Born at Carlton, Yorkshire, he was seventh son of Nicholas Stapleton, by his third wife, Winifred, daughter of John White of Dover Street, London.
About three years after the outbreak of the French Revolution he and the students of the English colleges at St. Omer and Douai were imprisoned in the citadel of Doullens.
In 1795 he obtained leave to go to Paris, and after difficulties he procured from the directory an order for the release of all the students, sixty-four in number.
[1] Soon afterwards Stapleton, with Bishop John Douglass, went to the Duke of Portland and William Pitt, to solicit their approval of a plan for converting the school at Old Hall Green, near Ware, Hertfordshire, into a Catholic college.
Stapleton's appointment to be titular bishop of Hierocæsarea and vicar apostolic of the Midland district, in succession to Charles Berington, was approved by the pope on 29 May 1800, and he was consecrated on 8 March 1801.