burning of the obnoxious treatise.

It was alleged that Charles Blount, an extreme whig, had written this book in order to lay a trap for the ruin of Bohun, whose censorship he had bitterly denounced. See "Autobiography of Edmund Bohun" in Dunton's "Life and Errors" (privately printed, London, 1853).