Miles Stapleton, 1st Lord Stapleton

The first member of the family to attain any position was Nicholas de Stapleton I, who was custos of Middleham Castle in the reign of King John.

Miles's only son, Thomas, died in 1373, whereupon the barony fell into abeyance, and the estates of the elder branch passed to his sister Elizabeth, and remained with the Metham family, her husband's kin.

Miles was one of the experienced men of affairs to whom Edward I entrusted the difficult task of bringing up his son in businesslike and soldierly ways.

In 1305 he was, jointly with John de Byron, appointed commissioner to suppress the clubmen or trailbastons of Lancashire, but they were shortly afterwards superseded.

In a few months, however, he lost his stewardship, and was forced to surrender the royal manor of Burstwick in Holderness, of which he had had custody, to Piers Gaveston.

His losses in the interests of Gaveston made Stapleton hostile to his old master Edward, and attached him to Earl Thomas of Lancaster.

[1] Among Miles's pious benefactions the most important was the establishment of a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas in North Moreton, where he had an outlying estate.

This building still survives, with the contemporary stained glass in the east window, now much spoilt through successive stages of neglect and restoration.

The license to alienate lands in mortmain to endow two chaplains to celebrate divine service in the chapel is dated 28 March 1299.