Sir Miles Stapleton of Bedale (or of Cotherstone) KG (1320?-1364) was an English knight, one of the Knights Founder of the Order of the Garter. He was the eldest son of Gilbert de Stapleton, knt. (d. 1321), and the grandson of Miles de Stapleton (d. 1314). His mother was Matilda (b. 1298), also called Agnes, elder daughter and coheiress of Brian FitzAlan, lord of Bedale, Askham Bryan, and Cotherstone. Through his paternal line, he was a great-grandson of Dervorguilla of Galloway, mother of John Balliol, King of Scotland, and a descendant of the Bruces by Laderia, daughter of Peter III de Brus of Skelton and grandmother of Sir Gilbert. Sir Miles Stapleton of Bedale should not be confused with Sir Miles Stapleton of Haddlesey (c.1318-1372), occasionally identified as le seigneur.

Only an infant at the death of his father, he was at the siege of Tournai (1340) with his younger brother Brian Stapleton, and then fought in Brittany during the War of Breton Succession. He was probably at the siege of Calais in 1347. He participated in three tournaments between October 1347 and January 1348, at Bury St Edmunds, Eltham, and Windsor, after which he was described as a knight of the chamber in the Wardrobe accounts.

In October 1351 Stapleton joined the newly knighted William Latimer abroad. In 1354 he participated in an embassy to Pope Innocent VI requesting intervention in the Anglo-French war. Stapleton joined Henry Lancaster's raid across Normandy in 1356 in support of Philippe de Navarre, whom he served in 1358 as a messenger. In June 1361 he received an annuity of 100l. from the exchequer for his ‘unwearied labors and laudable services.'[1]. He may have been the Miles Stapleton who was one of the witnesses to the treaty of Brétigny in 1360. In March 1361 and August 1362 he served on commissions of peace with the Earl of Suffolk. In January 1363 Stapleton was one of a group of English knights recorded as borrowing money from local merchants at Thorn in Poland, most likely during a Prussian crusade.

He died in December of 1364, possibly, as the family historian conjectures, of wounds received in the battle of Auray (29 September 1364).

Miles de Stapleton, inherited Bedale and was lord of Cotherstone. He fought during the French wars of Edward III and was one of the foundation knights of the garter. His first wife and son predeceased him. His second wife, Joan, was the heiress to estates at Ingham county Norfolk and together they rebuilt the church at Ingham (where fine family brasses were preserved for several centuries) and founded a college of trinitarian canons who prayed for the release of crusader captives of the Turks. Miles de Stapleton died in 1364, leaving his eldest son by Joan, another Miles de Stapleton, to inherit while still under age. He died in 1419 to be succeeded by his son Brian de Stapleton (d. 1438) and his grandson, Miles de Stapleton (d. 1466). The latter left two daughters who became coheiresses to the estates in Norfolk, but by the tail male Bedale reverted to the descendants of Gilbert de Stapleton's younger son, Brian de Stapleton (b. circa 1326), to whom we now return (Foster, Pedigrees; Dictionary of National Biography; Robinson, Carlton Towers, p.10).