Bryan Stapleton

Through his father, he was a great-grandson of Ladereyne (Laderina), daughter of Peter III de Brus of Skelton, a descendant of the Bruces.

His first campaign must have been King Edward III's expedition to France in 1340 and the siege of Tournai - he stated this himself during a heraldic dispute involving his friend, Richard, Lord Scrope of Bolton.

Stapleton was made a knight of the Garter in 1382; in the following year he and Salisbury escorted King Richard II's young bride, Anne of Bohemia, to Calais; and in 1383 he held a muster there of the troops led by Henry le Despenser, Bishop of Norwich for a campaign in Flanders.

He served on the Scottish border between 1386 and 1388, when he was both a commissioner to take evidence and a witness in Lord Scrope's dispute with Sir Robert Grosvenor mentioned above.

[1] Brian Stapleton, his young grandson, succeeded him, and fell near Alençon in 1417, fighting in the retinue of Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury.