STAPILTON, Sir Philip (1603-47), of Warter Priory, Warter, Yorks.

‘Thus died that brave and valiant wise Stapilton, to the great grief of all his friends and his enemies too. The General Essex’s and his deaths were the ruin of their party’.40Juxon Jnl. 169. This was the verdict of the London Independent and journal-keeper Thomas Juxon* on Stapilton’s demise in August 1647. In Juxon’s near-contemporary account of civil-war parliamentary politics, Stapilton had emerged by 1645 as the dominant figure among the Commons’ Presbyterians. Thus he refers to ‘Stapilton and that party’, or ‘the Stapiltonian party’.41Juxon Jnl. 34. In modern accounts, however, Stapilton is invariably overshadowed by Denzil Holles*, his closest ally in the Commons. There is clearly no question that Holles outranked the Yorkshireman in terms of birth and fortune. But it is arguable that the survival of Holles’s apologia, his Memoirs, has exaggerated his political influence and talents relative to those of Stapilton, whose voice died with him. The Yorkshire MP is now remembered primarily as an associate of Holles and Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, and as a soldier – for though ‘of a thin body and weak constitution ... and not able to endure much hardship’, even his enemies acknowledged his resolution and bravery in battle.42DWL, Morrice mss, vol. J, 1640(12); A Short and True Narrative, 4; Juxon Jnl. 169; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 187, 217. His reputation as a Parliament-man, by contrast, has languished. Yet his natural parts – being ‘quick of apprehension, sound of judgement, of clear and good elocution’ – were those of a gifted politician. And certainly his parliamentary career suggests that his political accomplishments more than equalled his often vital contribution on the battlefield.43A Short and True Narrative, 3.

Background and early career

The Stapletons had settled in Yorkshire by the early thirteenth century – Stapilton’s particular branch of the family having resided at Wighill in the West Riding since 1375.44Foster, Yorks. Peds. His father was a middle-ranking Yorkshire squire with an estate worth about £1,000 a year, although most of his lands, including his mansion at Wighill, were settled for life on his wife and mother.45C142/475/127; Cliffe, Yorks. 124; Chetwynd-Stapylton, ‘The Stapletons’, 431. Stapilton’s own inheritance, as a younger son, was estimated by Sir Edward Hyde* at a relatively modest £500 a year.46Clarendon, Hist. i. 393. As a student at Queens’, Cambridge, it is possible that he came under the influence of the college’s renowned puritan teacher John Preston.47Cliffe, Yorks. 267. But if so, he did not wholeheartedly embrace his tutor’s piety, for he ‘espoused not the professors of religion [puritan ministers] as such, though he sheltered and laid out his interest for them’.48DWL, Morrice mss, vol. J, 1640(12). Reference to him as one of the ‘committed puritans’ in the Long Parliament is therefore inaccurate.49J. Walter, Covenanting Citizens: the Protestation and Popular Political Culture in the English Revolution (2016), 19.

Stapilton’s tastes before the civil war ran towards ‘those delights which horses and dogs administer’; he and his father-in-law Sir John Hotham* were leading patrons of the annual Warter horse race.50C8/89/160; Clarendon, Hist. i. 393. Yet several puritan gentlemen were also part of this racing syndicate, including the man Stapilton’s sister-in-law married, Sir Matthew Boynton*. Stapilton seems to have been on close terms with Boynton and other gentlemen associated with the Providence Island Company – a colonising venture, established in 1629-30, that brought together many of the nation’s foremost godly figures, including William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, Sir Nathaniel Rich†, John Pym*, Henry Darley* and Boynton. The Scottish Presbyterian minister John Livingstone recorded a visit to London in 1635 in which he ‘got acquaintance with’ (among others) Stapilton, Rich, Boynton, the latter’s close friend Sir William Constable* and several leading puritan ministers.51Select Biographies Edited for the Wodrow Soc. ed. W.K. Tweedie, i. 150; Adamson, Noble Revolt, 36. When Boynton decided to seek godly sanctuary in Holland in 1637, he assigned the bulk of his estate to Stapilton and five other trustees, among them James* and Nathaniel Fiennes I* (Viscount Saye’s sons) and Darley.52CP25/2/523/13CHAS1/MICH, pt. 3. Stapilton’s association with these prominent opponents of the personal rule of Charles I would have done little to endear him to Yorkshire’s most powerful politician, Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†, the future earl of Strafford), who declared in 1639 that ‘as for Sir Philip Stapilton, I know the man and his disposition so well as never to admit him to any government under my command’.53Sheffield City Archives, WWM/Str P10a/324-5.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Stapilton was returned for the East Riding constituency of Hedon. His ownership, until 1638, of property in nearby Nuthills may have provided him with an interest in the borough.54C54/3159/22. But he probably owed his election primarily to the local influence of John Alured, who had been returned for the senior place and was a close friend of Boynton and the Darleys.55Supra, ‘Hedon’; ‘John Alured’. Stapilton received no committee appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate. During the second bishops’ war, he joined Yorkshire’s ‘disaffected’ gentry in their petitions to the king of July and August 1640, complaining about billeting and pleading poverty in the face of royal orders to mobilise the trained bands against the Scots.56Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1215, 1231. He was also an important figure in drawing up and presenting the county’s third petition, in mid-September, in which, after complaining about Ship Money, illegal billeting and various other ills, the petitioners reiterated the demand made by a group of dissident English peers, late in August, that Charles should summon a Parliament.57Cumb. RO (Kendal), Strickland ms vol. 1608-1700, N38 Car. I; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 604. In the elections to the Long Parliament the following month, Stapilton signed the Yorkshire county indenture returning two of the summer’s leading petitioners, Ferdinando 2nd Baron Fairfax and Henry Belasyse, while he himself secured a seat at the West Riding constituency of Boroughbridge. 58C219/43/3/89. His family’s main residence at Wighill lay about ten miles south of Boroughbridge, but this was probably too distant to give him a strong proprietorial interest in the borough. It is perhaps safer to assume that he was returned either on the recommendation of Fairfax, who had represented the town in the Short Parliament, or with the help of his kinsman Bryan Stapylton* of nearby Myton.59Supra, ‘Boroughbridge’.

Career in the Long Parliament, 1640-1

Within a few months of taking his seat in the Long Parliament, Stapilton had emerged as a leading figure among the more active and reform-minded northern MPs – a group known as the ‘northern gentlemen’.60Clarendon, Hist. i. 309, 315. Between November 1640 and the August 1641 recess, he was named to seven conference teams and approximately 50 committees and served as messenger to the Lords on seven occasions and as a teller in one division.61CJ ii. 86b, 111a, 134a, 150a, 175b, 208a, 209b, 223b, 229b, 235b, 240b, 241a, 243a, 245a, 253b, 256a; LJ iv. 163a, 196a, 253b, 346b, 347b, 350b, 362b. For a man of modest connections and no previous experience at Westminster, this was an impressive haul. Moreover, if Hyde can be credited, Stapilton and his fellow Yorkshire MPs Sir Hugh Cholmeley and Sir John Hotham possessed a ‘numerous train [of Members] which attended their motions’.62Clarendon, Hist. i. 421. Hyde also claimed that the three men ‘observed and pursued the dictates’ of the parliamentary leadership, although in fact it was only Stapilton who consistently supported the ‘junto’.63Infra, ‘Sir Hugh Cholmeley’; ‘Sir John Hotham’; Clarendon, Hist. i. 250. Indeed, by the winter of 1641-2 he can be considered a member of this group in his own right.

Stapilton’s emergence as a grandee at Westminster is relatively easy to chart, but difficult to explain. Hyde attributed his rapid advancement to little more than aptitude and commitment

he quickly outgrew his friends and countrymen in the confidence of those who governed, and they looked upon him as worth the getting entirely to them and not averse from being gotten and so joined him with Mr [John] Hampden* ... to be initiated under so great a master, whose instruction he was very capable of.64Clarendon, Hist. i. 393.

Even harder to account for is Stapilton’s intimacy with the earl of Essex, which was apparently maturing by May 1641 and would last until the earl’s death in 1646.65CJ ii. 150a, 224a, 227b; LJ iv. 253b. Unlike many of the men who were part of Essex’s inner circle, Stapilton had no family connection with the earl or, more specifically, with his father’s ill-fated revolt of 1601. In fact, if the Stapletons of Wighill were associated with any aristocratic family it was the Percys, whose leading representative in 1640 – Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland – was perhaps Essex’s greatest political rival at Westminster.66M. James, Society, Politics, and Culture: Studies in Early Modern Eng. (1986) 104, 105, 424-6.

Stapilton’s parliamentary career began with a series of appointments for reforming the perceived abuses of the personal rule and punishing their authors.67CJ ii. 34b, 50b, 53b, 60a, 101a, 113b, 128b, 129a, 147a. He was involved in preparing the case against the council of the north and its lord president, the earl of Strafford – although according to Hyde, Stapilton followed the lead of Hotham and Cholmeley in these matters.68CJ ii. 39b, 86b, 98a, 109a; Procs. LP i. 99, 104, 109; ii. 779, 785; Clarendon, Hist. i. 250, 315, 393. Summoned on 7 April 1641 as a prosecution witness on the 27th article at Strafford’s trial – that the accused had levied an illegal tax upon Yorkshire in the autumn of 1640 – Stapilton confirmed that the earl had tried to suppress the county’s petition of September 1640.69LJ iv. 209b; Procs. LP iii. 431, 441, 444, 447; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. viii. 604. His testimony was a good deal less damning than that of his brother-in-law Henry Cholmley* and several other witnesses.70Supra, ‘Sir Henry Cholmley’; Yet Stapilton’s antipathy towards Strafford was evidently both profound and a matter of considerable political calculation, for it was at his prompting, on 10 April, that the House took up the notion that some leading Commons-men had been discussing privately – that Parliament should proceed against the earl not by way of trial but (in Stapilton’s words) ‘by a bill of attainder, as being the shortest and the best way’.71Procs. LP iii. 501; Adamson, Noble Revolt, 240-3. In response to this proposal, the junto’s man-of-business Sir Arthur Hesilrige – a man closely connected with the Providence Island grandees – suddenly ‘drew out of his pocket a bill, supposed to have been prepared before that day, for the earl’s attainder and punishment by death’.72CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 540; Adamson, Noble Revolt, 242-3. Stapilton’s and Hesilrige’s actions on 10 April have plausibly been interpreted as a design by the more militant wing of the junto, headed by Warwick (Robert Rich, 2nd earl) and Essex, Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, and their immediate circle, which regarded Strafford as too dangerous to live, even if executing him would jeopardise a settlement with the king.73Adamson, Noble Revolt, 243-4. Stapilton was certainly in no mood for compromise on this issue, dismissing a call on 14 April for consideration of the earl of Northumberland’s testimony at Strafford’s trial (which contradicted the prosecution case) and arguing that ‘intention and conacion [?cognition] makes it [Strafford’s actions] treason: tolle legem, tolle regem [remove the law, you remove the king]’.74Procs. LP iii. 556; Adamson, Noble Revolt, 625.

With the disclosure of the army plots in the spring of 1641, Stapilton began to assume a more central role in the Commons’ proceedings and deliberations. A failed attempt by the king’s party to spring Strafford from the Tower, produced calls from Stapilton and other MPs on 3 May for an oath of association ‘for the defence of king and church’; and he was subsequently named to the twelve-man committee, featuring most of the Commons’ grandees, that drew up the Protestation.75CJ ii. 132b, 133a; Procs. LP iv. 181. The next day (4 May), he was appointed to another select committee – this time to examine the army plotters – and was part of a six-man team to report a conference with the Lords on ‘the great businesses that concern the safety of the kingdom’.76CJ ii. 134a. The two Houses despatched Stapilton, Sir John Clotworthy and Lord Kimbolton (Edward Montagu†, the future 2nd earl of Manchester) to Portsmouth on 7 May to examine the town’s governor, George Goring*, about his role in the army plots and if necessary to relieve him of command and secure the port for Parliament.77CJ ii. 138a; LJ iv. 238a. Before departing London on this mission, Stapilton was added to the ‘committee of six’ – or ‘committee of seven’ as it thus became – which had been set up on 5 May to investigate the army plots.78CJ ii. 135a, 135b, 138a; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 333. This committee, which had consisted initially of Holles, Pym, Hampden, Clotworthy, Nathaniel Fiennes I and William Strode I, was given wide-ranging powers and was a precursor of Parliament’s first standing executive body, the Committee of Safety*.79L. Glow, ‘The Committee of Safety’, EHR lxxx. 290. Stapilton had returned from Portsmouth by 13 May, when he gave a lengthy report to the House on Goring and the state of the town’s defences.80CJ ii. 146a; Procs. LP iv. 362-3, 365.

As a member of the committee of seven, Stapilton was one of the architects of parliamentary policy during the summer of 1641 and, as such, was closely involved in drawing up the Ten Propositions and pressing them upon the king.81CJ ii. 185b, 190b, 208a; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 350-3. He made several speeches and motions in June and July highlighting suspicious activities at court, particularly about the queen, and was eager to ensure that no recusant held places of power and trust.82Procs. LP v. 139, 154, 575, 576, 580, 634, 638, 639, 642. These speeches related closely to the third, fourth, seventh and last of the Ten Propositions – those for purging evil councillors, depriving the queen of her Catholic attendants and for placing the kingdom’s military resources in trustworthy hands.83Gardiner, Constitutional Docs. 163-6. On 13 July, he was a teller with the godly Lincolnshire knight Sir Christopher Wray against tacking on the words ‘for the present’ to an order for petitioning the king not to confer any honour or employment upon George Lord Digby* in light of his opposition to Strafford’s attainder.84CJ ii. 209b. Stapilton would never forgive Digby for this act of presumption against ‘the proceedings of the whole House’.85Sir Phillip Stapleton his Worthy Speech (1642), sig. A2v (E.200.11). He was also critical of the queen’s desire to take the waters on the continent – although he carefully refrained from saying that it arose from sinister motives, as many feared – and was named first to a committee to prepare heads for a conference on this matter (14 July).86CJ ii. 210a; Procs. LP v. 634, 638, 639, 642; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 357. On 30 July, following the Lords’ rejection of a bill for the general subscription of the Protestation, he railed against ‘the popish lords and bishops’ in the upper House and moved for a Commons’ declaration that persons who failed to take the Protestation, ‘even Lords and others’, were ‘unfit to hold any place in church of commonwealth’. Pym seconded this motion, and Fiennes seized the opportunity thus offered to reiterate the junto’s resolve to exclude the bishops from the Lords.87Procs. LP vi. 151, 152. When the grandees returned to this theme on 8 August, Stapilton moved that Catholics be denied the right to educate their children.88Procs. LP vi. 299.

The junto’s interests and those of the northern gentlemen coincided, and in some cases clashed, on one particularly contentious area of policy – the upkeep of the English and Scottish armies in the north. Some of the northern gentlemen, particularly those hostile to the Scots, urged the swift disbandment of both armies as a means of relieving their hard-pressed constituents. For the junto, however, a Scottish army of occupation in the north was their main weapon for coercing the king. Stapilton was undoubtedly concerned at the plight of the northern counties and was among the first Members to pledge money to maintain the king’s army.89CJ ii. 37a, 238b. Moreover, in March 1641 he pledged £500 towards security for a City loan to pay off the Scots.90Procs. LP ii. 628. On 2 April, however, he moved that if anyone offered violence to the Scottish forces they should be declared enemies to the kingdom – a motion seconded by Holles – which is consistent with the junto’s policy of preserving a strong Scottish presence on English soil until it had wrung concessions from the king.91Procs. LP iii. 318. In order to protect the Scots and to prevent any further tampering with the king’s army, the Commons – and Stapilton in particular – pushed for the appointment of the earl of Essex as lord lieutenant of Yorkshire.92CJ ii. 150a; LJ iv. 253b; Procs. LP iv. 458, 468. By the end of July, Stapilton was acting as a conduit for correspondence between the lord general in the north (Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland), the earl of Essex and the Commons.93CJ ii. 224a, 227b; Procs. LP vi. 128.

With disbandment of the armies unavoidable by the summer of 1641, Stapilton featured prominently on committees and conference teams for raising money to pay off the soldiers and to establish a timetable for their demobilisation.94CJ ii. CJ ii. 131b, 152a, 172b, 179a, 180a, 185b, 196a, 206a, 229a, 235a, 238b, 240a. The junto were particularly anxious that the English horse, the most distrusted element of the king’s army, should be reduced before the Scots; and Stapilton was a leading member of the Commons team that liaised with the Lords and the lord general on this and related issues.95CJ ii. 175b, 179a, 180b, 229b, 235b, 240b, 241a, 243a; LJ iv. 346b, 347b; Procs. LP vi. 128, 236, 245, 249; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 360. Several of his appointments in August reflected the junto’s fears of continued army and popish plotting – and specifically, that Charles would use his impending journey to Scotland to create a party for himself among the English soldiery.96Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 360. The subversive activities of the Capuchins were cried up, and Stapilton was sent by the House to warn the Lords of this new menace and to invoke the provisions for national security under the Ten Propositions.97CJ ii. 245a, 253b, 256a; LJ iv. 350b, 362b; Gardiner, Constutional Docs. 166. He was likewise named to committees for disarming recusants and for securing the kingdom while Charles was in the north.98CJ ii. 243a, 257a, 260b, 261a. On 20 August, the two Houses appointed a high-powered delegation, which included Stapilton, Hampden and Fiennes to attend the king in Edinburgh.99CJ ii. 262b, 264a, 265b-266a; LJ iv. 370b; Clarendon, Hist. i. 393. Ostensibly, this committee was to liaise between king and Parliament, but its real purpose was to monitor Charles’s activities and to strengthen the leadership’s links with the Scottish Covenanters.100Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 321. Stapilton was an active member of this committee, signing most of its correspondence with Pym and Speaker William Lenthall, including the letter that broke the news of ‘the Incident’ – the conspiracy to kidnap Covenanter nobles – to Parliament.101Beinecke Lib. Osborn shelves, OSB mss 61, Howard of Escrick pprs.; The Discovery of a Late and Bloody Conspiracie at Edenburg (1641, E.173.13); D’Ewes (C), 8-9, 85-6, 103. There is no evidence that he had resumed his seat before late November, which suggests that Hyde is probably mistaken in naming Stapilton among the handful of ‘leading violent men’ who had defended him in the heated debates over the Grand Remonstrance earlier that month.102Clarendon, Hist. i. 421.

The outbreak of civil war, 1641-2

The six months between Stapilton’s return to the House late in November 1641 and his appointment as a commissioner to attend the king at York in May 1642 were among the busiest in his parliamentary career.103PJ i. p. xxii. He was named to 27 conference teams and approximately 60 committees in this period and served as a messenger to the Lords on 15 occasions and as a teller in five divisions.104CJ ii. 341a, 342a, 344b, 347a, 350b, 351b, 353a, 361a, 367a, 368a, 370a, 371a, 375a, 377b, 382a, 388a, 388b, 392a, 398a, 399a, 400a, 405a, 419a, 421a, 427b, 440a, 460b, 480b, 488a, 489a, 504b, 508b, 510a, 519a, 522a, 523b, 525b, 529b, 530b, 540b, 553a, 554b; LJ iv. 476a, 484a, 495a, 505b, 509b, 511b, 526b, 533a, 713b; v. 36a; D’Ewes (C), 279, 280, 301, 325. Many of these appointments were connected in one way or other with two of the junto’s main policies – securing Scottish military resources to suppress the Irish rebellion and securing English military resources to suppress the king. From late November 1641, Stapilton was regularly named to committees and conference teams (invariably with Pym or other junto members) for advancing the war in Ireland; and in debate he made several motions to the same effect.105CJ ii.327a, 347b, 358b, 361a, 362a, 398a, 399a, 411a, 477a, 721a; D’Ewes (C), 309, 386; PJ i. 15, 167, 182, 219, 256, 263, 296; PJ ii. 81.

But it was his experience in Anglo-Scottish relations that accounted for his most significant appointment during the winter of 1641-2 – as a commissioner with Hampden, Fiennes and Sir William Armyne to treat with the Covenanters for the deployment of a Scottish expeditionary force to Ulster (3 December).106CJ ii. 331a; LJ iv. 461a. Over the seven months it took to finalise this treaty, Stapilton and Fiennes shouldered much of the workload, making numerous reports concerning the treaty negotiations and the wishes of the Scots commissioners, disbursing large sums of money to equip the expeditionary force and helping to pressure the Lords into accepting Scottish intervention in Ireland.107CJ ii. 339b-340a, 341a, 342a, 342b, 343b, 344b, 350b, 353a, 366b, 375b, 382a, 383a, 383b, 392a, 392b, 393b, 399a, 400a, 401b, 410b, 419a, 423a, 450a, 451b, 452a, 453a, 636a, 648a; LJ iv. 476a, 484a; v. 172b; D’Ewes (C), 279, 280, 301, 291, 324-5, 336, 354; PJ i. p. xxiv; 79, 86, 87, 91, 95, 99, 140, 169, 211, 233, 260, 331, 397, 441-2, 459; D. Stevenson, Covenanters and Confederates, 57, 64. On 21 December, Stapilton reported the lord lieutenant of Ireland’s opinion that the best way to relieve Dublin was by sending Scottish troops from Ulster.108CJ ii. 351b. And when the Scots presented a petition to Parliament in mid-January 1642, arguing that ‘the safety of both kingdoms stands together’, Stapilton was named first to a committee comprising Pym, Hampden and four other MPs to thank the Scots commissioners for their fidelity and affection to England.109CJ ii. 386a; PJ i. 91; Add. 64807, f. 32. After challenging Pym himself on 6 April over command of the ‘British’ cavalry in Ulster (Stapilton nominating a Scottish commander, Pym an Anglo-Irish one), he was named first to another grandee-dominated committee to prepare a declaration for preserving the ‘brotherly affection and near union’ between the two kingdoms.110CJ ii. 513b; PJ ii. 134.

Like Pym and other members of the junto, Stapilton argued that Parliament should ‘trust to the Scots’ fidelity’.111Add. 64807, f. 25. It is noticeable, however, that he was more closely involved in negotiating Scottish intervention in Ireland in 1642 than he would be a year later, when the junto was pressing to bring Scottish forces into England. Although he would emerge during the mid-1640s as one of the Scots’ foremost allies at Westminster, it would take him several years to come to terms with the idea of a Presbyterian church settlement – as his friends conceded

he was a true and zealous Protestant, though not any way new-fangled ... Nor was he easily engaged into anything of change; no, not into that way he so much suffered for (the Covenant and church government by Presbytery), though afterwards he looked upon it both in divine and prudent considerations as the way of God suiting most and best with the union of the nations ... and the next way under God (moderately advanced) to make the three kingdoms happy.112A Short and True Narrative, 1-2.

His support for a Scottish alliance and a ‘covenanted uniformity’ in religion was more a matter of expediency and pragmatism, it seems, than of principle.

An important staging-post on the road to civil war was the junto’s assault during the winter of 1641-2 upon the king’s supporters – in particular the anti-Scots peers and bishops in the Lords – either by mob intimidation or by pressure from the Commons. The junto’s frustrations spilled over on 3 December, when Stapilton, Pym and other grandees were named to a committee that threatened the anti-Scots majority in the Lords with a de facto parliamentary coup unless it passed the bills sent up to them ‘for the preservation of the kingdom’.113CJ ii. 330b; D’Ewes (C), 228; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 438. The crown’s, or at least the lord keeper’s, response to these intimidatory tactics was to post a guard of the Middlesex trained bands around Westminster – news of which Stapilton broke to an alarmed Commons on 10 December.114D’Ewes (C), 263; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 434. The Commons, in turn, urged the Lords to pass an impressment bill that gave the Houses authority to levy troops to suppress the Irish rebellion – a political precedent that anticipated the Militia Ordinance.115Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 416-17, 434-5. On 16 December, Stapilton moved that a message be sent to the Lords ‘to quicken them in the expediting thereof’, and, upon Strode’s motion, Stapilton was despatched to the Lords accordingly.116CJ ii. 344b; LJ iv. 476a; D’Ewes (C), 296. Stapilton shared the fear of Pym and other leading Members that the appointment of Colonel Thomas Lunsford as lieutenant of the Tower of London presaged an assault upon the Commons.117CJ ii. 356b; D’Ewes (C), 344-5; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 439-40, 444; Sir Phillip Stapleton his Worthy Speech, sig. A2v. But he was probably more alarmed by the intentions of Lunsford’s partner in ‘treachery and conspiracy’ – namely, Stapilton’s bête noire George Lord Digby, whose attempted impeachment late in December he evidently supported.118CJ ii. 361a; LJ iv. 495a; Add. 64807, ff. 20v, 21; Sir Phillip Stapleton his Worthy Speech, sigs. A2-3; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 443. Digby’s role in persuading the king to arrest the Five Members early in January 1642 doubtless strengthened Stapilton’s hostility towards him.

Stapilton’s assignments in the House during the first half of January 1642 place him at the centre of the Commons’ efforts to vindicate its privileges and secure its proceedings against the king and his more headstrong supporters.119CJ ii. 367a, 368a, 368b, 369a, 370a, 375a, 375b, 377b, 379b, 384a, 385a; iv. 458b; LJ iv. 509b, 511b. Following Digby’s and Lunsford’s attempt to rally forces for the king at Kingston-upon-Thames in mid-January, Stapilton delivered a speech in the Commons demanding their arrest and prosecution ‘as traitors to their king and country’.120Sir Phillip Stapleton his Worthy Speech, sig. A3v; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 457. ‘Except he [the king] will hear good counsel’, he insisted, ‘we cannot make him a happy prince’.121Add. 64807, f. 27v. When the subject of Digby’s crimes resurfaced the following month, Stapilton was at the head of the pack baying for his blood.122CJ ii. 433a, 439b, 440a; PJ i. 389-90, 392. The hunt for incendiaries at court again led him to raise doubts against the queen and her confidants.123CJ ii. 388b; LJ iv. 526b; PJ i. 117, 510. And on 27 January, he played a leading role in denouncing the king’s bedchamber man James Stuart, 1st duke of Richmond, for having the temerity to suggest that Parliament should adjourn for six months. Stapilton thought Richmond’s words tended to ‘the destruction of both kingdoms’, and he was a majority teller that day with Holles for declaring him a malignant.124CJ ii. 400a; PJ i. 201-4. He reserved his severest condemnation for the bishops, however, declaring on 8 February that all the kingdom’s problems stemmed from them and reporting a list of reasons for inducing the king to pass the bishops’ exclusion bill.125CJ ii. 419b, 421a; PJ i. 316, 320-1.

The junto’s attack upon leading ‘malignants’ anticipated and underpinned a more fundamental assault upon the king’s authority – Parliament’s seizure of the kingdom’s military resources. Stapilton made a vital contribution to this campaign on 11 January, when he moved that his father-in-law, Sir John Hotham, should draw forces into Hull for the defence of the town, and specifically – although though this was not overtly stated at the time – to prevent the future royalist grandee the earl of Newcastle and William Legge seizing the port and magazine for the king.126CJ ii. 371a; LJ iv. 505b; PJ i. 37. Over the next few months, Stapilton received a series of appointments as a committeeman, conference manager or reporter and as a messenger to the Lords for securing Hull and removing its magazine to London and thus beyond the king’s clutches.127CJ ii. 383b, 388a, 457a, 489a, 510a, 519a, 519b, 531a, 540b; PJ i. 117; PJ ii. 103. At the same time, he played a major part in the Commons’ efforts to secure Yorkshire and the northern counties for Parliament and to encourage its supporters in the region.128CJ ii. 433a, 479b, 481b, 489a, 522a, 523a, 523b; LJ iv. 656, 710b; PJ ii. 42, 156, 195, 215, 218. On 15 February, for example, he was named with other leading northern gentlemen to confer with the earl of Essex about command of the Yorkshire militia.129CJ ii. 433a. On a broader front, he was regularly teamed from early February with Pym, Holles and other junto members to draft Parliament’s petitions and declarations in its ‘paper skirmishes’ with the king – particularly when it came to advertising ‘the grounds of law and necessity’ behind the Militia Ordinance.130CJ ii. 409a, 446b, 460b, 461a, 469b, 478b, 480b, 484a, 488a, 495b, 503b, 504b, 522a, 524b, 525b, 529b, 530b; PJ ii. p. xx. Pym’s motion on 29 March that Stapilton and Fiennes be sent to Charles at York ‘to beget a right understanding between his majesty and the Parliament’ would have had precisely the opposite effect – and Pym probably knew it.131PJ ii. 106. Occasionally Pym could go too far even for his closest allies, and on 2 April, Stapilton was a majority teller with Holles for toning down a phrase in one of Pym’s draft declarations in which he accused the king of laying a ‘scandal’ upon Parliament.132CJ ii. 508b; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 500-1.

The king’s attempt to seize Hull late in April 1642 resulted in a flurry of parliamentary appointments for Stapilton and provided the immediate context for his nomination with Edward, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick*, Lord Fairfax, Sir Hugh Cholmeley and Sir Henry Cholmley as parliamentary commissioners to attend Charles at York.133CJ ii. 542b, 548b, 550b, 553a, 553b; LJ v. 36a. The commissioners were sent ostensibly ‘to give the king and the county a right understanding of the sincerity of the Parliament’s intentions’, although according to Sir Hugh Cholmeley their true purpose was to gather military support for Parliament ‘and to oppose the king in all things’.134CJ ii. 559b-560a; LJ v. 47a; Cholmley Mems. ed. J. Binns (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. cliii), 103. The king clearly suspected that the commissioners were there to hinder and spy on his military preparations, and he ordered them to return to Westminster. When they refused, he advised them not to make any party for themselves or to obstruct his plans on pain of imprisonment.135LJ v. 61; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 615. Charles distrusted Stapilton in particular, believing him complicit in an attempt by the Scots commissioners to stir up opposition to him in Scotland.136Buckminster Park, Tollemache ms 3750, f. 5. The committee remained at York for most of May and June and sent several letters to Parliament relating the king’s proceedings and their own efforts to prevent him exploiting the county’s military resources.137Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 616, 620-1; PJ i. 307, 344, 359, 386; PJ ii. 86; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 322-3, 330. It was the commissioners who had the uncomfortable task of presenting the Nineteen Propositions to the king.138CJ ii. 599a; LJ v. 97b. The propositions were read to Charles by Stapilton, who may have taken the opportunity on this or a subsequent occasion to deliver a short address to the king advising him of the papists’ ‘hellish plots’ to breed civil strife and to suppress the gospel.139Cholmley Mems. 104; LJ iv. 161a; A Renowned Speech...by...Sir Phillip Stapleton (1642, E.200.46). This speech, which was subsequently published, was frank in tone and may in fact have been fabricated in London for propaganda purposes.

Fighting for Parliament, 1642-3

Stapilton’s work-rate at Westminster seems to have slackened between his return from York in June 1642 and the beginning of the Edgehill campaign that autumn, although he still picked up 17 appointments either as a messenger to the Lords, a conference manager or reporter, or as a teller (in one division).140CJ ii. 641b, 643b, 645a, 648a, 654b, 689a, 694b, 704b, 712a, 718b, 721a, 729b, 731a, 731b, 740a, 753a, 754a; LJ v. 169a, 172b, 264a, 279b, 294a, 308b-309a, 333b; PJ iii. p. xix. The reasons for this change in his pattern of parliamentary appointments were practical rather than political. He was away from the House in mid-July, for example, having been selected with the earl of Holland and Sir John Holland to present a petition for accommodation to the king.141CJ ii. 669b; LJ v. 206b-207b. Drawn up by Pym, this petition was presented to Charles at Beverley on 16 July.142Propositions for Peace Presented to the Kings Most Excellent Majestie (1642, E.108.4); Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 517-18. Writing to James Hamilton, 3rd marquess of Hamilton (with whom he had probably become familiar during his time in Scotland in 1641) on 19 July, Stapilton explained that he had agreed to deliver this petition only because he thought that it ‘expressed so much duty to him and such a desire of peace that I was very confident of a gracious answer’. But as Stapilton went on to relate, the king’s response was

so full of sharpness and the demands of so high a nature that I am utterly in despair of any peaceable end of these unhappy differences … I see not how this can end without blows; this kingdom being in so miserable a distemper that those who wish it the most hurt are most powerful in giving counsel concerning the peace or ruin of it.143NAS, GD 406/1/1677.

Another, even more honourable, employment helped to deprive the Commons of Stapilton’s services during the summer of 1642 – his commissioning some time in late July or early August by the general of Parliament’s newly appointed field army, the earl of Essex, as captain of his life-guard of 100 cuirassiers.144SP28/1A, ff. 133, 155; SP28/2B, f. 522; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 42. This was one of the most prestigious commands in the entire army, particularly for a man who apparently had no military experience, and speaks eloquently of the close relationship between Essex and Stapilton. The life-guard included the future MPs Charles Fleetwood, Thomas Harrison I, Henry Ireton, Edmund Ludlowe II, Nathaniel Rich and Francis Russell.145Ludlow, Mems. i. 38-41; V. Snow, Essex the Rebel, 313-14. Between drill exercises in the Artillery Garden, Stapilton found time to resume active service in Parliament’s paper skirmishes against the king, receiving several appointments in June and July to consider and frame answers to declarations from the royal camp.146CJ ii. 635b, 637a, 643b, 645a, 689a. He also resumed his role in managing Parliament’s military and political affairs in the north, particularly with regard to Hull and Yorkshire.147CJ ii. 642b, 645a, 651b, 654b, 696a, 718b, 729b, 734a; LJ v. 169a, 185a, 308b-309a; PJ iii. 171; HMC Portland, i. 41. On 23 July, having just returned from delivering Parliament’s petition of accommodation, he assured the House that the king’s military forces in Yorkshire were weak and poorly motivated.148PJ iii. 261; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 518. By mid-August, however, he was forced to concede that ‘such were now the divisions in Yorkshire amongst the gentry and other inhabitants there that unless some troops of horse were speedily sent thither, he gave up that county for lost’.149PJ iii. 305.

Stapilton’s collaboration with the chief promoters of Essex and his army is underlined by his appointment to the Committee of Safety* (CS) on 4 July 1642.150CJ ii. 651b. The Commons’ contingent on this new bicameral executive was made up almost exclusively of leading junto-men – Pym, Fiennes, Holles and Hampden – prominent hardliners (notably, Henry Marten) and MPs with close connections to the earl of Essex. Much of the committee’s work would relate to the pay and recruitment of Essex’s army, and it thus began life as a vehicle for those at Westminster determined to confront the king from a position of maximum military strength.151Supra, ‘Committee of Safety’. One of the Commons’ aims in introducing an oath to assist Essex with ‘lives and estates’ – for which a committee, headed by Holles and Stapilton, was set up on 11 August – was to raise money for the army.152CJ ii. 715b. Four days later (15 Aug.), Stapilton delivered a lengthy report from the Committee of Safety on the deployment of the lord general’s newly raised forces.153CJ ii. 720a; PJ iii. 299. When the king sent messages to Westminster late in August and early in September in an effort to open a dialogue for peace, Stapilton was part of the Commons team that orchestrated Parliament’s rejection of these overtures and the issuing of orders and money for Essex to advance his forces ‘with all possible speed’.154CJ ii. 740a, 752a, 753a; LJ v. 333b. Not content with rejecting the king’s olive branch, Stapilton and other junto-men prepared a declaration assuring the Scots of Parliament’s commitment to ‘a more close union with the church of Scotland’ and lamenting ‘the mischiefs that have come to this church and state by episcopacy’.155CJ ii. 737a, 748a, 754a; A Declaration and Resolution of the Lords and Commons (1642, E.118.34). On 8 September, he was given leave to repair to his command in the lord general’s army, and in his absence he was named to a commission for treating with the Scots on matters of mutual interest and as one of the conservators of peace between the two kingdoms.156CJ ii. 759b, 802b, 818a. Stapilton did ‘excellent service’ at the battle of Edgehill, where he commanded the general’s regiment of horse alongside the man he had nominated in April to lead the British cavalry in Ulster, Sir William Balfour.157Codrington, Life and Death of Essex, 19; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 36. In fact, it was arguably the courage and skill of Balfour and Stapilton in defending the parliamentarian centre that prevented the royalists from snatching victory.158A Most True and Exact Relation of Both the Battels fought by His Excellency (1642), 6-7 (E.126.38).

Stapilton’s parliamentary career between his return from the Edgehill campaign in November and the start of the new campaign season in 1643 was shaped by his loyalty to the earl of Essex and to the interests of the army – and Essex, at this stage in the civil war, was closely aligned with the war-party grandees at Westminster. The argument that Stapilton was part of a so-called ‘middle group’ headed by Pym and devoted to pursuing a via media between the extremes of all-out war and a sell-out peace is based on conjecture and misreading of the evidence.159J. Hexter, King Pym, 138 and passim; D. Scott, ‘Party politics in the Long Parliament’, in Revolutionary England, c.1630-c.1660 ed. G. Southcombe, G. Tapsell (2016), 39-40. Although five of Stapilton’s eight appointments to manage or report from conferences between November 1642 and May 1643 related to the Oxford treaty, in almost every one of his 11 tellerships he sought to hinder or frustrate the peace process.160CJ ii. 841b, 905b, 906a, 925a, 959a, 960b, 961a, 961b, 962b, 969b, 969b, 974a, 995b; iii. 30a, 83b. Likewise, most of his committee appointments in November and December are consistent with a desire to promote the war effort. Indeed, he was named first to committees for thanking the lord general for his military endeavours, for raising £20,000 for his army and for supplying the New Scots in Ulster.161CJ ii. 841a, 890b, 891b, 892b, 901a, 904a; Add. 18777, f. 94v. The war-party grandees were not strong enough to prevent the earl of Northumberland and his allies from petitioning the king for peace, but they made their concerns evident in the instructions issued to a conference-management team – of which Stapilton was a member – on 9 November, that Parliament’s peace initiative should not undermine Essex’s military preparations and that if the king would not agree to propositions ‘for the preservation of religion and liberty’, then both Houses would ‘sacrifice and lives and fortunes in defence thereof’.162CJ ii. 841b.

In a Commons debate on 21 November 1642 about whether to sue for peace, Stapilton was among the most hawkish of the speakers, declaring that they should send the king just one proposition

that is, to desire him to come to his Parliament and we will give him the best assistance we can. The great men about him is [sic] Lord Digby, [Henry] Percy*, men of fortune, which how desirous they are of peace, all men know. And therefore would have us to desire the king to withdraw himself from his army, and they that persuade him to these courses to meet with us at Hounslow Heath and we will fight with them.163Add. 18777, f. 65.

When this debate resumed the next day (22 Nov.), he took a similarly belligerent line, suggesting that the propositions include demands that the king come to Parliament, that all ‘delinquents’ be ‘delivered to a due course of justice’ and that Prince Rupert ‘and all strangers’ depart the kingdom.164Add. 18777, f. 67. Like Pym and the other junto members who demanded that the king return to London and surrender his ‘great men’ as a precursor to any peace, Stapilton knew that Charles would never accede to such terms.165Add. 18777, ff. 63v-67. In fact, Sir Simonds D’Ewes* believed that Stapilton, Hampden and other officers had been sent down from army headquarters at Windsor specifically to undermine a peace treaty.166Harl. 164, f. 270v. This may well have been Stapilton’s motive in writing to Oliver Cromwell* in late January 1643, asking him to intercept a royalist agent bearing a letter from Oxford ‘into Norfolk ... to encourage the papists generally to take up arms. It would be of great advantage to us if we could take this man and his letter ... which we would gladly have’. Parading such a letter at Westminster would certainly not have advanced the cause of peace. Stapilton also asked Cromwell to send him a large and strong horse ‘that is nimble and full of mettle ... and [I] shall put this courtesy upon the account with those many other [sic] I have received from you’.167Belvoir, Original Letters, Members of the Long Parliament, PZ.2, f. 40.

By February 1643, the debate on the peace propositions had shifted to the question of whether king and Parliament should disband their armies before a treaty or after it.168Add. 18777, ff. 145v-158. The argument here was not over mere technicalities, as has sometimes been claimed, but a bitter dispute between those genuinely committed to seeking an accommodation and those determined to stiffen Parliament’s terms to the point where they were sure Charles would reject them.169Hexter, King Pym, 69; Scott, ‘Party politics’, 40. Stapilton’s ‘compromise’ proposal – that the first proposition relate to the disbandment of the armies and that the treaty not proceed until it be agreed on – was merely a variation on the disbandment-before-treaty theme.170Add. 18777, f. 158; Hexter, King Pym, 22. Although he was involved in framing, or at least amending, the propositions and their less than conciliatory preamble, he also received appointments related to policies and orders that had the effect of undermining moves towards peace.171CJ ii. 903b, 918b, 921b, 925a, 933a, 935a, 948b, 959a, 963a, 969a, 970a, 971a, 974a; LJ v. 610a.

Stapilton’s tellerships during the winter of 1642-3 are particularly revealing of his commitment to a military solution to the war. In a series of divisions on the peace propositions, he consistently served as teller for those opposed to a treaty – on six occasions with his fellow officers Hampden, Sir Gilbert Gerard, John Moore and William Purefoy I.172CJ ii. 906a, 959b, 960b, 961a, 961b, 962b, 969b; Harl. 164, ff. 300r-v. One of the opposing tellers on each of these divisions was Northumberland’s leading ally in the Commons, Denzil Holles. The war-party grandees’ main weapon against peace was the lord general’s army, and on learning from Essex that his soldiers had begun to mutiny through lack of pay, Stapilton, Viscount Saye and other grandees went to Windsor in mid-February 1643 ‘to assure them all of a speedy payment’.173Mercurius Aulicus no. 8 (19-25 Feb. 1643), 101-2 (E.246.41). On 9 March, while the negotiations at Oxford were in progress, Stapilton informed the Commons of the lord general’s fears of a royalist attempt upon Bristol – which Essex saw as evidence ‘that there was like to be little fruit of our treaty of peace’ – and of his intention to take to the field the following day.174CJ ii. 995a, 995b; LJ v. 643b; Harl. 164, f. 318v. D’Ewes interpreted Essex’s sudden warlike resolution as a design by Hampden ‘and some other fiery spirits about him’ to undermine the treaty.175Harl. 164, ff. 318v, 334. In the event, Essex ordered Stapilton to advance towards Bristol with 3,000 horse and 1,000 foot, ‘who fell on so resolutely as could not be expected from men that wanted pay’.176Harl. 164, f. 324v.

Seeking an accommodation, 1643

Parliament’s inability to keep Essex’s army adequately paid and provisioned led to a marked deterioration in relations between the lord general’s staff and their allies at Westminster during the summer of 1643. After taking Reading late in April, the lord general sent Stapilton and Colonel Arthur Goodwin* to Westminster to inform the Houses that the army would not advance further without pay.177Harl. 164, f. 381v; Add. 31116, p. 93. The army’s weaknesses were cruelly exposed in a series of cavalry engagements late in June on the approaches to Oxford. Stapilton was instrumental in rallying the defeated parliamentarian horse, but not before his friend John Hampden had been fatally wounded.178A Letter Written from his Excellency Robert Earle of Essex (1643), 3. Two days after Hampden’s death (26 June), Stapilton and other officers wrote to Speaker Lenthall urging that something be done to address the army’s wants.179HMC Portland, i. 714-15. And it was Stapilton and Goodwin who brought the lord general’s letter of 8 July to the Houses in which he suggested that in light of his army’s weaknesses the two Houses sue for peace.180CJ iii. 160b; LJ vi. 127b. When this letter was read out in the Commons some of the fiery spirits were observed to ‘pluck their hats over their eyes’ in frustration.181Harl. 165, ff. 122r-v; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 116. Talking in private to some friends, Stapilton ‘expressed much vehemency’ for an accommodation, but the next day in the House (11 July) he spoke ‘much more faintly for the furthering of a treaty of peace than was expected; nay, he spake against it’, and D’Ewes conceived that he and Goodwin ‘had been taken off by the Lord Saye, Mr Pym and some others’.182Harl. 165, f. 123v. Nevertheless, both Stapilton and Goodwin took exception to criticism of Essex by Sir Henry Vane II, one of Pym’s closest allies, which they thought was ‘a great injury to his lordship, who had so well deserved of the public and hazarded both his life and fortune for the defence of the kingdom’.183Harl. 165, ff. 123v-124, 126; Mercurius Aulicus no. 29 (16-22 July 1643), 380-1 (E.63.2).

Re-affirming his entire allegiance to the lord general, Stapilton played a leading role in presenting his grievances to the Houses in mid-July 1643 and in complaining about the Commons’ raising of new forces under Essex’s rival Sir William Waller*.184LJ vi. 144b; A True Relation of the Taking of Bristol (1643, 669 f.8.19). Stapilton’s close association with Saye, Pym and their faction could not be shrugged off lightly, as his volte face of 11 July had indicated. Nevertheless, it may well have been weakened by Hampden’s death and perhaps also by the imprisonment of Stapilton’s kinsmen, the Hothams, in July.185M.P. Mahony, ‘The Presbyterian party in the Long Parliament, 2 July 1644-3 June 1647’ (Oxford Univ. DPhil. thesis, 1973), 58-9. There is evidence that he attempted to use Nathaniel Fiennes, Saye’s son, as a pawn in the struggle to save the Hothams.186[W. Fiennes], Vindiciae Veritatis (1654), 46-7 (E.811.2). But the decisive factor in turning him against his confederates at Westminster was the loyalty he felt he owed to Essex as his commanding officer, patron and friend. This is not to say that his decision to take Essex’s side did not have a political dimension. Like Essex, he was probably disturbed at the war-party grandees’ determination to bring the Scots into the civil war, which would constitute a major escalation of the conflict. It is significant, for example, that he remained aloof from the campaign waged by Pym and his confederates from November 1642 to persuade the Houses of the necessity of a military alliance with the Scots.

Neglected by his supposed friends at Westminster, Essex lent a favourable ear to the peace-party grandees, who were keen to detach him from their rivals and to use his army to force Parliament into accepting an exclusively English peace settlement before it could conclude an alliance with the Scots. Seemingly assured of the lord general’s support, Northumberland and his allies in the Lords drew up the softest of peace terms – allegedly in concert with a faction at Oxford opposed to Prince Rupert and the royalist swordsmen.187LJ vi. 163a; Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 262; Mercurius Aulicus no. 32 (6-12 Aug. 1643), 428-9 (E.65.26); no. 33 (13-19 Aug. 1643), 440; HMC 5th Rep. 98-9; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 136, 141-2. When these terms were sent down to the Commons on 5 August, they were opposed by Pym and his confederates on the grounds that it would be wrong to conclude a settlement without consulting the Scots.188LJ vi. 171b; Harl. 165, ff. 137v-139, 141. But in a dramatic re-alignment of political forces in the Commons, the lord general’s officers, headed by Stapilton, now made common cause with Holles and the anti-Scots faction. In several divisions on 5 August, Holles, Stapilton and another of Essex’s officers Sir Henry Cholmley were tellers in favour of the propositions.189CJ iii. 196a; Harl. 165, f. 141v-143. To counter this powerful new alliance, the war-party grandees and the City militants used the London mob to overawe the peace interest; and, on 7 August, the Commons duly rejected the proposed treaty, citing among its reasons that Parliament had agreed not to conclude a peace without the consent of the Scots.190CJ iii. 197b; Add. 18778, f. 10v; Harl. 165, f. 145-148v, 150r-v, 152v; Bodl. Clarendon 22, f. 117; Mercurius Aulicus no. 32 (6-12 Aug. 1643), 431-2, 434, 437 (E.65.26); HMC 5th Rep. 99-100; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 136-9. After this demonstration that the war party still controlled London, Essex contented himself with assurances concerning his authority as commander-in-chief and that his army would have first claim upon the resources of the City.191CJ iii. 210b; Harl. 165, ff. 150r-v, 153, 157v; Mercurius Aulicus no. 32 (6-12 Aug. 1643), 432; no. 33 (13-19 Aug. 1643), 449-50; no. 34 (20-6 Aug. 1643), 459; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 140-2, 154. Essex’s renewed partnership with the war-party grandees quickly bore fruit. With the help of the City trained bands, the lord general relieved Gloucester early in September and fought the king’s army to an honourable draw at the battle of Newbury. Once again, Stapilton distinguished himself at the head of Essex’s cavalry, making numerous charges against the royalists that did much to save the day for Parliament.192A True Relation of the Late Expedition of His Excellency Robert Earle of Essex for the Relief of Gloucester (1643) 13-14 (E.70.10); Codrington, Life of Essex, 33; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 293. On 28 September, the Commons thanked Stapilton, Sir John Meyrick*, Sir Samuel Luke* and several more of Essex’s officers for their ‘late great services’ in the Gloucester campaign.193CJ iii. 256b. Stapilton’s bravery on the battlefield, coupled perhaps with his involvement in the August peace initiative, won him admirers even at court.194Harl. 165, f. 225.

Peace-party grandee, 1643-4

In the hiatus between the 1643 and 1644 campaign seasons (or roughly from October 1643 to May 1644), Stapilton emerged as Essex’s principal man-of-business in the Commons. Of his 12 appointments to manage or report from conferences during this period, at least half related in some way or other to the advancement of Essex’s military and political interests – which were, of course, inextricably linked.195CJ iii. 269b, 297a, 311b, 324b, 327b, 330b, 363a, 367b, 368a, 397b, 452b, 458b. He was also the recipient of numerous orders for conveying the Houses’s wishes to the lord general and figured prominently in the Commons as a spokesman for Essex and his army.196CJ iii. 262b, 269b, 277a, 307a, 318b, 321a, 324a, 368a, 372a, 383a, 389b, 437a, 472b, 476b, 478a; Harl. 165, ff. 225v, 266v; Harl. 166, ff. 14v, 27v, 28, 32v, 34v, 42, 46, 53r-v, 61. Similarly, his intimacy with the lord general and interest in the army accounted for his nomination to numerous committees – at least one of which he chaired.197CJ iii. 269b, 276b, 323a, 357a, 362a, 382b, 400a, 408b, 437a, 454a, 464b, 471b, 474b, 489b; Harl. 166, f. 14v. By December 1643, he was the acknowledged leader of ‘Essex’s party’ in the Commons – a group composed of Essex’s staff officers and the anti-Scottish alliance faction under Holles.198Harl. 165, f. 233; HMC 5th Rep. 107, 108. Behind the scenes, Stapilton and Holles worked together to advise Essex and strengthen his interest at Westminster. One of the MPs they courted was Bulstrode Whitelocke, who referred to them as ‘two of the most secret counsellors and friends the general had’.199Add. 37343, f. 297v; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 256. Converging with the Essexians in the winter of 1643-4 were Sir John Clotworthy and several other Anglo-Irish MPs, angered that the architects of the Scottish alliance had conceded supreme command of the British forces in Ireland to the Scots.200CJ iii. 350a; Harl. 165, ff. 254r-v; Harl. 166, ff. 13v, 58v; Baillie, Lttrs. and Jnls. ii. 141, 155; Carte, Ormond, v. 504. Stapilton, like Clotworthy, probably saw this as an affront to English honour and interests in Ireland. Nevertheless, they were both strongly committed to maintaining the New Scots’ presence in Ulster. And for their part, the Scots probably welcomed the two men’s efforts that winter to impeach James Butler, 1st marquess of Ormond for ‘adhering to the rebels’.201CJ iii. 400a; Harl. 166, f. 13v.

Stapilton’s support for the New Scots and concern at the king’s cessation with the rebels may well explain his acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant (which he took on 30 September 1643) and his occasional appointment to committees for conferring with the Scots commissioners about Ireland and other matters.202CJ iii. 259a, 261a, 276b, 382b, 383a, 387b, 390b, 408a; LJ vi. 241a. But from 5 August 1643, he sided against the Scots’ friends in the House on every major issue of contention at Westminster – beginning with the question of whether to re-admit Essex’s cousin, the earl of Holland, to the Lords following his return from Oxford, where he had fled in August. On 11 November, Stapilton and Holles (paired again for the first time since April 1642) were majority tellers in two divisions against requesting the Lords to send Holland to the Tower.203CJ iii. 308b; Harl. 165, ff. 229v-230v. Likewise, on 17 January 1644, they were majority tellers against putting the question that Holland had been guilty of deserting Parliament.204CJ iii. 370a. The re-admission of Holland to the Lords would give Essex’s party extra leverage in its covert negotiations with Oxford, which were probably conducted in part through the French ambassador, Henri de Lorraine, comte de Harcourt.205Mahony, ‘The Presbyterian party’, 60-1. The regularity with which Stapilton was named to committees and conference teams concerning Harcourt points to his complicity in this design to broker a settlement that circumvented the Scots’ demands for a covenanted uniformity.206CJ iii. 266b, 311b, 316b, 324b, 325b, 327b, 363b. Eager to remove Holland’s leading opponents in the Commons, Essex and Stapilton seized upon news of the Lovelace plot (a royalist design to split parliamentarian ranks by offering liberty of conscience) in an attempt to have Vane II and four other Members court-martialled for holding ‘correspondency with the enemy’.207CJ iii. 376a; LJ v. 381b; Juxon Jnl. 42-3. But the only result of this ‘accusing of the five Members’ was to stir up more ill-feeling between the factions.

Another front in Stapilton’s conflict with the war-party grandees and their adherents opened late in 1643 as a result of a quarrel that his former ally Sir Arthur Hesilrige helped to foment between the commander of the East Midlands Association, Thomas Lord Grey of Groby* (the earl of Stamford’s son) and leading members of the Leicestershire and Rutland county committees. Although Grey of Groby would later emerge as a noted political radical, at this stage in the war he was an ally of Essex, like his father, and enjoyed the support of the lord general’s friends at Westminster. In February and March 1644, Stapilton and other Essexians locked horns repeatedly with Hesilrige and his war-party friends over whether Grey of Groby or the county committee was most to blame for Leicestershire’s woes.208Infra, ‘Sir Arthur Hesilrige’; CJ iii. 372a, 372b; Harl. 166, ff. 10, 34.

The faction-fighting at Westminster attained a new intensity during February 1644 in the debates over the establishment of the Committee of Both Kingdoms* (CBK). This committee, which was the brainchild of the Scots commissioners and their principal parliamentary allies, was conceived, in part, as a means of undermining Essex’s power. Stapilton and several other members of Essex’s party were named to the committee, but only, thought D’Ewes, as ‘decoys to make the matter seem the better, being men without exception’.209Supra, ‘Committee of Both Kingdoms’; Harl. 166, f. 7. Despite his military duties, Stapilton attended the committee more regularly than most other Essexians during 1644.210CJ iii. 448a, 452a, 463a; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 18, 19, 64, 193, 517, 519, 521; J. Adamson, ‘The triumph of oligarchy’, in Parliament at Work ed. C. Kyle, J. Peacey (2002), 115, 116. Having lost the battle over establishing the CBK, Essex’s party fought a vigorous rearguard action during the early months of 1644 to preserve the lord general’s sphere of influence against further encroachment. In February and March, Stapilton defended the lord general’s army and interests both in debate and as a teller, clashing repeatedly with Vane II, Hesilrige and other ‘violent spirits’ in the process.211CJ iii. 424b, 427a; Harl. 166, ff. 14v, 32v. The divisions at Westminster extended into Stapilton’s own command, and that spring he drove Fleetwood and Harrison out of the life-guard – reportedly ‘for being forward to reform the army’.212Juxon Jnl. 52. The CBK’s power to frame peace propositions was also contested by Essex’s party, with Stapilton and Holles serving as tellers for considering rival proposals from the Dutch ambassadors (which were thought to favour the king) and in trying to shift scrutiny of the Scots’ blueprint for settlement (the future Uxbridge propositions) from the CBK to a new, and exclusively English, parliamentary committee. But Essex’s enemies had the better of these divisions, as well as further exchanges in the Commons about his military powers, and it was probably with some relief that Stapilton returned to soldiering in May.213CJ iii. 443a, 458b, 478b; Harl. 166, f. 55; Baillie, Lttrs. and Jnls. ii. 155.

The ‘Presbyterian alliance’ and new-modelling, 1644-5

Stapilton was reportedly among those of Essex’s officers who advised the lord general against marching into the west in June 1644 (leaving Waller to chase the king around the midlands).214Juxon Jnl. 56. Nevertheless, he subsequently put his name to the letter that Essex’s staff sent to Parliament justifying this departure from the CBK’s instructions.215LJ vi. 616b-617a. The lord general’s enemies in the Commons were so incensed by his insubordination that they reportedly wanted to impeach Stapilton and Meyrick, or at least ‘lop them off from the earl of Essex his society’.216Add. 18981, ff. 207r-v; Mercurius Aulicus no. 29 (14-20 July 1644), 1089 (E.4.12). Following the king’s victory against Waller late in June and his subsequent pursuit of Essex into the west, the lord general sent Stapilton back to Westminster to move the Houses for supplies and to send some ‘considerable force to wait on the motions of the king’.217CJ iii. 576a; Add. 31116, p. 305. Publicly, his parliamentary activities during August appeared unremarkable – tellerships in divisions concerning the Irish Adventurers and the elector palatine and nomination to committees for the supply of the Protestant forces in Ireland and the Scots’ army in England.218CJ iii. 599a, 599b, 602b, 612b, 614a. Behind the scenes, however, Stapilton attacked the CBK for its failure to support Essex’s army, and he concerted plans with Essex’s friends at Westminster to push for a swift peace in England that would free resources for the war in Ireland.219Juxon Jnl. 56. On 9 August, Stapilton, Clotworthy and Robert Reynolds* wrote to Holles and Whitelocke, urging their swift return to Westminster.

Ireland’s cry is very loud also for peace. We see an utter inability to carry on that war in this distracted estate wherein we are, so as we must either make a peace [in England] or give that kingdom [Ireland] up for lost. My lord general’s condition requires his friends being here; wherefore without delay fail not to hasten hither, where you are much wanted and earnestly expected.220Longleat, Whitelocke Pprs. ix, f. 27.

The lord general needed support at Westminster even more urgently following the surrender of his foot at Lostwithiel early in September. Angered by what he regarded as the betrayal of his army, Essex wrote an open letter to Stapilton from Plymouth on 3 September, relating news of the defeat and demanding justice for himself and his ‘gallant and faithful men’.221Harl. 166, ff. 113, 116-17; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. 701-3.

The collapse of Essex’s military and political credit after Lostwithiel left Stapilton in an extremely vulnerable position. From their powerbase on the CBK, the lord general’s enemies launched an investigation into ‘the late loss in the west’ and quickly uncovered evidence of covert peace talks in August between some of Essex’s colonels and the king and that Stapilton had received a copy of the resulting propositions but had failed to inform the Houses. Stapilton assured Anthony Nicoll* that he had not been party to these talks and had only seen a copy of the propositions after Essex’s army had surrendered and had thought them so ‘foolish’ that ‘when he came to London he would have them printed’.222Add. 31116, pp. 324-5; Beinecke Lib. Osborn Files 28.235: examination of Anthony Nicoll* and Col. Thomas Tyrrell*; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 529; Juxon Jnl. 58-9; Adamson, ‘Triumph of oligarchy’, 119. The investigating committee took a more serious view of these proceedings, however, and when they were reported to the Commons on 27 September, ‘many violent fellows fell very foul’ upon Stapilton, and even his friends Holles and Sir William Lewis conceded that his failure to disclose receipt of the propositions had been ‘a great oversight’.223Harl. 166, ff. 125-6. On 8 October, the Commons gave the committee for reforming Essex’s army power to examine Stapilton, and for the next two months he and his confederates were obliged to defend themselves against a barrage of damaging allegations of military misconduct and political intrigue.224CJ iii. 656a, 672b; Add. 31116, pp. 325, 329; Harl. 166, f. 150v; Juxon Jnl. 60; Adamson, ‘The triumph of oligarchy’, 119-21.

In desperate need of allies at Westminster, and conscious that their war-party rivals had embarked on a series of military reforms that would lead to the wholesale ‘new-modelling’ of the parliamentarian armies, the grandees of Essex’s party sought a rapprochment with their erstwhile enemies the Scots. At a meeting with the French resident, Melchior de Sabran, on 29 October 1644, Stapilton and Holles indicated their willingness to make common cause with the the Scots ‘against those who have seized authority in Parliament’. The basis of this ‘Presbyterian alliance’ was a simple quid pro quo – Essex’s party would support the Scots’ cherished notion of a covenanted uniformity in religion if, in turn, the Scots would agree to restoring the king’s executive powers in England, though with some limitations.225PRO31/3/75, ff. 145v-146; Mahony, ‘The Presbyterian party’, 110-12; Adamson, ‘The triumph of oligarchy’, 118-19. This arrangement clearly represented a marriage of convenience. Most leading members of Essex’s faction, Stapilton included, were Erastians or moderate puritans (or both). They supported ‘rigid’ Presbyterianism firstly as a bulwark against the rising tide of religious radicalism and, secondly, as the necessary price of Scottish political and military support in negotiating a settlement. Where the new allies were completely in agreement, however, was in their common hostility towards Stapilton’s former friend Oliver Cromwell and other ‘Anabaptists’, and early in December they held a long meeting at Essex House to determine whether Cromwell could be impeached. Stapilton and Holles ‘spake smartly to the business and mentioned some particular passages and words of Cromwell tending to prove him to be an incendiary [between the two kingdoms] ... and they would willingly have been upon the accusation of him’. But the Scots commissioners and Whitelocke urged caution, and the matter was dropped.226Whitelocke, Mems. i. 343-7. The Presbyterian alliance was common knowledge by early 1645, when Mercurius Aulicus printed an intercepted parliamentarian letter reporting that

the Scots commissioners have withdrawn their intimateness with those of the Committees [sic] of Both Kingdoms ... and have joined themselves in a seeming confederacy and compliance with Sir Philip Stapilton and his associates: viz. Holles, the Recorder [John Glynne], Clotworthy, Reynolds, Whitelocke, [John] Maynard etc. and the Lords. What is the design is not yet discerned. ‘Tis hope[d] that ‘tis only done to advance the Presbyterial government with us.227Mercurius Aulicus (23 Feb.-2 Mar. 1645), 1392-3 (E.273.13); Juxon Jnl. 75.

The political re-alignments and intense factional rivalry that attended the loss in the west and new-modelling are reflected in Stapilton’s appointments. In almost every one of his 16 tellerships between Lostwithiel and the full establishment of the New Model army in March 1645, he was pitted, often with Holles, against their war-party rivals – soon to be dubbed the ‘Independents’.228CJ iii. 617a, 639a, 659b, 672b, 680a, 700b, 711b, 726a, 734b; iv. 3b, 4a, 4b, 26a, 43b, 82b. Even the fate of the Hothams became a partisan issue, with Stapilton and (in Hyde’s words) ‘others of the Presbyterian party’ battling with ‘divers of the Independents’ during December in a last ditch, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to win Sir John Hotham a reprieve.229Clarendon SP ii. 184; CJ iii. 734b; iv. 4b. Stapilton continued to receive assignments for communicating the House’s orders to the lord general or addressing the needs of his now shattered command.230CJ iii. 614a, 621a, 626b, 714a; iv. 38a. But he also began to appear more fully on matters of concern to the Scots.231CJ iii. 623b, 626b, 681a; iv. 3a, 3b. On 11 October, for example, he and Holles were tellers in favour of honouring Parliament’s treaty obligations for the maintenance of General Leven’s army.232CJ iii. 659b; Harl. 166, f. 129v; Add. 31116, p. 331. And several of his appointments over the winter of 1644-5 suggest that he was more supportive of a Presbyterian church settlement than he had been in the past.233CJ iv. 3b, 9b. At this stage he was ambivalent (at best) about a covenanted settlement and almost certainly found the Scots’ peace terms distasteful in many respects. Yet his commitment to the Presbyterian alliance and desire for an opportunity to communicate directly with the king – an opportunity that Holles and Whitelocke seized at Oxford that November – resulted in a series of nominations to conference teams and committees for advancing the Uxbridge treaty.234CJ iii. 665a, 676b, 686a, 690a, 690b, 692a, 724b, 725b; iv. 23a, 53a, 60a; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 203.

Inevitably, Stapilton was ‘passionately opposed’ to the Self-Denying Ordinance – which was a thinly-disguised attack upon the lord general – and on 17 December 1644, he was a minority teller with Holles for exempting Essex from the ordinance’s provisions.235CJ iii. 726a; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 507; Juxon Jnl. 70. Similarly, on 21 January 1645, he was a minority teller with Holles against making Sir Thomas Fairfax* commander-in-chief of the New Model army.236CJ iv. 26a. Fairfax’s appointment and the Self-Denying Ordinance spelled the end of Essex’s and Stapilton’s military careers. The latter’s victory with Reynolds on 7 February as a teller in favour of giving Parliament the power to veto Fairfax’s officer selections was little more than a Parthian shot.237CJ iv. 42b, 43b. A subsequent attempt by Stapilton, Holles and Glynne to rally support in the Commons for the Scots commissioners’ request that only men ‘well-affected to the uniformity of church government’ be named as officers in the New Model apparently fell on deaf ears.238Harl. 166, f. 181v.

Presbyterian grandee, 1645-6

Stapilton’s parliamentary career during 1645 reflected the loss in authority and reputation suffered by Essex’s party since Lostwithiel, which not even the Presbyterian alliance could make good. During the entire year, he received just three appointments to manage or report from conferences and three as a messenger to the Lords.239CJ iv. 39a, 60a, 71b, 146b, 246a, 307a; LJ vii. 165b, 267a, 379b. Of his 11 tellerships between March and December, he lost over half.240CJ iv. 125a, 136b, 193a, 193b, 213a, 247b, 296a, 303b, 319a, 336a, 341b. His dislike of the New Model was widely noted and was thought by at least one MP – Peregrine Pelham – grounds enough to have him removed from Parliament’s military counsels.241Add. 18780, f. 35; Juxon Jnl. 131; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 146. Nevertheless, Stapilton remained a force on the CBK and certainly had some role in the establishment and ordering of Fairfax’s forces.242Supra, ‘Committee of Both Kingdoms’; CJ iv. 51a, 71a, 71b, 146a, 146b, 147a, 187a, 264b, 299a; LJ vii. 267a, 379b; Harl. 166, ff. 210, 218. His military experience could not secure him a place on the Committee for the Army*, however, which was set up in March 1645 to supply Fairfax’s forces and was dominated by the Independents.243Supra, ‘Committee for the Army’. On the other hand, his appointment in April to the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports* and, in July, to the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs* were no mere consolation prizes. Both committees were involved in managing the war-effort in Ireland and provided Stapilton (who was active on both) and his fellow Presbyterian grandees with useful levers of political and military patronage.244Supra, ‘Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports’; ‘Irish Committees’; CJ iv. 111b, 112a, 217b; LJ vii. 327a. Stapilton was a persuasive advocate of the CBK’s design of committing the fledgling New Model to besiege Oxford in the spring of 1645.245Add. 18780, f. 21; CJ iv. 146a, 146b, 147a; LJ vii. 379b. And although generally outvoted in 1645 on major issues, Stapilton, Holles and their friends won minor victories on the floor of the House and in committee and were apparently effective in courting allies among their fellow Commons-men.246Add. 18780, ff. 8v, 57v, 166v, 173b; CJ iv. 189b, 344b; The Lives of Those Eminent Antiquaries Elias Ashmole Esquire and Mr William Lilly (1774), 68-70, 72; Luke Letter Bks. 516, 548. One of their favoured tactics was to take MPs they wished to impress, like Whitelocke, to consult or dine with the earls of Essex and Holland, where they were ‘caressed ... very highly’.247Add. 37344, ff. 15, 25, 27v; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 533, 548; Diary, 183-4. The Presbyterian grandees and the Scots commissioners were strong enough to push the Independents hard during the Savile affair in the summer of 1645.248CJ iv. 172b; Add. 31116, p. 429; M. Mahony, ‘The Savile affair and the politics of the Long Parliament’, PH vii. 219. But Fairfax’s victory at Naseby threw them back onto the defensive, and Holles was fortunate that Lord Savile’s disclosures did no more than injure his pride – Stapilton and Sir William Lewis acting as majority tellers in his defence on 10 July.249CJ iv. 195a, 213a; Whitelocke, Diary, 169, 171.

Removed from the influential position he had enjoyed at the heart of Parliament’s military establishment, Stapilton occupied himself with less glamorous duties during 1645, such as keeping the Scots happy. Although he was evidently distressed by the burdens that Leven’s army imposed on the northern counties, the Scots commissioners could rely on him to handle their more politically sensitive business.250CJ iv. 94a, 105a, 111b, 121b, 131b, 166a, 188b, 198a, 242b, 246a, 274b, 275a, 298b, 307a, 317a, 340a, 603a; Harl. 166, f. 253; SP28/265, ff. 248-9; Add. 37978, f. 39; Corresp. of the Scots Commrs. ed. H. W. Meikle, 140; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 285. On three occasions that autumn, he served as teller in support of Scottish church and military policies.251CJ iv. 319a, 336a, 341b. The conduct of Parliament’s northern affairs also benefited from his retirement from soldiering.252CJ iv. 194b, 211b, 242b, 404b, 731a, 731b; v. 21b; Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 575-576v. He seems to have played a major role in the CBK’s drafting of the Northern Association ordinance early in 1645.253CJ iv. 9b, 110a; Harl. 166, f. 200v. And on 1 October, Stapilton and Sir Christopher Wray were majority tellers against a motion that would effectively have removed control of the Northern Association army from Sednham Poynts – a Presbyterian sympathiser and man in whom Stapilton evidently posed a great deal of trust – to the Westminster Independents.254CJ iv. 296a, 697b, 731a; v. 81b; D. Scott, ‘The ‘northern gentlemen’, the parliamentary Independents, and Anglo-Scottish relations in the Long Parliament’, HJ xlii. 361. These relatively minor victories aside, the rise of the Independents from late 1644 was an unmitigated disaster for Stapilton and hurt him not only politically but also financially. He had to make do with only a £500 part-payment of his arrears of army pay; and a Commons resolution of 1 December for settling an estate of £2,000 a year on him was never honoured.255CJ iv. 287b, 361a; LJ vii. 600b, 601a; CCAM 53. As he testily informed the House the following year

having lost my estate for about these four years, my house spoiled, my goods plundered and being brought to some necessities for the maintenance of my family, which is great, I have received £4 per week for one year, which is all that I have had any way by gift from the Parliament.256Bodl. Nalson XIV, f. 329.

Holles, in his Memoirs, contrasted the largesse bestowed on the Independent grandee Sir Arthur Hesilrige for his military services with the ‘very small’ sum ‘for so eminent an officer’ received by Stapilton.257Holles, Mems. (1699), 139. Stapilton evidently shared Holles’s indignation at the Independents’ control of the levers of patronage, trying (unsuccessfully) to have a ballot box introduced for Commons’ votes ‘on nominating persons to offices, preferments and rewards’. Opposition to this proposal was headed by Cromwell and Hesilrige.258CJ iv. 690a.

Stapilton was at the heart of the Presbyterian revival that occurred in the wake of Charles’s flight to the Scots early in May 1646. On 11 May, he was a majority teller against demanding that the Scots surrender the king; and at a conference that same day, he and Essex combined to ‘harangue’ the two Houses that they were

bound by their Covenant to defend the king’s just rights; that they had hitherto fought for that end [and] to remove his evil counsellors. He had now deserted them and freely offered himself [to the Scots], and therefore nothing now to be done but to disband the armies and conclude peace.259CJ iv. 542; Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 161.

Stapilton played a vital role in coordinating the campaign by Essex’s party and London’s ‘Covenant-engaged’ faction to pressure the Commons into accepting a Presbyterian church settlement and a swift restoration of the king.260CJ iv, 555b-556a; v. 25a; Juxon Jnl. 114. On 26 May, he was a teller with Clotworthy in support of the City remonstrance, which demanded ‘the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion’ with Scotland and the immediate dispatch of peace propositions to the king.261CJ iv. 555b-556a; To the Honourable the House of Commons...the Humble Remonstrance and Petition of the Lord Major, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London (1646, E.338.7). Again, he was not among the Commons’ first choice in 1646 when selecting conference teams or messengers to the Lords.262CJ iv. 474a, 571b, 583a, 643b; v. 32a; LJ viii. 368b. But he was appointed to a remarkable 48 tellerships that year – a majority of them with Holles and in support, directly or indirectly, of a covenanted peace settlement.263CJ iv. 412a, 419a, 428a, 463a, 471b, 506a, 512b, 542a-b, 555b-556a, 561b, 576a, 576b, 588a, 590b, 598a, 617a, 624a, 631b-632a, 640a, 655b, 659a, 665a, 665b, 672a, 677a, 680a, 690a, 697a, 697b, 715b, 716a, 725a, 730a; v. 10b-11a, 25a, 27b, 28a, 33a. His committee appointments and tellerships leave no doubt that he backed calls from the Scots and their clerical allies in the Westminster Assembly for the establishment of a ‘rigid’ Presbyterian church in England.264CJ iv. 463a, 506a, 549a, 553b, 570b, 644b, 725a; CJ v. 10b-11a, 11a, 35a. He also championed the Scots’ pretensions to a ‘joint interest’ in the settlement of the three kingdoms, receiving numerous appointments from mid-May to beef up the Presbyterian and ‘British’ content of the Newcastle peace propositions.265CJ iv. 545a-b, 549a, 553b, 571b, 576a, 576b, 583a, 584b, 587a, 590b, 604a, 643b; LJ viii. 368b. Ideally, he would have preferred a personal treaty, for the Presbyterian grandees by this stage were ‘entirely for the king’s restoration upon as moderate terms as their conduct and credit in Parliament could possibly work out and ... would willingly have had more power in the king than, when they began the war, they desired or designed’.266Col. Joseph Bampfield’s Apology ed. J. Loftis, P.H. Hardacre, 50-1. A more satisfactory settlement (from their point of view) was only possible, however, once the Independents’ main powerbase – the New Model army – had been removed, and to this end they revived their Anglo-Irish strategy of 1644. However, rather than push for a soft peace in England in order to send an army to Ireland, as they had in 1644, they now sought to send their opponents’ army to Ireland in order to secure a soft peace in England. If this design succeeded it would also undermine the Independents’ projected Irish crusade under Parliament’s newly-appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, Philip Sidney, Viscount Lisle*. It was doubtless with such calculations in mind that Stapilton stepped up his involvement in Irish affairs during 1646 and forged ties with Lisle’s leading opponent among the Irish parliamentarian interest, Murrough O’Brien, 6th Baron Inchiquin, the president of Munster.267CJ iv. 428a, 465b, 521a, 545a, 595a, 641b, 677a; v. 26a; HMC Egmont, 312, 324; J. Adamson, ‘Strafford’s ghost: the British context of Viscount Lisle’s lieutenancy of Ireland’, in Ireland from Independence to Occupation 1641-1660 ed. J. Ohlmeyer (1995), 150, 152.

A crisis in the struggle over Anglo-Irish policy in 1646 came on 31 July, when Stapilton moved that six of Fairfax’s regiments be shipped to Ireland, in what was widely perceived as an attempt ‘to weaken or rather dissolve the army’. In the event, Stapilton and Holles lost the resulting division by one vote.268CJ iv. 631b-632a; Juxon Jnl. 131; Harington’s Diary, 30. This defeat convinced the Presbyterian grandees of the futility of trying to break up or disband the New Model while Leven’s soldiers continued to occupy northern England. Consequently, they persuaded the Scots that they must withdraw their forces ‘and leave the king to them, upon assurance, which was most likely, that this was the only means to get that evil army disbanded, [and] the king and peace settled according to our minds’.269Baillie, iii. 16. The Presbyterians’ growing power at Westminster by late summer meant that Stapilton and Holles were able to secure twice as much money for the withdrawing Scottish forces (£400,000) as the Independents had proposed.270CJ iv. 655b, 659a, 663a, 665a, 665b; v. 1b, 5a, 5b. It was agreed that this huge financial outlay be met through the sale of bishops’ lands, although Stapilton personally may have been uncomfortable about driving another nail into the coffin of episcopacy. On 2 November, for example, he was named first to a committee to consider a fitting maintenance for the bishops.271CJ iv. 712a. Even more revealingly, he was a teller with Sir John Holland on 7 November against setting a different rate for the sale of bishops’ lands in reversion from those held in possession.272CJ iv. 715b. 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, Stapilton and Holland threatened to create a reversionary interest for the episcopal Church of England.

Defeat and death, 1646-7

The earl of Essex’s death in September 1646 weakened the Presbyterian party generally and Stapilton’s interest in particular, and by mid-1647, Holles was perceived by some as the more influential of the two men.273Baillie, iii. 19; A Two-Inch Board for M. Prynne to Peep Thorow (1647), 4, 5, 18. Nevertheless, Stapilton’s assignments during the last few months of 1646 – particularly his tellerships in support of receiving the king in accordance with the Covenant and the wishes of the Scots – indicates that he remained an important voice in Presbyterian counsels.274CJ iv. 672a, 675a, 730a; v. 27b, 28a, 30a, 31b, 42b. Moreover, as the Presbyterians moved into the ascendant at Westminster during the winter of 1646-7, his personal and political standing improved accordingly. Suddenly, the Commons gave order for payment of his outstanding arrears as an officer under Essex – although it is not clear that he actually received the £1,810 he was owed.275CJ v. 62a; J. Peacey, ‘Politics, accounts and propaganda in the Long Parliament’, in Parliament at Work ed. Kyle, Peacey, 70. In addition, he returned to ‘front-bench’ duties in the Commons during the first half of 1647, being named to six conference teams and acting as messenger to the Lords on four occasions.276CJ v. 53b, 63b, 66b, 85a, 114b, 121a, 135b, 157a, 159a, 199a; LJ ix. 86a, 127b, 158b, 239b. Many of his 19 tellerships during this period also related to important policy initiatives – most notably to the Presbyterians’ design, revived from 1646, for sending a downsized New Model over to Ireland.277CJ v. 42b, 73b, 90b, 91a, 99a, 108a, 108b, 127b, 137b, 143b, 155a, 162a, 175a, 202a, 214a, 264b; Whitelocke, Mems. ii. 146; Diary, 193. It was Stapilton who officially launched this renewed attack upon Fairfax’s and Lisle’s commands, moving on 28 January that the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs* ‘consider what forces are fit for carrying on the war in Ireland’.278HMC Egmont, 357; CJ v. 68b. As the issues of Ireland and the disposal of the army took centre stage at Westminster over the winter of 1646-7, so the Derby House Committee had replaced the CBK as Parliament’s main executive organ. Stapilton attended the committee on a regular basis from February; and having seized control of its proceedings by early April, he and his confederates used it to dismantle Lisle’s lieutenancy, bolster Inchiquin in Munster and begin the process of dismembering the New Model.279SP21/26, pp. 22, 82; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 729, 746; CJ v. 135b, 157a; LJ ix. 127b, 158b; HMC Egmont, 380, 391, 394; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 376-7; Clarke Pprs. i. 107, 115. His work in the Commons during the spring of 1647 complemented his activities at Derby House. He was a majority teller and committeeman to reduce the military establishment in England, raise money for the Irish service and to purge the officer corps of Independents.280CJ v. 90b, 91a, 99a, 108a, 127b, 155a, 159a, 168b.

By April 1647, it was becoming clear that many in the army would not accept the Presbyterians’ proposals for their disbandment or dispatch to Ireland. At their meetings to discuss these terms, the soldiers reportedly used ‘most bitter language against the Parliament and against Stapilton, [Sir Walter] Erle* and Holles by name. Some of the soldiers do not stick to call the Parliament-men tyrants. [John] Lilburne’s books are quoted by them as statute law’.281Add. 70005, f. 248v. Angry and frustrated by what they saw as gross insubordination, Stapilton and his colleagues struck out, sometimes literally, at the army’s friends among the London radicals.282CJ v. 153a, 162a; The Writings of William Walwyn ed. J.R. McMichael, B. Taft, 289; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 371. At the same time, they began to marshal their own military resources. Several of Stapilton’s Commons’ assignments and tellerships in the spring of 1647 related to measures for giving control of the City militia to the Covenant-engaged faction and for putting those local forces commanded by Presbyterians on a war footing.283CJ v. 132b, 137b, 143b. His particular brief was to ensure that Poynts kept the Northern Association forces ‘in a posture ready for action’ until the Presbyterians ‘should have occasion for them’.284Clarke Pprs. i. 169 It was reported that many officers under Poynts were hostile to the New Model ‘because they are and have been so much Sir Philip Stapilton’s’.285Clarke Pprs. i. 166. Stapilton was also closely involved in the Presbyterians’ efforts to enlist reformadoes – reduced soldiers – against the New Model.286CJ v. 170b, 173a, 182b, 199a, 201a; LJ ix. 239b; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 371. As a further insurance policy against the army, the Presbyterian grandees held secret talks with the Scots commissioners, the French ambassador and the queen over the spring for bringing a Scottish army back into the kingdom, ideally with the prince of Wales at its head.287Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, i. 353; ii. 370-1; Clarke Pprs i. 135; Montereul Corresp. ed. J.G. Fotheringham (Scottish Hist. Soc. xxx), 163; Gardiner, Hist. Civil War, iii. 259-60. The Presbyterians’ radical enemies in London identified the earls of Manchester and Stamford, and Stapilton, Holles, Meyrick and several other MPs as the leaders of

a haughty, traitorous party ... the Scottists of our kingdom ... who have run themselves by their wicked deeds against the king and commonwealth into a desperate condition; and therefore endeavour by all means to bring the land into a confusion and so to make our latter end worse then our beginning. This, Stapilton’s speech verifies, who lately said: “It is now come to this, that either we must sink them (meaning the army) and their friends, or they sink us”.288A. Wilbee, Plain Truth Without Feare or Flattery (1647), 3-4, 5, and unpag. (E.516.17).

The Presbyterians’ military preparations became more overt following the army’s seizure of the king at Holdenby on 1 June 1647. When hundreds of reformadoes gathered at Westminster early in June, demanding arrears of pay and shouting threats against leading Independents, they were met with placatory speeches from Holles and Stapilton, who saw them as a ‘handsome foundation to raise another army upon’.289CJ v. 201a; Clarke Pprs. i. 134, 136; Juxon Jnl. 159. According to a newsbook report of this episode, Holles’s speech was ‘short and pithy’, and Stapilton spoke ‘much to the same substance, but (according to the elegance that is hereditary to him) in another flourish. The soldiers, as if they had some natural interest in him, desired his resolution in many particulars, as concerning the time and place of pay and for their further arrears’.290The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 212 (1-8 June 1647), 556 (E.391.12). Four days later (11 June), the two Houses set up a ‘committee of safety’ – of which Stapilton would be a leading member – to join with the City militia for mobilising London against the New Model.291CJ v. 207b; Juxon Jnl. 159; Clarke Pprs. i. 132; [C. Walker*], Hist. of Independency (1648), 54 (E.463.19). In a Commons debate on 14 June on the king’s latest message to the two Houses, Stapilton opened proceedings for the Presbyterians by urging that Charles be brought to London immediately.292Clarke Pprs. i. 135. In response to these provocations, the army moved closer to London and issued ‘a particular charge or impeachment’ against 11 of the Presbyterian grandees, headed by Holles and Stapilton.293A Particular Charge or Impeachment [against the 11 Members] (1647, E.397.17); Fairfax Corresp. ed. Bell, ii. 367-83; CJ v. 236a. Assisted by the pen of William Prynne*, the accused men pleaded the ‘illegality and insufficiency’ of these charges, which were a mish-mash of allegations of political sharp practice stretching back to the start of the civil war.294W. Prynne*, A Full Vindication and Answer of the IX Accused Members (1647, E.398.17). And though they thought it prudent to withdraw from the House late in June, they only went as far as the City, where they held ‘private meetings ... to countermine the army’ and organised a propaganda campaign for bringing Charles to London to conclude a personal treaty.295CJ v. 225a; The Petition of the Members of the House of Commons who are Accused by the Army (1647, E.396.7); Juxon Jnl. 161; Bampfield’s Apology ed. Loftis, Hardacre, 61.

The Eleven Members very probably played a major role in instigating the Presbyterian ‘riots’ at Westminster of 26 July, and they certainly exploited them in a final desperate bid to defeat the army. With the help of the Covenant-engaged faction they revived the committee of safety, raised the City’s defences and – with Stapilton as one of the majority tellers – voted on 2 August that the king come to London ‘without any satisfaction named’.296Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 652-3; CJ v. 264b; CCSP i. 386; Juxon Jnl. 163-6; P. Crawford, Denzil Holles, 1598-1680 (1979), 156 This was Stapilton’s last official duty in the Long Parliament. The City’s defiance of the New Model crumbled a few days later, the army entered London on 6 August, and the Eleven Members exited the political stage – a group of them, including Holles and Stapilton, taking ship for Calais. On the crossing to France, Stapilton fell sick and died in Calais on 18 August of what the locals feared was the plague. He was buried in the town’s Protestant burial ground that same day.297Add. 61989, f. 155; Beinecke Lib. Osborn Files 39.57: Sir William Waller* to ?, 27 Aug. 1647; A Short and True Narrative, 6-11.

In his will, Stapilton left the bulk of his estate to his eldest son John and made bequests totalling almost £5,000. His legatees included his chaplain John Cole (a Presbyterian) and his ‘noble friends’ Holles, Lewis and Clotworthy, to each of whom he left a case of his ‘best pistols’. Stapilton’s acute sense of his own honour is clear in his instructions to his son John ‘that he lead his life in the fear of God and go upon those principles of honour and justice to all men and of love to his country, as may make him worthy of being my son’.298PROB11/202, ff. 24v-25; Calamy Revised, 124-5. None of Stapilton’s immediate family sat in Parliament.

At least some of the responsibility for the Presbyterians’ defeat in 1647 must rest with Stapilton. Like Holles, he allowed his personal animus against the army’s leaders to get the better of his political judgement – notably, in the spring of 1647, when the Presbyterian grandees’ over-reaction to the soldiers’ grievances did much to transform material discontent in the ranks into political opposition.299Crawford, Holles, 163. Holles’s fiery temper was perhaps his greatest flaw as a politician; in Stapilton’s case, his sense of himself as a man of ‘honour and justice’ may well have stunted his development as a party leader, with all the compromising and chicanery that that role often required. In the end, it seems, he was too scrupulous and dignified a man for the politics of the time and was mourned as such by friend and foe alike.