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172 Glimpses of Our Ancestors. |
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Justice and signed the death-warrant. His name, like those of other Regicides, was excepted from pardon, and, giving himself up, he was tried in October, 1660, and condemned to death, but pleaded so hard for his life that he was reprieved, and died in prison.
Anthony Stapley was a Sussex man tout pur, and belonged to the landed gentry class. He was the son of Anthony Stapley, of Framfield, by a daughter of another Sussex family, the Thatchers. He is sometimes described as of Patcham (near Brighton), to which place the family removed from Framfield between 1620 and 1630. Another branch of the Stapleys was settled at Hickstead Place, Twineham, and the diaries left by some of its members have been aheady referred to in this volume. But the Twineham Stapleys inclined to the Royal cause. Anthony Stapley, of Framfield and Patcham, early took sides with the opponents of the King in the Long Parliament; refused to contribute to the war against the Scots; and, on the breaking out of hostilities, received a colonel's commission in the Parliamentary army. His standing in Sussex must have been high, for he was returned both for Lewes (with Herbert Morley) and for the county, and elected to sit (in the Long Parliament) for the latter. Appointed one of the High Court of Justice, he attended nearly all its sittings, and signed the death-warrant. He was appointed on the Councils of State that preceded the Protectorate in 1649-50-53, and was for some time Governor of Chichester. His wife was a Goring—a sister of that Goring Earl of Norwich who took so active a part for the Royal cause. Dying before the Restoration, he escaped both the fate of the other Regicides and the shame that the conduct of his two sons would doubtless have caused him. Both these young men, John, the eldest, and Anthony, had tendered their service to the Protector and were put by him on the Commission of Sussex. But in 1658 they engaged in a plot (referred to, but very cautiously, in the diary of Anthony Stapley, of Hickstead Place), with the Marquis of Ormond, for the restoration of Charles II. The |
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