This gentleman was the third son of Richard Stapleton, esq; of
Carleton, in Mereland in Yorkshire, and was educated a Roman Catholic,
in the college of the English Benedictines, at Doway in Flanders, but
being born with a poetical turn, and consequently too volatile to be
confined within the walls of a cloister, he threw off the restraint of
his education, quitted a recluse life, came over to England, and
commenced Protestant[1]. Sir Robert having good interest, found the
change of religion prepared the way to preferment; he was made
gentleman usher of the privy chamber to King Charles II. then Prince
of Wales; we find him afterwards adhering to the interest of his Royal
Master, for when his Majesty was driven out of London, by the
threatnings and tumults of the discontented rabble, he followed him,
and on the 13th of September, 1642, he received the honour of
knighthood. After the battle of Edgehill, when his Majesty was obliged
to retire to Oxford, our author then attended him, and was created Dr.
of the civil laws. When the Royal cause declined, Stapleton thought
proper to addict himself to study, and to live quietly under a
government, no effort of his could overturn, and as he was not amongst
the most conspicuous of the Royalists, he was suffered to enjoy his
solitude unmolested. At the restoration he was again promoted in the
service of King Charles II. and held a place in that monarch's esteem
'till his death. Langbaine, speaking of this gentleman, gives him a
very great character; his writings, says he, have made him not only
known, but admired throughout all England, and while Musæus and
Juvenal are in esteem with the learned, Sir Robert's fame will still
survive, the translation of these two authors having placed his name
in the temple of Immortality. As to Musæus, he had so great a value
for him, that after he had translated him, he reduced the story into a