Family and Education

b. 3 Nov. 1655, 1st s. of (Sir) John Stapley. educ. Trinity, Oxf. 1672. m. 28 Mar. 1675, Alicia (d.1734), da. of Sir Richard Colepeper, 2nd Bt., of Preston Hall, Aylesford, Kent, 4s. (3 d.v.p.) 1da.

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Suss. 1679-80, j.p. 1682-?87.

Biography

Stapley owed his seat at Seaford to Sir William Thomas, who had married his aunt. At the first general election of 1679 he defeated Edward Selwyn, which encouraged Lord Huntingdon to put him down as an exclusionist. Shaftesbury more perceptively marked him ‘base’, and he voted against the bill. Otherwise he was totally inactive, and in the second Exclusion Parliament he was ordered to be sent for in custody as a defaulter. He was added to the commission of the peace in 1682, but he shared his father’s financial difficulties and was soon obliged to go abroad, though his wife apparently found shelter with the Thomases. He was still living in 1686, but his widow had remarried Sir Thomas Taylor by 1693. His children all died unmarried before their grandfather.

The Gen. n.s. xviii. 142-3, 148-9; Suss. N. and Q. ix. 155; H. Stapley, Stapley Pprs. 32.

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Basil Duke Henning

Notes