STAPYLTON, Brian (1588-1658), of Myton Hall, Myton-on-Swale, Yorks.

It is clear from Stapylton’s signature on parliamentary documents that it was he who was elected as a ‘recruiter’ for Aldborough in 1645 and not, as has generally been supposed, his nephew Brian Stapilton (a younger brother of Sir Philip Stapilton*).24Dugdale’s Vis.Yorks. i. 172; Chetwynd-Stapylton, ‘Stapeltons of Yorks.’, 429; Bolton, ‘Yorks.’, 77-9. Stapylton belonged to a cadet branch of a family that had settled in Richmondshire, north Yorkshire, by the early thirteenth century.25Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. i. 163-71; Foster, Yorks. Peds.; Chetwynd-Stapylton, ‘Stapeltons of Yorks.’, 74, 77-8. One of his ancestors had represented the county in the Parliament of 1416 – by which time the family had built up an extensive estate across Yorkshire, centred upon Carlton in Richmondshire and Wighill to the west of York.26HP Commons, 1386-1421, ‘Sir Brian Stapleton’. Stapylton’s father had been returned for the county at a by-election in 1576 and had also sat for Wells, Somerset, in 1604.27HP Commons, 1604-29, ‘Sir Robert Stapleton’.

Stapylton either acquired or, more probably, inherited from his father an extensive estate in Myton and several adjacent parishes, including Aldborough, in the North and West Ridings.28Eg. 925, f. 29v; N. Yorks. RO, ZUH, Lawson-Tancred mss (mic. 1759); VCH N. Riding, ii. 158; Yorks. Stuart Fines ed. W. Brigg (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. lviii), 21, 79, 84, 120, 231; Chetwynd-Stapylton, ‘Stapeltons of Yorks.’, 429. He was evidently prospering by the mid-1620s, having drawn up plans to build ‘a new house of brick [at Myton] together with a court to be walled about’. The project required 100,000 bricks, and in 1626 Stapylton brought a suit in chancery against the brickmakers who had only managed to supply half that number.29C3/415/67. The cost of building Myton Hall was probably offset by the profits Stapylton derived from his office as receiver of the prince of Wales’s revenues for the honors of Knaresborough, Pontefract and Tickhill, which were in the gift of Sir Henry Slingsby† (father of the future royalist Sir Henry Slingesby*) and were granted to Stapylton following his marriage to Slingsby’s daughter. After Sir Henry died in December 1634, several other receiverships he had held under the duchy of Lancaster also passed to Stapylton.30Cliffe, Yorks. 90.

Despite being a crown officer, Stapylton was one of the first Yorkshire gentlemen to advertise his hostility to ‘Thorough’, and in particular to military charges. In the spring of 1633, he refused to pay the Yorkshire muster-master’s fee and was promptly summoned to appear before the privy council ‘to answer to matters objected against him’. In his petition to the council in October, he protested that he had no intention to ‘decline his Majesty’s service or to show himself refractory’ and that if he had offended he was ready to show conformity for the future.31CSP Dom. 1633-4, pp. 232, 264, 265. His submission failed to convince Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†, the future earl of Strafford), the president of the council of the north, who in December referred Stapylton’s case to Secretary Sir John Coke†

There is likewise Mr Brian Stapylton of Myton, a justice of the peace and receiver of part of his Majesty’s revenue whilst he was prince, [who] refuses ... to pay the muster-master’s fee, being God knows but 12 pence a year upon every constable and constantly paid by him these three score years. I do most humbly beseech their lordships [the privy council] he may be sent for ... and laid by the heels and put out of commission. He shuffled himself in I know not how, but upon my word he is a factious, ill-affected person, does nothing but brabble and tyrannise over his poor neighbours, refused at first to compound for his knighthood and, in brief, is as arrant a saucy Magna Carta man as is in all the country.32Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P5, p. 36.

Perhaps because of Stapylton’s connection to Sir Henry Slingsby, the lord keeper refused (initially at least) to remove him from the bench.33Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P14/37. No order was made for his removal until July 1635.34Cliffe, Yorks. 303-4. However, Stapylton was briefly imprisoned by the privy council in 1634 for his defiance of Wentworth.35PC2/43, ff. 217, 244, 249, 256v. Stapylton proved a nuisance not only to Wentworth but also to several of his gentry neighbours, especially the future royalists Arthur and Richard Aldburghe* of Aldborough. The several lawsuits which Stapylton brought against the Aldburghes over fishing rights on the River Swale and disputed rent claims, almost certainly contributed to the latters’ desperate financial situation by the mid-1630s.36N. Yorks. RO, ZUH, Lawson-Tancred mss, deeds.

Stapylton again emerged as an opponent of royal policy during the summer of 1640, being one of that circle of ‘well-affected’ gentry with whom the godly future parliamentarian Thomas Stockdale* – a close associate of the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*) – was wont to discuss national politics.37Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 106. Stapylton was a signatory to the Yorkshire gentry’s petitions to the king of 28 July and 24 August, complaining about the cost of billeting upon the county and pleading poverty in the face of royal efforts to mobilize the trained bands for service against the Scottish Covenanters during the second bishops’ war.38Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1215, 1231. He does not appear to have signed the county’s third such petition, in September, in which the petitioners reiterated the demand made by a group of dissident English peers, late in August, that Charles should summon a Parliament.39Cumb. RO (Kendal), Strickland Ms vol. 1608-1700, N38 Car. I. However, on 5 October, he signed the Yorkshire county indenture returning two of the summer’s leading petitioners, Lord Fairfax and Henry Belasyse to the Long Parliament.40C219/43/3/89.

Although Stapylton himself did not secure a seat in Parliament, he was evidently well regarded at Westminster, and on 7 May 1641, in the wake of revelations concerning the first army plot, he and the Yorkshire MPs (Sir) Henry Cholmley, Sir Arthur Ingram II and (Sir) John Mallory were appointed to deliver a letter from the House to the army’s commanders in the north.41CJ ii. 138b; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 291-4. The delegation’s brief was to ‘discover the plot’ whilst giving reassurances to the army of the Commons’ good intentions towards it.42CJ ii. 138a. In December, the committee for poll money, chaired by Sir John Hotham, attempted (unsuccessfully) to secure the House’s approval for appointing Stapylton receiver for billet money payments to the inhabitants of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.43CJ ii. 353b-354a; D’Ewes (C), 334.

Stapylton signed only one of the half dozen or so petitions that the Yorkshire gentry directed either to Parliament or the king during the first nine months of 1642 – that of 16 February, urging the Lords to work more closely with the Commons for the relief of Ireland’s Protestants.44PA, Main Pprs. 15 Feb. 1642, f. 55; LJ iv. 587a. At some point late in 1640, he and his family appear to have taken up residence in Lincoln, and it is possible that they were still there at the outbreak of war.45E115/377/134; E179/215/417. Little is known about his activities during the period 1640-3, although he would claim in the mid-1640s that that he had suffered ‘hard and cruel imprisonment by his Majesty’s command’, which is either a reference to his commitment by the council in 1634 or to an ordeal he had endured during the early years of the civil war. He also claimed that he had sustained losses and damages to his estate of £1,200 as a result of royalist plundering, ‘whereby [he] ... is reduced to those straits as he can now hardly provide bread for himself and his family’.46Leeds Univ. Lib. DD149/71.

Stapylton evidently had some influential friends at Westminster, for late in October 1643 the two Houses appointed him an additional parliamentary commissioner to Scotland for ratifying the treaties between the two kingdoms (the original commissioners, who were appointed in May and June, were the earl of Rutland, Lord Grey of Warke, Sir William Armyne*, Sir Henry Vane II*, Thomas Hatcher* and Henry Darley*). Along with Stapylton were appointed the MPs Richard Barwis and Robert Goodwin and three others later to become MPs: Francis Allein*, Samuel Avery* and Robert Fenwicke*.47CJ iii. 279a; LJ vi. 273b. These additional appointments were apparently prompted by news of ‘how much our brethren [the Scots] ... were discouraged in that they had received no advertisement from us how we proceeded in preparing money’ for the army they were to raise for Parliament.48Add. 31116, p. 172. Certainly the Commons’ choice of commissioners – a mixture of men who were well connected in the north, such as Stapylton, and in the London financial community, such as Allein – suggests that a genuine effort was being made to give assurances to the Scots regarding the supply and maintenance of their forces. The commissioners’ brief was to put the finishing touches to the various treaties between the two kingdoms and then to accompany the Scottish army into England and to take all necessary steps for the ‘well-ordering’ of these forces.49LJ vi. 288a. Further instructions in March 1644, which Stapylton and Allein carried from Westminster into the north, authorised them to levy money for the Scottish army and to eject scandalous ministers in the northern counties.50LJ vi. 461b; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 46, 49. Stapylton remained a commissioner in the north until at least January 1645, when he, Sir William Armyne and the London merchant William Thomson* were sent to the Scottish Parliament with a letter from both Houses giving assurances of Westminster’s continued support for the Covenant and the Scottish army.51LJ vii. 123. The Scots commissioners suspected that this three-man delegation was an underhand design by Oliver St John, Sir Henry Vane II and others ‘who profess to be our friends’ to gather potentially damaging intelligence in Edinburgh.52 CJ iv. 7b, 9b; LJ vii. 123b; Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (2nd edn.), ii. 401.

Although Stapylton had worked to build and preserve the Scottish alliance, there are signs that by mid-1645 he was aligned with the Independent interest at Westminster in opposition to the Scots and their English allies, as indeed were his fellow commissioners Armyne, Barwis and Darley. In May 1645, he was named with Lord Fairfax, Vane II, Sir Thomas Fairfax* (commander of the New Model army) and their allies to a committee for directing the war effort within the Northern Association – a body made up exclusively of men who were hostile to continuing Scottish intervention in English affairs.53CJ iv. 138b; LJ vii. 367b. Stapylton’s links with the Independents may also account for a parliamentary ordinance of 17 July granting him, Sir William Lister* (a prominent ally of the Fairfaxes) and another gentleman custody and wardship of the estate of the heir of the Yorkshire royalist Sir William Savile*. The three men were ordered to pay the Independent peer Philip Lord Wharton £4,000 out of Savile’s rents and to be accountable for the rest of the estate to the court of wards.54LJ vii. 499. Among those responsible for arranging this little windfall were probably Lord Wharton and another leading figure in the Independent interest, William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, the master of the court of wards. Stapylton was also on good terms, it seems, with yet another of the Independent grandees – Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland. In June 1646, Northumberland wrote to his steward Hugh Potter*, asking him to inform Stapylton that he had taken notice of his ‘respect and favour’ to him ‘and that upon any occasion I shall readily express my sense of it’.55Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 10 June 1646.

Stapylton was returned for Aldborough, probably on his own interest, in the autumn of 1645 and had taken his seat in the House by mid-November at the latest.56Perfect Occurrences no. 48 (14-21 Nov. 1645), sig. Bb4v (E.266.20). Between late 1645 and Pride’s Purge in December 1648, he was named to 26 committees and served as a teller in five divisions.57CJ iv. 715b; v. 46a, 98a, 108b, 254b. Perhaps the most revealing of his early appointments was that on 11 December, when he was named to a committee for examining a paper published by some of the Dissenting Brethren, criticising proceedings in the Westminster Assembly of Divines.58CJ iv. 373a; A Copy of a Remonstrance Lately Delivered in to the Assembly (1645, E.309.4). The Assembly’s Presbyterian majority had petitioned the Commons to be allowed to publish a vindication of its proceedings, but after ‘long debate’ the House had merely resolved to set up the committee and await its findings.59Add. 31116, p. 494. To add insult to injury, the committee was headed by the strongly Erastian John Selden and dominated by men – Stapylton probably among them – who were hostile to jure divino Presbyterianism. It was not until 25 March 1646 that Stapylton took the Covenant – which for someone whose duty it had been to assure the Scots of Parliament’s enthusiasm for its terms was exceedingly late.60CJ iv. 489a.

Against a background of increasing tension between Parliament and its Scottish allies, Stapylton was among a group of Yorkshire MPs named to a committee set up on 20 March 1646 for preparing a declaration on a report made by Sir Arthur Hesilrige that day concerning the abuses of the Scottish army in northern England.61CJ iv. 481b. Labelled the ‘northern committee’ and chaired by Stockdale, this body became the Commons’ principal clearing house for evidence of the Scots’ oppressions in northern England and thus a useful instrument for the Independents in their struggle to regain the political initiative they had lost in May 1646 as a result of the king’s flight to the Scottish army. Stapylton was granted leave of absence on 26 March and was at York by 14 May, when he signed a letter from the Northern Association committee, requesting the Commons to order the removal of the Scottish army from Yorkshire. He signed similar letters on 19 May and 4 July.62CJ iv. 489b; Bodl. Tanner 59, ff. 195, 216, 389.

Stapylton had returned to the House by early autumn, and between November 1646 and June 1647 he served as teller on a number of important divisions. On 7 November, he was a minority teller with William Purefoy I in favour of setting a different rate for the sale of bishops’ lands in reversion as from those held in possession. This seemingly minor division had important implications for the shape of any future church settlement. Selling leases in reversion at the same rate as those in possession would make them much less attractive to potential buyers. By winning the division, which they did by 51 votes to 37, the Presbyterians Sir John Holland and Sir Philip Stapilton threatened to create a reversionary interest for the Church of England.63CJ iv. 715b. During a debate on 25 February 1647 concerning the upkeep of garrison forces, in which the Independent grandees Vane II and St John argued for a large army presence, Stapylton and Denis Bond were majority tellers for the yeas against Sir William Waller and Edward Bayntun on the question of whether a force of 1,500 men be maintained at Plymouth.64CJ v. 98a. In another division on 9 March, on the apparently non-partisan question of whether to pay Sir William Constable* promptly and in full of his army arrears, Stapylton was a majority teller for the yeas with his nephew Sir Philip Stapilton against John Swynfen and Robert Jenner.65CJ v. 108b. His last tellership was on 22 June, when he partnered Harbert Morley in favour of reviving the former London militia committee – the Holles-Stapilton group having packed it with their own adherents in May.66CJ v. 254b. According to the vehemently anti-army Clement Walker*, this division occurred after Sir Thomas Fairfax and the army had issued a letter and remonstrance to the House, demanding, ‘with unresistable boldness’, that the City militia be ‘returned into other hands’. In a House which, according to Walker, was ‘very thin ...many Members [having been] driven away by menaces’, Stapylton and Morley won the division by 77 votes to 46 (the minority tellers were the Presbyterians William Wheler and Thomas Gewen), and it was duly resolved that an ordinance be passed reviving the old militia committee.67[C. Walker], Hist. of Independency (1648), 40 (E.463.19); CJ v. 254b. Although Stapylton was apparently not among those Members who fled to the army following the Presbyterian ‘riots’ at Westminster on 26 July, it is unlikely that he attended Parliament while the Speaker was absent (26 July-5 Aug. 1647).

Stapylton was named to eleven committees between mid-August 1647 and early 1648 – almost half of them for redress of the army’s grievances over pay and conditions.68CJ v. 274a, 301b, 322a, 344b, 346a, 347b, 364a, 347b, 364b, 380a, 396a, 414b, 417a. On 28 October, he was named to a committee headed by Samuel Browne and William Ashhurst on an ordinance for the removal of obstructions on the sale of bishops’ lands – the proceeds of which would be partly employed in paying off the soldiery.69CJ v. 344b. And on 4 January 1648, the day after the vote of no addresses, he was included on a committee to prepare ordinances for the redress of grievances and the removal of burdens on the people’s liberties. Chaired by the Independents Alexander Rigby I and Thomas Scot I, this committee was apparently intended to appease reformist and radical constituencies in the army and in London.70CJ v. 417a.

By 1648, Stapylton was firmly identified in the eyes of contemporaries with the interests of the army and its supporters at Westminster. When, on 23 January, he was nominated a parliamentary commissioner to Scotland for preserving a good correspondency between the two kingdoms, he was regarded by Walker and others as one of the Independents in the delegation. Besides Stapylton, the Commons named Ashhurst, Robert Goodwin and Colonel John Birch.71CJ v. 442b; [Walker], Hist. of Independency, 81; ‘Mr Thomas Reade’s Relation’, ed. C. H. Firth, Scottish Hist. Soc. xliv. 295-6. Their task was essentially one of frustrating Scottish plans to invade England in support of the king, who, by signing the Engagement on 26 December 1647, had secured a firm military alliance with the Hamiltonian Scots. Publicly, they were instructed to inform the Scots of Parliament’s desire to maintain peace between the two kingdoms.72CJ v. 447a; LJ x. 7a. Privately, they were to provide money and encouragement to the anti-Engagement faction under Archibald Campbell*, 1st marquess of Argyll – and on this score they received their orders (or so it was alleged) from the Independent grandees Viscount Saye and Sele, William Pierrepont* and St John.73Bodl. Clarendon 34, f. 38v; Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 42 (11-18 Apr. 1648), sigs. C2-C2v (E.435.42); ‘Mr Thomas Reade’s Relation’, ed. Firth, 295; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 89. In assessing the commissioners – who arrived at Edinburgh in February – their secretary, Thomas Reade, described Stapylton as a rather isolated figure, being ‘one that would be sure to act against the king, his principle being that it is most fitting the kingdom of England should be governed by an army’. Reade, who claimed that Stapylton had begged him to take on the job, almost certainly mis-judged the nature of Stapylton’s support for the army; but he was probably accurate in implying that Stapylton’s presence was not vital to the proceedings. Most of the important business appears to have been undertaken by Ashhurst and Goodwin, although in the event they achieved very little.74Supra, ‘William Ashhurst’; CJ v. 461a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1003; Montereul Corresp. ed. J.G. Fotheringham (Scottish Rec. Soc. xxx), 399, 409; ‘Mr Thomas Reade’s Relation’, ed. Firth, 294-6. The commissioners’ attempts to establish a dialogue with the Scottish Parliament and the Committee of Estates were repeatedly ignored, and by April they were reduced to making ineffectual demands to the Scots that they disband their forces and hand over the English royalists they were harbouring.75HMC Portland, i. 411, 446, 456, 457, 458, 469; ‘Mr Thomas Reade’s Relation’, ed. Firth, 294-6; Montereul Corresp. ed. Fotheringham, 452; LJ x. 129a, 228a, 250a; CJ v. 544a, 556b. On 25 July, two and a half weeks after a Scottish army under the duke of Hamilton had entered England, Parliament issued an order for the commissioners’ recall.76LJ x. 396b. Stapylton was given the thanks of the House on 23 August for his part in this futile mission.77CJ v. 680a.

After returning from Scotland in the summer of 1648, Stapylton was named to only two more committees, both of them minor – a lack of appointments that may have owed something to his (apparent) opposition to Parliament’s renewed efforts to reach a settlement with the king.78CJ vi. 47a, 78b. When the Levellers petitioned the Commons on 11 September for the House to assume supreme authority, protesting that they ‘knew of no use of a king or Lords any longer’, Stapylton reportedly declared to a friend, while walking through Westminster Palace, that ‘to his knowledge there were 40,000 hands to the petition and that the House must yield to them or else it might be too hot to hold such as opposed it; and that he wondered what they [the House] meant to go on with the treaty [of Newport], seeing no safety could be expected in a peace with this king’.79Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 25 (12-19 Sept. 1648), sig. Ii2v (E.464.12). Against Stapylton’s reported opposition to further treating with Charles must be set the fact that he was one of at least twelve Members, who, having continued to sit after Pride’s Purge, had withdrawn from the House by 20 December and the introduction of the dissent to the 5 December vote (that the king’s answer to the Newport propositions were an acceptable basis for settlement) as a qualification for sitting.80Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 38 (12-19 Dec. 1648), sig. Ddd4v (E.476.35); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 166, 219. Ultimately, it seems, Stapylton was not prepared to reject the possibility of reaching a settlement with the king.

Stapylton retired from national politics after December 1648, and by 1650 he had been dropped from all local commissions. From his country seat at Myton, however, he appears to have kept in touch with national affairs, sending a ‘parcel of intelligences from Scotland’ to his royalist brother-in-law Sir Henry Slingesby* in October 1650. In the letter accompanying this parcel, he asked Slingesby to write to him ‘concerning everything wherein you have occasion to use my services...whereof I shall endeavour to give you the best account my ability will permit’.81Leeds. Univ. Lib. DD149/65. It was clear by this time that the Rump was intent on including Slingesby’s name in a bill for the sale of delinquents’ estates, and in subsequent letters Stapylton was at pains to impress upon him the seriousness of his predicament.82Leeds. Univ. Lib. DD149/58, 67. Writing to Slingesby on 14 January 1651, he warned against complacency

...give me leave once more to importune you to look to yourself. The act for the sale of delinquents estates ... is now passing the House; do not deceive yourself ... the sale of your estate will be most certain, if not speedily prevented. I pray you therefore signify your desires to my nephew Slingisby Bethell* what you would have him do...83Leeds. Univ. Lib. DD149/56.

In the event, Slingesby’s estate was purchased by Bethell* and Stapylton’s son Robert Stapylton*, who held it in trust for Slingesby’s children.84Supra, ‘Slingisby Bethell’; infra, ‘Robert Stapylton’.

Stapylton died in the summer of 1658 and was buried alongside his ancestors in Wighill church on 30 June.85Myton upon Swale Par. Reg ed. Robinson, 36. In his will, he asked to be buried ‘without vain pomp or ceremony and with as little trouble and charge as may be’. He made his wife and his eldest son Henry Stapylton* executors and Sir Henry Slingesby (who would be executed for treason only a few months after Stapylton’s death) his supervisor. He charged his estate with bequests totalling approximately £2,200 and annuities of £40.86PROB11/283, ff. 275v-276. His eldest son Henry represented Boroughbridge between 1647 and his seclusion at Pride’s Purge in December 1648 and again in the 1660 Convention.87Infra, ‘Henry Stapylton’. His second son Robert sat for Boroughbridge in 1659.88Infra, ‘Robert Stapylton’.