Stapylton [Stapleton], Sir Robert (1607x9?–1669), translator and playwright, was born in Carlton, near Snaith, Yorkshire, the third son of Richard Stapylton (d. 1636), and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Pierrepont. The family was staunchly Roman Catholic in an area which had only partially accepted the Elizabethan religious settlement. There is no record of either birth date or baptism. About 1621 Robert was sent to the Benedictine school of St Gregory at Douai (the forerunner of Downside School) where his brother Ralph was already a pupil; Ralph later joined the Douai Benedictines under the name of Dom Epiphanius. Robert was solemnly professed as a Benedictine on 30 March 1625. A year later, he obtained permission from his superiors to return to England for health reasons. When he was ordered to return to St Gregory's in 1629, he appealed to Rome against the validity of his profession, alleging that he had taken monastic vows under pressure and that he had been under the age of sixteen at the time. The appeal failed and he was ordered to return to his convent; if his appeal and rejection are to have any credibility, he must have been sixteen or seventeen in 1625, which would suggest a birth date between 1607 and 1609. Instead, Stapylton remained in England and became a member of the established church and an enthusiastic royalist. It seems that his cousin Henry Pierrepont, Viscount Newark, suggested to Charles I that Stapylton be appointed as gentleman-in-ordinary of the privy chamber of the prince (the future Charles II). The British Library conjectures 1634 as the publication date of Dido and Aeneas, Stapylton's translation of book 4 of the Aeneid. It is a competent, even attractive, version; its dedication to a distant cousin, Lady Catherine Twisleton of Barley, Yorkshire, whose husband, Sir George, died young in 1635, suggests that this book with its theme of lost love may have been published in that year as a Roman consolatio to a wife grieving over the untimely death of her husband. When civil war broke out, Stapylton followed the king to Nottingham, and was knighted there on 13 September 1642. After the battle of Edgehill he accompanied Charles to Oxford, where Stapylton was awarded DCL on 1 or 2 November. It was while in Oxford that he published a translation entitled Pliny's panegyricke: a speech in the senate wherein public thanks are presented to the Emperor Trajan (1644). His fulsome dedication of the work to Prince Charles compares the boy to Trajan, the Roman general who as emperor brought freedom and sound administration to Rome after the disastrous reign of Domitian. Stapylton had obviously benefited from the rigorous classical education that the Benedictines gave him. The dedication is followed by an excellent account of Trajan and the younger Pliny, and the marginal notes to the translation show a good knowledge of imperial Rome. That same year Stapylton also published The first six satyrs of Juvenal … with annotations in clearing the obscure places out of the history, laws, and ceremonies of the Romans, dedicated to Pierrepont. This was the first published English translation of Juvenal, although Barton Holiday, whose own version appeared in 1673, unjustly accused Stapylton of plagiarism. In 1645 came The Loves of Hero and Leander, translated from the Greek of Musaeus, annexed with Ovid's Heroides 18 and 19, the imagined letters between the two lovers. Stapylton was still in Oxford when it surrendered to Fairfax in May 1645, but left the following year. He then lived quietly as a gentleman scholar, and did not attract the attention of the authorities. In 1647 he republished Loves of Hero and Leander and published a complete translation of Juvenal's satires, lightly revising those satires already published. His preface presents Juvenal as an arbiter of manners: ‘I have for my Country's sake taught him our Language, which if you allow him to speake intelligibly and profitably,

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you may please to naturalize him by your Votes’ (Juvenal's Sixteen Satyrs, sig. A6v). Stapylton's De bello Belgico: the History of the Low-Countrey Warres (1650) was an account, from the Latin of the Roman Jesuit, Faminius Strada, of the revolt of the Netherlands against the oppressive rule of Philip II of Spain. It was dedicated to Henry Pierrepont as a history worthy to rank with those of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus ‘in happiness and freedom of expression’ (ibid., sig. A2r). Stapylton translated Strada's own introduction without adding one of his own, and reproduced Strada's marginal notes adapting them slightly to an English readership. Given the political situation in 1650, Stapylton flies no flags, except to demonstrate his admiration for Strada's objectivity and Latin style. Stapylton's prose has a vigour and epigrammatic point lacking in his verse: ‘The bloudy Warre that grievously distempered Europe, still continued between Emperour Charles the fifth, and Henry the second, King of France, to whom their fathers with their Crowns had left their enmities and animosities’ (ibid., 3). He also wrote complimentary verses for the 1648 edition of the earl of Monmouth's Romulus and Tarquine, and the posthumous 1651 collection of William Cartwright's works; though competent, his work does not come up to the standards set by fellow-contributors such as Henry and Thomas Vaughan and Sir Edward Sherburne. Evelyn's diary notes that Stapylton, ‘the Translator of Juvenal’, visited him at Deptford on 16 May 1654; this careful identification suggests that they were not close friends (Evelyn, 3.98). It was probably about this time that Stapylton married Mrs Hope Hammond (née Mainwaring). The complete silence about her suggests she was not of a prominent family. They do not seem to have had any children. At the Restoration, Charles II named Stapylton, now resident in London, as one of the gentleman ushers to the privy chamber. In the same year Stapylton's edition of Juvenal was extensively reworked for publication as Mores hominum which, like his Pliny of 1644, had copious marginal notes and commentary. Dryden's description of Holiday as one whose ‘Interpretation, and illustrations of Juvenal are as Excellent, as the Verse of his Translation … are lame and pitiful’ could equally well be applied to Stapylton (Works of John Dryden, 4.70). However, Stapylton is linguistically somewhat closer to the original than Dryden's longer and more energetic version, as this comparison of lines from Satire I shows: 'Tis foolish pity, now so many are Turn'd Poets, Paper which they spoil to spare (Stapylton, Mores hominum, 3) But, since the World with Writing is possest, I'll versifie in spite; and do my best To make as much waste Paper as the rest. (Works of John Dryden, 4.93) Stapylton's career as a playwright had begun in 1653 with The Royal Choice, entered in the register of the Stationers' Company on 29 November but never performed. After the Restoration came The Slighted Maid (1663), The Stepmother (1664), and The Tragedy of Hero and Leander (1669) which, taken from his translation of Musaeus for which he seems to have had great affection, was never acted. Pepys saw The Slighted Maid on 29 May 1663, and thought it ‘not very excellent but is well acted’ (Pepys, 4.163); however, he was impressed enough to see it again on 28 June 1668. Stapylton's reputation as a playwright has not endured. His plots are sprawling and drawn largely from classical sources suitably dressed up. In deference to contemporary taste, the plays contain musical interludes and

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dancing reminiscent of the court masque. A more serious defect to modern eyes, they have no psychological sense of development of character, and the connection between incidents is not coherent. Though Stapylton figures in a small way in histories of English literature, none of his works has been reprinted since the 1660s, he is not discussed in most histories of English drama, and is very summarily dealt with by those who do mention him. Stapylton died in London on 10 or 11 July 1669 as a parishioner of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and was buried on the 15th near the vestry door of Westminster Abbey. Apart from some valuable legacies to members of the Pierrepont family, to his godson, Sir Miles Stapleton [see below], and to his servants, he left the bulk of his estate to a widow, Elizabeth Simpson, in gratitude for the care ‘she took with mee in my long sicknes’, and administrative obligations to his wife who contested the will on 23 November but lost (TNA: PRO, PROB 11/330, fol. 264r). He should be distinguished from a contemporary, Robert Stapylton, a graduate of St Alban Hall, Oxford, and MP. Robert's nephew, Sir Miles Stapleton [Stapylton], baronet (bap. 1626, d. 1707), was baptized on 19 October 1626 at Carlton, the third son of Gilbert Stapleton (d. 1634) and his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Sir John Gascoigne. He came into his father's estates because his eldest brother, Richard, was declared a lunatic while another brother, Gregory, was a monk at Douai. These estates included lands in Yorkshire and Northumberland, the manors of Carlton and Camblesforth, and commercial interests in Bedale. He married Elizabeth (d. 1684), daughter of Robert Bertie, earl of Lindsey, probably in 1656; their first child was born on 9 July 1657 but all three of their children died in infancy. He was created baronet on 20 March 1661. Although Sir Miles was known to be a staunch Catholic, he does not appear on the recusant lists. He protected himself by playing a full part in his community. His account books detail the expenses of entertaining and being entertained in his friends' houses; he was generous to local musicians and to small theatre companies who played in the manor; and as local squire he contributed to the upkeep of the parish church, and had a memorial placed there for his first wife following her death. His other line of defence was bribes to local officials to ensure that his family and other local Catholics were not reported to the courts as recusants (Cox, 22). The account books also list expenses for his chapel at Carlton, which dated from before the Reformation. He employed chaplains, and ensured that mass was frequently celebrated and that the chapel was carefully maintained. He also funded a number of priests who served local Catholics, and also a small Franciscan convent in the city of York. There were frequent donations to ‘poore Catholickes’ and for the relief of Catholics in the York prison awaiting trial for recusancy (ibid., 23–4). On 16 June 1680 Sir Miles was arraigned, together with his cousin Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Gascoigne's daughter Lady Tempest, and Thomas Thwing who had been Sir Miles's chaplain, of conspiracy to murder the king. The information had been laid by Robert Bolron, one of Sir Thomas's grooms, an industrious informer who earned himself at least £1000 through his activities. Sir Miles challenged so many jurors that the trial was postponed, and when he was finally tried on 18 July 1681, he was acquitted. Only Thomas Thwing was found guilty, probably because he was a priest. Sir Miles's wife, Elizabeth, died on 28 February 1684. He then married Elizabeth, daughter

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of Sir Thomas Longueville, who outlived him; they had no children. During the wave of anti-popery that swept Yorkshire after the accession of William of Orange, Sir Miles and some members of his household were seized by an anti-Catholic mob and released only on the intervention of a certain Captain Tankard. Sir Miles died in Carlton in February 1707, and was buried on 19 February in the parish church at Snaith. L. G. Kelly

Sources

Athanasius [P. A. Allanson], Biography of the English Benedictines (1999) · H. E. Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Stapletons of Yorkshire (1897) · W. Kupersmith, Roman satirists in seventeenth-century England (1985) · W. Van Lennep, ed., The London stage, 1660–1800, pt 1: 1660–1700 (1965) · M. Summers, The playhouse of Pepys (1935) · List of boys at St Gregory's (1972) · A. W. Ward, History of English dramatic literature to the death of Queen Anne, 3 (1899), 336–7 · Wood, Ath. Oxon.: Fasti (1815), 39 · F. Bowers, ‘The first editions of Sir Robert Stapylton's The slighted maid (1663) and The stepmother (1664)’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 45 (1951), 143–8 · J. C. Cox, ‘Household books of Sir Miles Stapleton, 1656–1705’, The Ancestor, 2 (1902), 17–39 · GEC, Peerage, 3.247 · The trial of Sir Miles Stapylton (1681) · J. Y. Akerman, ed., Moneys received and paid for secret services of Charles II and James II from 30th March 1679 to 25th December 1688, CS, 52 (1851) · J. C. H. Aveling, Catholic recusancy in the city of York, 1558–1791, Catholic RS, monograph ser., 2 (1970) · J. Burke and J. B. Burke, Extinct baronetage (1894), 505–6 · The works of John Dryden, 4: Poems, 1693–1696, ed. A. B. Chambers, W. Frost, and V. A. Dearing (1974) · Evelyn, Diary, 3.98 · Pepys, Diary, 4.1643; 9.268 · A. Nichol, A history of English drama, 1660–1900, 1 (1955), 139–40 · will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/330, sig. 90 · Foster, Alum. Oxon. Archives

BL, notes of birth of sons, Sloane MS 1708, fol. 122 | BL, certificate, Stowe MS 744, fol. 60 · BL, letters, Egerton MS 3336, fol. 93; Add. MS 27448, fol. 293 · BL, translation of Juvenal, Add. MS 9455, fols. 9–116 Likenesses

P. Lombart, line engraving, BM, NPG; repro. in Juvenal, Mores hominum / The manners of men: described in sixteen satyrs, trans. R Stapylton (1660) · W. Marshall, line engraving, BM, NPG; repro. in R. Stapylton, trans., Juvenal's sixteen satyrs (1647) [see illus.] · W. Marshall, line engraving, repro. in Summers, The playhouse of Pepys Wealth at death

£2000 out as a mortgage; £1400 in bonds; £105 in legacies; jewellery, furniture, and goods left to family and Mrs Simpson: will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/330, sig. 90 © Oxford University Press 2004–8 All rights reserved: see legal notice Stapleton, Gregory (1748–1802), vicar apostolic of the midland district, born on 7 December 1748 at Carlton Hall, Yorkshire, was the seventh son of Nicholas Stapleton and his third wife, Winifred, daughter of John White of Dover Street, London. After preparatory studies at Esquerchin he proceeded to the English College, Douai, in 1762. On his ordination he became procurator of the college, and left that post twelve years later

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because of difficulties with its new president, William Gibson. After this he travelled abroad with a pupil; and on his return from Italy, in 1787, he was appointed president of the English College at St Omer, in succession to Alban Butler. The revolution of 1789 soon adversely affected British institutions in France. Imprisoned in the French College at St Omer in August 1793 the president, several professors, and fifty-two students were removed to Arras in January 1794, where they were threatened with death, before joining the ‘trente-deux’ from the Douai college incarcerated at Doullens. When restrictions were lifted, Stapleton travelled to Paris to secure an order from the Directory for the release of the prisoners, and on 2 March 1795 they all arrived back at Dover on board an American ship. Soon afterwards Stapleton, accompanied by Bishop Douglass, sought an interview with the duke of Portland and William Pitt to seek their approval of a plan for converting the school at Old Hall Green, near Ware, Hertfordshire, into a Catholic college. The duke had previously known Stapleton, and he and Pitt gave them encouragement. Stapleton accordingly conducted his students to Old Hall Green, and on 19 August 1795 the first stone was laid of the College of St Edmund. Stapleton presided over the college until the autumn of 1800, when, having accompanied the Revd John Nassau to Rome on an important secret mission, he was raised to the episcopate. His appointment as bishop of Hierocaesarea in partibus and vicar apostolic of the midland district, in succession to Charles Berington, was approved by the pope on 29 May 1800, and he was consecrated on 8 March 1801. He took up his residence at Long Birch, near Wolverhampton, and employed John Milner as his secretary. Stapleton died at St Omer on 23 May 1802, on his way with other representatives to reclaim British property after the peace of Amiens, and was succeeded in his vicariate by Milner. The midland district especially felt the loss of his quiet and peaceful temperament. He was buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St Omer. Thompson Cooper, rev. D. Milburn

Sources

B. Ward, The dawn of the Catholic revival in England, 1781–1803, 2 vols. (1909) · B. Ward, History of St Edmund's College, Old Hall (1893) · D. Milburn, A history of Ushaw College (1964) · D. Milburn, ‘William Gibson, president of Douai: the scene restored’, Ushaw Magazine, 67 (1957), 11–24 · will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/1378, fol. 579 · G. Anstruther, The seminary priests, 4 (1977) · Westm. DA Archives

St Edmund's College, Ware, archives · Westm. DA Likenesses

oils, St Edmund's College, Ware; repro. in Ward, History, 122 · woodcut silhouette, BM Wealth at death

£150: will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/1378, fol. 579 © Oxford University Press 2004–8 All rights reserved: see legal notice

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