Middleton (called Monck) of Belsey Castle, Baronet 1662.
John de Middleton, father of Sir Richard Middleton, sometime secretary and chancellor to King Henry III., is the first on record of the ancestors of this family. The castle of Belsey appears to have come from the heiress of Stryvelin in the reign of Edward III. The name was exchanged for Monck in 1799. A younger branch, now extinct, was of Silksworth, co. Durham.
See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 353; "The Record of the House of Gourney," 4to, pr. pr. 1848, p. 560; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 382.
Arms.—Quarterly gules and or, in the first quarter a cross flory argent.
Present Representative, Sir Charles Miles Lambert Monck, sixth Baronet.
Selby of Biddleston.
In 1272, King Edward I. granted in the first year of his reign the lands of Biddleston to Sir Walter de Selby: it has ever since remained in the possession of his descendants, and has been usually the chief seat of the Selbys. Their early history unfortunately is defective, occasioned by an accidental fire which took place at Allenton in 1721, at that time the residence of the family, whose evidences were thereby mostly destroyed.
For the grant above mentioned, and for the pedigree, see Mackenzie's View of Northumberland, ii. 39.