STAPLETON, Miles

Descended from a branch of an old Yorkshire family that had established itself in East Anglia in the mid fourteenth century,14 Chetwynd-Stapylton, 90-91. Miles was a member of that region’s gentry elite. On his father’s side of the family he shared his name with his great-grandfather, a prominent soldier and one of the foundation knights of the Garter, and with his grandfather, who helped to negotiate the marriage of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia.15 CP, vii. 62-63. Through his mother, he was the grandson of William, Lord Bardolf, and both of his marriages strengthened his aristocratic connexions.

While it is not clear when Miles came of age, it is very unlikely that he had attained his majority when he accompanied his father on Henry V’s second expedition to France in 1417. In July that year, shortly before crossing the Channel, father and son mustered with other members of the royal army. The young Miles did so as a member of Sir Brian Stapleton’s ‘company’, itself part of the retinue led by Thomas Montagu, earl of Salisbury.16 E101/51/2. According to his father’s inq. post mortem, Miles was ‘30 years and more’ in 1438 (CIPM, xxv. 206-11) and he must have been born several years before 1408, if not 1400. Apparently unaware that he had accompanied his father to France, Chetwynd-Stapylton, 107, states that he was 16 in 1423, meaning that he would have crossed the Channel at the tender age of ten, a most unlikely scenario. In due course Sir Brian fell into the hands of the French, for by 1420 he was a prisoner of Jean Descroz, chamberlain of the duke of Orléans, at Blois Castle.17 Chetwynd-Stapylton, 105. His son’s whereabouts at this time are unrecorded; indeed, there is no evidence for the younger man’s activities on the campaign as a whole.

In November 1423 Miles, his younger brother Brian, his uncle Edmund Stapleton and others entered into a recognizance for 100 marks with John Wakering, bishop of Norwich.18 CCR, 1422-9, p. 130. The reason for this security is unknown and it is impossible to connect it in some way with arrangements for raising Sir Brian’s ransom. By that date the knight, a prisoner for five years, had probably returned home and Miles may already have married his first wife. A year later Sir Brian obtained licence from the Crown to settle three manors in Wiltshire on his eldest son and Elizabeth Felbrigg. His ability to provide for the couple, despite having incurred a ransom of no less than 3,000 marks, bears testimony to his resources and wealth.19 PPC, iii. 161-2. But it is worth pointing out that the match was not as valuable as it might at first seem, since Elizabeth’s father, Sir Simon Felbrigg, had lost the influence he had once held as a Household servant of Ric. II: Norf. Archaeology, xxxvii. 86-90.

By the mid 1420s Miles and an esquire named John Esmond were in dispute with the city of Norwich. While the reason for it is unknown, the quarrel was sufficiently serious for Thomas Ingham*, the city’s mayor in 1425-6, to seek the good lordship of the King’s great-uncle, Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, and it was probably to discuss this matter that Stapleton’s father, Sir Brian Stapleton, and others breakfasted at Ingham’s house one morning in July 1425.20 Norf. RO, Norwich city recs., chamberlains’ accts., 1384-1448, NCR 18a, f. 146. Early in the following decade, Miles witnessed deeds on behalf of Edmund Clere*,21 CAD, iv. A7804; v. A11649. acted as a feoffee for Margaret, widow of John Shelton,22 CPR, 1429-36, p. 197. and attested the return of Norfolk’s knights of the shire to the Parliaments of 1432 and 1433. In 1435, however, he witnessed the election of the MPs for Suffolk, having taken up residence on his family’s property at Weybread in that county,23 Reg. Doke, f. 53; KB27/698, rot. 17d; 706, rot. 15d. and it was as ‘of Suffolk’ that in the following year he joined William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, and others in entering a bond for 500 marks to John Cornwall, Lord Fanhope.24 CCR, 1435-41, p. 62. The circumstances of this bond are unknown.

Later in the same decade, Stapleton married his second wife, Katherine, an important match since she was Suffolk’s cousin. Yet, although she was an heiress, a de la Pole family settlement ensured that the bulk of her father’s estate had passed to the earl, his nearest male heir. Sir Brian Stapleton died shortly after the marriage took place. In his will of 1438 he left all his lands to his eldest son (whom he named as one of his executors), provided that Miles paid an annuity of £20 to his younger brother and his wife for the rest of their lives, established a chantry and fulfilled various other conditions.25 CIPM, xxiii. 521-5; Reg. Doke, f. 53. Miles took livery of his extensive inheritance in February 1440. Probably worth at least £200 p.a., it comprised estates in Berkshire, Yorkshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire as well as in Norfolk and Suffolk.26 CFR, xvii. 132; CIPM, xxv. 206-11. The estate’s value is estimated from CIPM, xxv. 206-11 and Stapleton’s own inq. post mortem: C140/19/19. He did not augment it in any significant way, although he did purchase three parts of the Norfolk manor of Hempstead in the early 1440s. Soon afterwards, in 1444, Sir Henry Inglose* and several of his servants entered the manor, but they were acquitted of forcible disseisin when tried four years later.27 C1/15/158; 17/245, 371; KB27/734, rex rot. 37.

When he came into his own Stapleton was a knight of the shire for Suffolk in the Parliament of 1439. A week before this assembly opened, he was pricked as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, counties in which he had recently served as escheator and as a j.p. In January 1442 he was re-elected to the following Parliament, this time as an MP for Norfolk, his principal county of residence after his father’s death. Among the main concerns of the Commons of 1442 was the security of the seas, and it drew up a plan for a force of eight capital ships and 14 smaller vessels, carrying a total of 2,260 men, to guard the English coast for six months in the second half of 1442 and a further eight in the following year. The government accepted the plan, but in a much curtailed form, reducing its scope to a mere three months in 1442. In June that year the Crown appointed Sir Stephen Popham* commander of the force and, as his subordinate captains, three others who had also sat in the Parliament, namely Stapleton, Sir William Euer* and John Heron*, and a fourth who had not, Sir John Passhele. In the event, Passhele did not take up his appointment and the fleet, originally intended to assemble at The Camber near Winchelsea on 31 July, did not muster at Southampton until 13 Sept.28 PROME, xi. 373-5; E404/58/170; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 106-8; PPC, v. 190, 193, 196, 198, 204; E101/54/3; Richmond, 213-25; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 426-7, 440. In the meantime, Stapleton had prudently drawn up a will, dated 7 Aug. 1442. He made bequests to Ingham priory (founded by his great-grandfather and namesake nearly a century earlier) and other religious institutions and churches in Norfolk, and asked his executors, who included his wife, Katherine, and his aunt, Ela Brewes, to dispose of the residue of his estate for the good of his soul.29 PCC 16 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 125-6); VCH Norf. ii. 410.

When it finally sailed the fleet was significantly smaller than Parliament had intended, for it comprised just 1,344 men, of whom Stapleton had contributed 195.30 Richmond, 224. Stapleton was certainly at sea (probably off the East Anglian coast) in October 1442, when John Caldwell* of Harwich and Richard Felawe* of Ipswich gave a bond of £100 to the Crown, as a security that neither they nor any of their vessels would hinder him in his duties.31 CCR, 1441-7, p. 113. In the event, the expedition proved a short-lived failure. Stapleton, his fellow captains and their retinues had returned to shore by the end of the same October, and soon afterwards the Exchequer (which had made a prest of £1,910 15s. to him, Euer and Heron on the previous 19 May) began process to ensure the proper accounting for all monies spent. He and Heron suffered the temporary confiscation of parts of their estates, in his case the manors of Waxham and Lammas in Norfolk and Weybread in Suffolk. Furthermore, in Trinity term 1444 Stapleton and Euer were arraigned before the barons of the Exchequer and committed to the Fleet prison for failing to render account for the sums they had received for wages. By December 1445 they had both received discharges, leaving Heron to answer for any outstanding amounts.32 E199/33/46; E159/222, recorda Mich. rots. 21d, 25; E364/82, rot. D. In the following July Stapleton purchased a royal pardon, although it did not refer to his time as a keeper of the seas.33 C67/39, m. 37. He was already a knight when he received his discharge. While its circumstances are unknown, his dubbing suggests that he had not incurred any great ignominy over his time as a keeper of the seas. He certainly proved himself useful to the authorities even while they were taking action against him for his part in the failed naval enterprise. In early 1443, for example, he received a letter of thanks from the Council for his ‘labours, devoirs and diligences’ in apprehending those involved in the Norwich riots of that year.34 PPC, v. 235.

Notwithstanding the failure of the grand naval plan of 1442, Stapleton maintained a connexion with the sea for the remainder of his career. In 1445 he was serving as a deputy of the admiral of England, John Holand, duke of Exeter, and during the last two decades of life he was closely associated with Great Yarmouth. He imported wine and other goods through Yarmouth,35 E122/194/9, m. 5; Norf. RO, Gt. Yarmouth recs., ct. roll, 1445-6, Y/C 4/152, m. 9. and he was admitted one of its freemen in 1442-3.36 Gt.Yarmouth ct. roll, 1442-3, Y/C 4/150, m. 1d. In the mid fifteenth century he was sometimes referred to as ‘of Great Yarmouth’, an indication of just how close his links with the borough had become.37 KB9/118/2/23, 350. Among the properties he acquired there was a ‘fish house’,38 Gt.Yarmouth ct. rolls, 1442-3, 1449-50, 1468-9, Y/C 4/150, m. 11; 156, mm. 8d, 9; 173, m. 16d. and in mid 1442 he was licensed by the Crown to fish in the North Atlantic and to trade with Iceland.39 DKR, xlviii. 313. He probably played more than a peripheral part in the borough’s affairs, for in 1448 he was a member of a commission ordered to investigate illegal shipments of wool and woolfells by one of its burgesses, Robert Pynne*,40 PPC, vi. 328-30. and at the end of the decade he acted as supervisor of the will of another, Thomas Hyllys*.41 Gt.Yarmouth ct. roll, 1455-6, Y/C 4/162, m. 13; CCR, 1451-61, p. 313. During his third Parliament, Stapleton received a royal letter instructing him to requisition vessels from East Anglian ports to protect merchant shipping from pirates,42 E28/78/87. and his naval expertise earned him a place on a commission of March 1450 charged with organizing defences on the Norfolk coast, which had recently suffered from French raids.43 Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 237-8.

Later that year, Cade’s rebellion broke out and in its aftermath Stapleton was one of the gentry whom the earl of Oxford consulted about law and order in East Anglia.44 Ibid. ii. 42-44. He was returned to his last Parliament in the autumn of 1450. This assembly met in an atmosphere hostile to the Court and witnessed demands for the dismissal of several prominent courtiers previously associated with the late and disgraced William de la Pole.45 PROME, xii. 184-6. Stapleton was elected alongside Henry Gray*, who enjoyed the support of the leader of the opposition to the government, Richard, duke of York, and his ally, John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. Despite his de la Pole connexions, it would appear that Stapleton had waited upon York at Norwich around the time of the election and that the latter had not opposed his candidature. Furthermore, Sir John Fastolf, an enemy of the de la Pole affinity, had thought about proposing him for the shrievalty of Norfolk and Suffolk shortly before Parliament opened.46 Paston Letters, ii. 48, 51, 53.

At the same time, however, Stapleton remained on good terms with the widowed duchess of Suffolk, Alice de la Pole. It was with her agreement that he and Thomas, Lord Scales, received the temporary keeping of the bulk of her late husband’s estate from the Crown in mid 1451,47 CFR, xviii. 220-1. and he was among those gentry who gathered at Eye in Suffolk in August 1454 to advise her in her dispute with Thomas Cornwallis*.48 Egerton Roll 8779. Later, in mid 1456, he and others of the duchess’s men visited Sir John Fastolf at Caister, taking with them the sum of 253 marks he was owed. They did not, however, hand the money over as Fastolf failed to have the relevant bond ready to return to them for cancellation.49 Paston Letters, ii. 554; C.F. Richmond, Paston Fam.: First Phase, 248. During the early 1450s Stapleton joined members of the de la Pole affinity in their disputes with followers of the duke of Norfolk. In a proclamation of April 1452, Mowbray named him, Scales, Sir Thomas Tuddenham* and John Heydon* as the principal causers of a breakdown of law and order in Norfolk,50 Paston Letters ed. Gairdner, ii. 258-9. but this was very much a partisan statement, and if anything Norfolk’s retainers were more unruly and lawless than their opponents. Nevertheless, in the following February Stapleton was obliged to find sureties to guarantee that he would keep the peace towards Mowbray’s cousin and retainer, John Howard*, and in the same month he himself sought a similar safeguard from the duke.51 KB9/118/2/21, 25, 351.

Despite his links with the de la Poles, Stapleton was certainly not dependent on them, for he was an important figure in his own right. In April 1455 he and other substantial gentry from around the country well regarded by the Court received a summons to a great council at Leicester the following month.52 PPC, vi. 341. The council was called in an atmosphere of crisis, since by then the duke of York and his allies were dangerously alienated from the government and preparing to march on London. It never met, for while riding to Leicester the King and a large royal retinue encountered York and his army at St. Albans. It is unlikely that Stapleton took part in the resulting battle, since he was not a member of the royal household and would have made his own way to the council. Even after the battle, political divisions in England were far from entrenched, for 18 months later he and Sir Thomas Tuddenham, a man particularly associated with the de la Poles and the Court, became feoffees to the use of the will of York’s retainer, Sir William Oldhall*.53 CAD, i. B1244. Later that decade, however, tensions mounted as differences between the government and the Yorkist lords became increasingly irreconcilable. In February 1458 Stapleton took the precaution of obtaining a royal pardon;54 C67/42, m. 21. in the following year he attested the return of Norfolk’s knights of the shire to the partisan Coventry Parliament which attainted York and his allies; and in early 1460 he was placed on two anti-Yorkist commissions in Norfolk.

Like most of his fellow gentry, however, Stapleton was no political diehard, and a year later he was one of those gentlemen in East Anglia who agreed to send men to Edward IV’s army. The Yorkist government allowed him to keep his place on the Norfolk bench but others were not so convinced of his loyalty. In July 1461 John Paston* was informed that Stapleton was reputed one of the King’s enemies by the common people of East Anglia; but this was just what Paston wanted to hear, since by this date he and his friends were engaged in a bitter quarrel with Sir Miles. In the same month Margaret Paston’s relative, John Berney†, complained that Stapleton and other ‘yll dysposed persones’ were falsely accusing him of serious crimes, including the murder of the county coroner, Thomas Denys. Berney further alleged that the same band was ‘makyn gret gaderynges of the Kynges rebelyones’ and trying to kill him, and he urged Paston to appeal to the authorities on his behalf.55 Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 520; ii. 240-1.

Paston had very real reasons of his own to fear the man he called a ‘knavyssh knyght’ and ‘fals shrewe’, since Stapleton and his wife were casting aspersions on his family’s ancestry. He reacted to their claims by declaring that his ancestors ‘shall be found more worchepfull thanne hys [Stapleton’s] and hys wyfes’, but this was bluster, for his grandfather, Clement Paston, was indeed of lowly origins. The main worry for the Pastons was that Stapleton had acquired an old court roll belonging to the manor of Gimmingham (a copy of which had subsequently found its way into the King’s hands) since this appears to have shown that Clement had been a bondsman.56 Ibid. i. 95, 97-98. The reason for the animus between Stapleton and the Pastons is not known. While the MP had been a feoffee for the Mautbys, the family of Margaret Paston, in previous decades,57 Suff. RO (Ipswich), Iveagh (Phillips) mss, HD 1538/232/3; C1/72/107. he had also acted against the interests of her father-in-law, William Paston, j.c.p., in the early 1440s, by becoming a feoffee of William’s opponent, John Mariot.58 Richmond, Paston Fam.: First Phase, 94. Later in Henry VI’s reign, however, he had served John Paston in a similar capacity,59 Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 623. suggesting that the quarrel of the early 1460s was of relatively recent origin. Whatever its cause, it is possible that Stapleton had always had an underlying disdain for the upstart Pastons. There is no doubt that he took pride in his own ancestry and connexions. Apart from the de la Poles, these included his cousin Joan, Lady Bardolf. Joan, who died in 1447, appointed him one of the supervisors of her will, in which she left him a silver goblet bearing the arms of him and Katherine, his second wife, impaled.60 De Antiquis Legibus Liber (Cam. Soc. xxxiv), p. clxxxviii. It is also worth noting that Sir Miles’s first wife had been related to Richard II’s queen, Anne of Bohemia.61 F. Blomefield, Norf. viii. 109. As befitted his grand background, Stapleton was a patron of learning, supporting the scholar, John Metham. John dedicated his poem, ‘Amoryus and Cleopes’, to him and Katherine, as he did his treatises on palmistry and physiognomy. In the sole surviving manuscript of Metham’s works, the arms of Stapleton and de la Pole illuminate the initial capital letter of both ‘Amoryus and Cleopes’ and the Palmistry, and in the poem John celebrated his patron’s noble lineage and military prowess, including Stapleton’s part in beating off a Flemish attack on the Norfolk coast in the 1440s.62 Works of John Metham (EETS, cxxxii), pp. vii-viii, 79-80; Paston Letters ed. Davis, i. 215.

Notwithstanding the attempts by the Pastons and their friends to question his loyalty to Edward IV, Stapleton retained his place on the Norfolk bench (except for a hiatus in late 1464 and early 1465) until his death. Apart from his quarrel with the Pastons, the last few years of his life were largely uneventful. In 1463 he acquired a royal pardon,63 C67/45, m. 15 (20 Feb.). lent his support to restoration work at Norwich cathedral after it had suffered serious damage in a fire,64 Chetwynd-Stapylton, 114. and married his younger daughter Joan to Christopher Harcourt, the eldest son and heir apparent of (Sir) Richard Harcourt*.65 Bodl. D.D. Harcourt mss, c. 39/11. During the same year he took steps to safeguard important parts of his estates – namely the manor of Cotherstone and moieties of those of Bedale and Askham Bryan in Yorkshire and the manor of North Moreton in Berkshire – for his immediate family. He held these properties in tail-male under the terms of a fine of 1354, meaning that as things stood his daughters could not inherit them and they would pass to his distant cousins, the Stapletons of Carlton, Yorkshire. Accepting that the likelihood of his fathering sons was by then remote, in Michaelmas term 1463 he resorted to the expedient of suffering recoveries of these estates in the court of common pleas at Westminster, before resettling them on himself and Katherine and their two daughters.66 CP40/810, rot 437. In the following year Sir Miles witnessed a couple of conveyances of land made by the grandson of Sir Robert Clifton*,67 CCR, 1461-8, pp. 207-8, 227. and pursued suits in the borough court at Great Yarmouth and the common pleas. In the common pleas action he alleged that William Crowe, a wax chandler from London, and his wife had forcibly entered on to lands belonging to him in Bobbingworth, Moreton and other Essex parishes just under two years earlier. A jury sitting at Harlow found for Stapleton in early January 1465, only for the Crowes to have the matter referred to the court of King’s bench by means of a writ of error they obtained before the end of the same month. In the following spring, however, another jury likewise found for the MP. While this litigation concerned a seemingly minor dispute, it is worthy of notice in that it reveals that Sir Miles held lands in Essex, holdings that do not feature in his will and inquisitions post mortem.68 Gt.Yarmouth ct. roll, 1464-5, Y/C 4/169, m. 5d; CP40/811, rot. 123; KB27/818, rot. 28.

The will was the document he had made before going to sea over 20 years earlier, and just before his death he updated it with a codicil. Dated 18 Sept. 1466, this reveals that he had recently arranged for trustees to keep possession of his manors in Hampshire and Wiltshire for four years after his death, so that they might use the income from these properties to pay for his debts, legacies and various pious bequests.69 PCC 16 Godyn. Stapleton died on the following 30 Sept. and was buried in front of the high altar at Ingham priory.70 C140/19/19; Chetwynd-Stapylton, 114. His heirs were his two daughters, Elizabeth and Joan. Like Joan, Elizabeth had married during her father’s lifetime. She became the wife of (Sir) William Calthorpe* in the late 1450s, when Stapleton settled his holdings at Hempstead in Norfolk and Covehithe in Suffolk on the couple.71 Blomefield, ix. 310; W.A. Copinger, Suff. Manors, ii. 44.

Within 16 months of the MP’s death, his widow Katherine married Joan’s father-in-law, Sir Richard Harcourt, who was pardoned as ‘of Ingham’ in early 1472.72 C67/48, m. 21. Elizabeth and Joan succeeded to their father’s properties in Wiltshire and Hampshire, along with the manor of Horsey and two advowsons in Norfolk, immediately after his death,73 CFR, xx. 192-3. but during her lifetime Katherine retained possession of the manors of Ingham, Waxham, Lammas and Starston in Norfolk, Weybread in Suffolk and North Moreton in Berkshire. At the very least, these properties brought in an annual income of £50.74 CP25(1)/293/73/412; C140/19/19; CCR, 1461-8, p. 354. She also enjoyed a life interest (worth £30 p.a. or more) in his Yorkshire estates, including the manorial holdings at Cotherstone, Bedale and Askham Bryan,75 Hull Hist. Centre, Stapleton mss, U DDCA2/47. but her late husband’s distant cousin, Brian Stapleton of Carlton, challenged her possession of these estates and of North Moreton. The son and heir of the late Sir Brian Stapleton* (who had predeceased Sir Miles by only 23 days), Brian was still a minor when he brought an action for Cotherstone and Bedale against her and Sir Richard Harcourt in Trinity term 1469. He claimed, by virtue of a technicality, that the late MP’s arrangements of 1463 were invalid.76 Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 429-30; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. ser. 2, vi (1), 107-8; CP40/835, rots. 318-19d. There is no verdict recorded for his suit, and he resorted to another action against the Harcourts, an assize of novel disseisin for Askham Bryan, in February 1474. Later evidence indicates that he reached an accommodation with them by which he accepted the moieties of Bedale and Askham Bryan in return for surrendering his claim to the other properties.77 C66/532, m. 10d; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 165; VCH Berks. iii. 493; VCH Yorks. (N. Riding), i. 294. Katherine also outlived Harcourt, surviving him by two years. In her will of July 1488 she requested burial in Rewley abbey in Oxfordshire, Harcourt’s county of origin, but would appear to have remembered Stapleton with more affection than Sir Richard, since in her will she requested prayers for Sir Miles but failed to mention the latter at all.78 Logge Reg. of PCC Wills ed. Boatwright, Habberjam and Hammond, 420-5; PCC 17 Milles (PROB11/8, ff. 141v-142).