Sir John Stapylton, a wealthy country gentleman, was killed by a fall from his horse on the way to attend a meeting at York, where he was to be adopted as the Tory candidate for the county at the impending general election. The Yorkshire Tories thereupon adopted his son and heir, Miles, who was returned at the head of the poll, after a hard-fought and costly contest. After Walpole’s fall his political course conformed with that of his father-in-law, Edmund Waller, with whom he voted against the Government on the Hanoverians in 1742 and 1744, but for them on the same question in 1746 as a ‘New Ally’. His only recorded speech was on 1 Feb. 1744, when he moved unsuccessfully to address the King for all letters and papers relating to the treaty of Worms and that with Prussia.1Yorke’s parl. jnl. Parl. Hist. xiii. 635; CJ, xxiv. 539. For a short time he appears to have joined the party of the Prince of Wales, figuring as a lord of the Treasury in the 2nd Lord Egmont’s lists of persons to receive office on Frederick’s accession. Towards the end of 1749 he went over to the Government in circumstances described by Henry Pelham:
Sir Miles Stapylton some time ago expressed his regard for the King and those who have the honour to serve him, and indeed in the most frank and gentlemanly manner declared his intention to support that interest in all places. I soon found that it would be convenient to him if he could have an employment that would ease him from the trouble and expense of Parliament.2To Ld. Rockingham, 25 Nov. 1749, Rockingham mss.
In April he was given such an employment in the form of a commissionership of customs, thereby automatically forfeiting his seat, which was filled at his suggestion by another converted Tory, Henry Pleydell Dawnay, 3rd Viscount Downe [I].
He died 14 May 1752.