University Archives
Barons Beaumont (Stapleton family), of Carlton Towers
The Stapletons of Yorkshire were originally from Richmondshire and can be traced back to Nicholas de Stapleton, a judge on the King's Bench who died in 1290. The next generation settled in Yorkshire and several branches of the family developed at Carlton and Bedale, and then Wighill and Myton. Miles de Stapleton, who served in the Gascon and Scottish wars of Edward I, was the common ancestor. He was created 1st baron, Lord Stapleton. Carlton came into the family as part of his wife's inheritance. He and two of his sons were killed at Bannockburn in 1314. Nicholas de Stapleton (1290-1343), 2nd Lord Carlton, fought in the wars of Scotland and his son, Miles de Stapleton (1319-1372), was escheator and high sheriff of Yorkshire. In 1374 the estates passed to Brian de Stapleton (1326-1394), who had fought at the siege of Tournay in 1340 and the siege of Calais in 1347. One of his descendants, Philip Stapleton (1603-1647) of Wighill, was the parliamentary leader sent to York to resist the attempts of Charles I to gain Hull. Another, Brian Stapleton (d.1658) of Myton, was a royalist, and became Receiver General of the North for Charles I. The Carlton line of the family was continued with the descendants of Brian Stapleton (1385-1418), whose grandson married Joan Lovell, heiress of Viscount and Baron Beaumont. The Stapletons were a Catholic family who suffered the full weight of recusancy fines. Miles Stapleton (b.1626), was a recusant who was tried for complicity in the Popish Plot. His three children died prematurely and the line of the family died out with his generation. Nicholas Errington (d.1716) then took the name Stapleton and Carlton descended through his family. One of his descendants, Gregory Stapleton (1748-1802), attended the English college at Douai in the 1760s, was president of the English college at St Omer from 1787 and was vicar-apostolic for the Midland district of England when he died in 1802. Another descendant, Thomas Stapleton (1778-1854), came into the Carlton inheritance in 1839. He laid claim to the Beaumont barony and became 8th baron Beaumont in 1840. He rebuilt the Jacobean house at Carlton with the help of E W Pugin and plans are extant. He was succeeded by his son, Henry Stapleton (1848-1892), 9th baron Beaumont, who fought in the Zulu Wars. He married Violet Wooton Isaacson, but there were no children. Carlton transferred, on his death, to his brother Miles Stapleton, who married Mary Ethel Tempest, sole heir of Charles Henry Tempest. In 1895 Miles Stapleton was killed in a shooting accident, leaving his daughter, Mona Josephine Tempest, as the sole heir to the Carlton estates of the Stapleton family and the Bolton estates of the Tempest family. Mona Josephine Tempest Stapleton became Baroness Beaumont and in 1914 she married Bernard Edward, 3rd Baron Howard of Glossop, and great grandson of the 13th Duke of Norfolk. Their eldest son, Miles Francis Stapleton Fitzalan Howard is 12th Baron Beaumont and 4th Lord Howard of Glossop and in 1975 he succeeded his cousin as 17th Duke of Norfolk. He is the current owner of the papers of the Stapleton, Errington and Tempest families. There are circa 15,000 items in the Beaumont family collection, the earliest item dating from the late eleventh century. One deposit comprises the papers of the Tempest family of Bolton, Lancashire. The first and largest deposit contains mainly title deeds and other documents relating to the estates of the Stapleton family, especially in Carlton and Drax in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in Aiskew and Bedale in the North Riding and Berwick on the Hill and Pontiland in Northumberland (Errington family). It also contains some family papers and a portfolio of Norman charters which includes the 1087 confirmation by William II and Duke Robert II of Normandy of an exchange of lands in the county of Bayeaux. The second deposit includes records of Marrick Priory such as the founding gift of Roger de Aske 1154-8 and fifteenth-century account rolls.There is a large amount of correspondence particularly of the 8th Lord Beaumont, mostly about estate affairs. There are some letters to the 9th Lord Beaumont and circa 200 letters to his wife, Violet Isaacson. There is genealogical material and correspondence about the Beaumont peerage. [DDCA; DDCA(2); DDCA(3); DDCA(4); DDCA(5)]
Related papers are held at the East Riding of Yorkshire Archives Service [DDCL].