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a1513 R. Fabyan New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) I. f. ccxviii^v Whan Kyng Edwarde was thus stablysshed in this Realme great sute and labour was made to hym for the repayment of the foresayd. xviii. M. li. to hym and other dyleueryd by the Stapelers.

a1513 R. Fabyan New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) I. f. cx To the Kynges aduauntage was graunted, to the mayntenaunce of his warres .l. s. of a sak of woll, For the Terme of .vi. yeres, But it contynued lenger though the Marchauntes staplers ther at grudgyd.

1569 R. Grafton Chron. II. 659 The Lordes borowed of the Marchantes of the Staple .xviij. thousand pound, the which money the Staplers did nowe sue for vnto King Edwarde to be repayed vnto them.

1585–6 Earl of Leicester Corr. (Camden) 398 Our staplers of late complayned for the burden layd uppon ther wares at Midleborough.

1601 J. Wheeler Treat. Commerce 82 The Staplers Companie haue drawne the trade of English Wooll into their owne hands onely.

1608 T. Middleton Familie of Love (new ed.) i. sig. B2 You marchants were wont to bee Marchaunt staplers.

1645 J. Howell Epistolæ Ho-elianæ vi. l. 76 The Staplers of Hamborough and Rotterdam.

1650 J. Howell Epistolæ Ho-elianæ (ed. 2) vi. iii. 184 They..so divided themselves (though they bee now but one) to Staplers and Merchant Adventurers.

1651 N. Bacon Contin. Hist. Disc. Govt. 74 Nor doth it appear to me that the Staplers in these times used such course, or were other then meer Officers for the regulating of the Staple.

1890 C. Gross Gild Merchant I. 140 The staplers were merchants who had the monopoly of exporting the principal raw commodities of the realm.

1893 Dict. National Biogr. XXXIV. 425 McBride, John..was admitted a free stapler of Belfast on 8 April 1644.

1908 H. O. Meredith Econ. Hist. Eng. 153 During the first half of the fifteenth century the Merchant Staplers were a powerful company, whose members lived either in English ports or in Calais, who directed the export trade of the country.

1912 Eng. Hist. Rev. Oct. 811 This strengthens the hypothesis that the staplers and the adventurers sprang from a common root.