- Oxford, 1644, 8vo. Dr. Bartholomew Holyday used to say that Stapleton made use of his translation of Juvenal, having borrowed it in manuscript.
- ‘The Loves of Hero and Leander: a Greek poem [by Musæus] translated into English verse, with annotations upon the original,’ Oxford, 1645, 4to; London, 1647, 8vo.
- ‘Juvenal's Sixteen Satyrs [translated in verse]. Or, a Survey of the Manners and Actions of Mankind. With arguments, marginall notes, and annotations,’ London, 1647, 8vo; 1660, fol. 1673, 8vo.
- Translation of Faminius Strada's ‘De Bello Belgico,’ or ‘The History of the Low-Countrey Warres,’ London, 1650 and 1667, fol.
He has verses (a) before Harding's ‘Sicily and Naples,’ a play, 1640; (b) before the Earl of Monmouth's ‘Romulus and Tarquine,’ 1648; (c) before Cartwright's ‘Comedies,’ 1651; (d) before Gayton's ‘Case of Longevity,’ 1659; (e) in Ashmolean MS. 36.
Langbaine states that Stapleton executed the translations of De Marmet's ‘Entertainments of the Cours; or Academical Conversations,’ 1658, and of Cyrano de Bergerac's ‘Σεληναρχία, or the Government of the World in the Moon,’ 1659, both published under the name of Thomas Saint Serf. It appears, however, that the real translator was Thomas Sydserf or Saint Serfe, son of Thomas Sydserf [q. v.], bishop of Galloway and afterwards of Orkney (Miscellany of the Abbotsford Club, i. 85).
There are three engraved portraits of Stapleton. One is by William Marshall.
Sir Miles Stapleton (1628–1707), third son of Sir Robert's eldest brother Gilbert (d 1634), by his wife Eleanor, daughter of Sir John Gascoigne of Barnbow, first baronet, was born in 1628, and created a baronet on 20 March 1661–2. Being charged by the informer Bolron with being concerned in the plot of Sir Thomas Gascoigne [q. v.], in June 1680 he was sent from London to be tried at York (Luttrell, Historical Relation of State Affairs, i. 48). He was brought to the bar in the following month, but he challenged so many jurors that the trial was postponed. It came off on 18 July 1681, and there were three witnesses against him, viz. Bolron, Mowbray, and John Smith of Walworth, Durham. Sir Miles defended himself energetically, and brought many persons to throw discredit on the testimony of the informers. The jury immediately acquitted him; but, as Dodd observes, it is very surprising that when Thomas Thwing was afterwards tried upon the same evidence, he was condemned and executed (Church Hist. iii. 254). Sir Miles was a gentleman of great honour, position, and ability. On his death in 1707 the baronetcy became extinct. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Bertie, earl of Lindsey [q. v.], by whom he had three sons, all dying in infancy; his second wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Langueville.
[Chetwynd-Stapylton's Stapeltons of Yorkshire, 1897, pp. 165, 169; Addit. MS. 24489, pp. 81, 366; Ashmolean MS. 788, art. 27; Baker's Biogr. Dramatica, 1812, i. 682, ii. 298, iii. 228, 283, 300; Brüggemann's English Editions of Greek and Latin Authors, pp. 13, 679, 699; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p. 506; Cibber's Lives of the Poets, ii. 102; Courthope's Synopsis, p. 188; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 252, 253; Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1500–1714), iv. 1413; Granger's Biogr. Hist. of England, 5th edit. iii. 134, iv. 53; Hazlitt's Manual of Old English Plays; Langbaine's Dramatick Poets, p. 491; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, p. 2495; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 39; Depositions from the Castle of York, 1861.]
STAPLETON, THEOBALD (fl. 1636), Irish writer, who called himself in Irish Teaboid Gállduf, was a native of Kilkenny of English descent, but does not seem to have been related to the Stapletons of Yorkshire (Chetwynd-Stapylton, Stapeltons of Yorkshire, 1897). He was ordained priest and lived for some time in Flanders. In 1639 he published in Brussels, ‘Catechismus seu Doctrina Christiana Latino-Hibernica,’ dedicated to Ferdinand, infant of Spain. He says that his motive in making the translation was that Irish was too much considered the exclusive property of poets and secular authors, so that the Irish themselves often said prayers in Latin, though knowing no language but Irish. The book, which is a quarto, was printed by Hubert Anthony Velpius at the Golden Eagle near the palace in Brussels, and is remarkable as the first book in which the Irish language was printed in Roman type. The title-page has a vignette copied with slight differences from that of the Sgathan an Chrabhaidh printed at Louvain in 1616. At the end is printed ‘Modh ro vras na teanghan Ghaoilaige do leagh,’ directions for reading Irish. The Irish letters, diphthongs, tripthongs, aspiration, eclipsis, and some contractions are explained in nineteen sections.
[Works; Anderson's Historical Sketches of the Native Irish, 2nd ed. 1830; Rev. C. P. Meehan's Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, 6th ed.]
STAPLETON, THOMAS, D.D. (1535–1598), catholic controversialist, born at Henfield, Sussex, in July 1535, was son of
