Family and Education

b. c.1617, 1st s. of Brian Stapleton of Myton by Frances, da. of Sir Henry Slingsby^† of Scriven. educ. St. Alban Hall, Oxf. matric. 13 June 1635, aged 18; I. Temple 1636. m. 18 Oct. 1650, Elizabeth, da. of Hon. Conyers Darcy of Hornby Castle, Yorks. (afterwards 1st Earl of Holdernesse), 2s. 5da. suc. fa. c.1658; cr. Bt. 22 June 1660.2

Offices Held

Commr. for northern assoc. Yorks. (N. Riding) 1645, militia, Yorks. 1648, Mar. 1660; j.p. (N. Riding) Mar. 1660- d., commr. for assessment Aug. 1660-d., receiver, honour of Pontefract Sept. 1660-2; col. of militia ft. (N. Riding) 1661-d., commr. for recusants 1675.3

Biography

Stapleton’s ancestors had been landowners in the North Riding since the 12th century, and first represented the county in 1416. His father, a younger son, inherited Myton, three miles from Borough-bridge, under a family settlement; though less prominent a Presbyterian than his cousin, Sir Philip Stapleton, Strafford called him ‘as arrant a saucy Magna Carta man as any’, and he served on the county committee from 1643 to 1649. Father and son were both recruiters to the Long Parliament, but took no part in public affairs after Pride’s Purge. Stapleton signed the Yorkshire petition for a free Parliament in February 1660, but his name is missing from the list of secluded Members. He was returned for Boroughbridge at the general election with his brother-in-law Conyers Darcy, but he was not an active Member of the Convention, in which he was appointed only to the committee of elections and privileges. He did not stand again, and after 1664 appeared only intermittently at quarter sessions. He took a lease of Merton Abbey, in Surrey, where he died on 26 Mar. 1679. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Brian Stapylton.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: M. W. Helms

Notes

• 1. Did not sit after Pride’s Purge, 6 Dec. 1648.
• 2. Yorks. Arch. Jnl. viii. 429.
• 3. Sir Robert Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster Official Lists, 151.
• 4. Yorks. Arch. Jnl. viii. 72, 443; J. T. Cliffe, Yorks. Gentry , 268, 303, 343; SP18/219/49; N. Riding Recs. vi. passim; Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 260.