Robert Stapylton

Sir Robert Stapylton or Stapleton (died 1669) was an English courtier, dramatic poet and translator.

Life

He was the third son of Richard Stapleton of Carlton by Snaith, Yorkshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont. He was educated in the Benedictine convent of St. Gregory at Douai, where he became a professed monk of the order on 30 March 1625. He left the Benedictines, turned Protestant, and was appointed one of the gentlemen in ordinary of the privy chamber to Prince Charles. He followed the king when Charles left London at the outbreak of the First English Civil War, and was knighted at Nottingham on 13 September 1642. After the battle of Edgehill he accompanied the king to Oxford, where he was created D.C.L. in November 1642. He remained at Oxford until its surrender to Thomas Fairfax in May 1645. Under the Commonwealth he lived a studious life, and at the Restoration he was made one of the gentlemen ushers to the privy chamber.

Stapleton died on 10 or 11 July 1669, and was buried on the 15th near the vestry door of Westminster Abbey. His will, dated 11 June 1669, was proved on 29 July by Elizabeth Simpson of Westminster, widow, to whom he left the bulk of his estate (although he had a wife living, whom he barely mentioned) in consideration, as he alleged, of the great care she had taken of him during his long illness. His wife was a Mrs. Hammond, widow (born Mainwaring).

Works

For the stage he wrote:

Stapleton published the following translations:

He wrote verses: before Samuel Harding's ‘Sicily and Naples,’ a play, 1640; before Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth's ‘Romulus and Tarquine,’ 1648; before William Cartwright's ‘Comedies,’ 1651; before Edmund Gayton's ‘Case of Longevity,’ 1659; and some left in manuscript.

Langbaine states that Stapleton executed the translations of Melchior 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. Thompson Cooper, however, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, considers that the real translator was Thomas Sydserf or Saint Serfe, son of the Scottish bishop Thomas Sydserf.

References

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