STAPLETON, THOMAS. - Catholic controversialist, born at Hensfield (Sussex) in July 1535, died at Louvain on 12 Oct. 1598. Bachelor at Oxford (Dec. 1556), he obtained a prebend in the cathedral of Chichester; upon Elizabeth’s accession, he continued his studies at Louvain, Paris, and, after a journey to Rome, again at Louvain.
Returning to England, he lost his benefice for refusing to abjure Catholicism, and in 1563 emigrated, with his father and some relatives, to Louvain. He was later (1569) at the English College of Douai (doctor, 1571); spent the winter and spring of 1576–77 in Rome; in 1584 he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus but had to renounce it on account of poor health; in 1590 he succeeded M. Baius in the chair of Sacred Scripture at Louvain. In 1596, summoned by Clement VIII to Rome as an apostolic protonotary, he did not go, either because powerful political influences, fearing his nomination as cardinal, obstructed his departure, or for other reasons.
He is especially noteworthy as an upholder of the authority of the Roman Pontiff, alongside Bellarmine; even his Anglican adversaries acknowledged his profound learning; information provided by him was used by Pius V for the bull Regnans in excelsis (1570), in which Elizabeth was condemned. His numerous writings are collected in the Opera Omnia (4 vols., Paris 1624), which includes an autobiography in hexameters and a Life of him by H. Holland.