John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse

The Right Honourable The Lord Belasyse PC
1st Baron Belasyse Portrait by Gilbert Jackson, 1636
Personal details
Born	(1614-06-24)24 June 1614 Newburgh Grange, Yorkshire
Died	10 September 1689(1689-09-10) (aged 75) Whitton, Middlesex
Resting place	St Giles in the Fields, London
Citizenship	English
Nationality	English

John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse (or Bellasis) PC (24 June 1614 – 10 September 1689) was an English nobleman, soldier and Member of Parliament, notable for his role during and after the English Civil War. He suffered a long spell of imprisonment during the Popish Plot, although he was never brought to trial.

Balasyse was the second son of Thomas Belasyse, 1st Baron Fauconberg (1577–1652), and Barbara, daughter of Sir Henry Cholmondeley of Roxby, Yorkshire. He was born at Newburgh Grange, and baptised (24 July 1614) at Coxwold, both in Yorkshire. He was MP for Thirsk in the Short and Long Parliaments.

Shortly after the start of the Civil War he was "disabled" from sitting in the Long Parliament because he joined the Royalist cause, he raised six regiments of horse and foot soldiers at his own expense, and took part in the battles of Edgehill and Brentford (both in 1642), Newbury (1643), Selby (1644) and Naseby (1645), as well as the sieges of Reading (1643), Bristol and Newark – being wounded several times. He later became Lieutenant-General of the King's forces in the North of England, and Governor of York and of Newark. In Oxford on 27 January 1645 he was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Belasyse of Worlaby, Lincolnshire.

On 4 February 1665 Samuel Pepys recorded an anecdote about Belasyse's civil war activities in a diary entry: