Sir Miles Stapleton, Knight of the Order of the Garter was Lord of the Manor of Ingham, Norfolk and de jure Baron Ingham of Ingham, Norfolk, and Lord of the Manor of Bedale, Yorkshire.
Background
Sir Miles Stapleton was the son of Sir Brian Stapleton, of Ingham (1379 - 1438), Sheriff of Norfolk, a veteran of the Battle of Agincourt, and Cecily Bardolf (d 1432), daughter to William Bardolf, 4th Baron Bardolf, of Wormegay, Norfolk, and Agnes de Poynings. Sir Miles Stapleton married firstly Elizabeth Felbrigge, daughter of Sir Simon Felbrigge, Knight of the Garter, of Felbrigg, Norfolk by Margaret, perhaps of Teschen, a kinswoman and lady in waiting to English queen Anne of Bohemia.
Career
He did homage for his paternal inheritance on 2 February 1440. They had no issue. They had two known daughters, the eldest, Elizabeth Stapleton, married before March 1464, Sir William Calthorpe, Knight, of Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk. The younger daughter, Jane (or Joan) Stapleton (d 1519), married Sir Christopher Harcourt, Knight, of Great Ashby, (Ashby Magna), Leicestershire (d 1474) and re-married John Hudleston (Huddleston), of Millom Castle appointed sheriff of Cumberland by the Duke of Gloucester and keeper and bailiff of the king"s woods and chases in Barnoldswick, Yorkshire, steward of Penrith and warden of the west marches.
He was a Knight of the Shire for Suffolk, and for Norfolk also, and was High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1440.
In 1441-1442 Sir Miles Stapleton and Thomas Tudenham were summoned as Knights and Member of Parliament"s for Norfolk to attend the Privy Council. In 1442 he also had a Royal Commission for the Safekeeping of the seas.
Stapleton was in the French wars, where he single-handedly took seven prisoners, for whom he was given a Safe-Conduct dated 22 June 1436/7 to take them into Flanders "pro finantiis suis" probably to get money for their ransoms. Stapleton is mentioned in the 1449 poem Amoryus and Cleopes, as the patron of its author John Metham.
His Arms are recorded as Argent, a lion rampant sable.
Stapleton was buried in Ingham Priory, Norfolk, where there was once a monumental brass, (now lost).
