Corbet, Miles (1594/5–1662), politician and regicide, is usually described as the second son of Sir Thomas Corbet of Sprowston, Norfolk, and his wife, Anne, daughter of Edward Barret of Belhouse, Essex, and brother of Sir John Corbet (d. 1628), 1st baronet, MP for Norfolk (1624) and for Great Yarmouth (1625, 1626), though it has been suggested that he was perhaps in fact a son of Sir John Corbett and his wife, a daughter of Sir Arthur Capel. He matriculated from Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1612, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 9 October 1615, after time spent at Thavies Inn; he was called to the bar in 1623. Corbet became recorder of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, in 1625, and represented that borough as an MP in 1628, and in 1640 in both the Short parliament and the Long parliament. Among the more radical of civil war parliamentarians, in civil and religious terms (he was probably an Independent in religion), Corbet chaired a number of parliamentary committees, most notably the committee for examinations, and liaised with Eastern Association institutions. He briefly held office as clerk of the court of wards in 1644–5 and was appointed a registrar in chancery on 7 March 1648.
Corbet was included among those named as a court of justice for the trial of Charles I in January 1649 and signed the king's death warrant. He was active in the Rump parliament in 1649–50, particularly concerning himself with naval affairs. On 27 November 1650 he was named one of four commissioners for the government of Ireland and arrived in Ireland soon afterwards. Uniquely, he retained his position at the centre of the Irish administration until 1659, serving either as a commissioner (1650–54 and 1659) or as a member of the councils of lord deputies Fleetwood (qv) and Henry Cromwell (qv). He also served on commissions for the land settlement in Ireland. In 1655 he was appointed chief baron of the Irish exchequer, and acted as one of three commissioners of the great seal of Ireland from June 1655 to August 1656. Corbet built up extensive estates in Ireland through the adventure, drawing land in Queen's County and Westmeath; he also held leases on properties in County Dublin centred on Malahide castle, where he resided.
Corbet had been a critic of Henry Cromwell's policies, and with the fall of the protectorate he was appointed one of the commissioners for Ireland by the revived Rump regime in June 1659, in place of Henry Cromwell, continuing to act as a commissioner after the regime had been temporarily overthrown. On 13 December 1659 officers in Dublin launched a coup leading to Corbet's arrest, and his inclusion in articles of impeachment drawn up against those recently in power. Escaping house arrest he returned to England in January. The charges against him were read in the Rump parliament on 19 January but though replacement commissioners were named the impeachment was not pursued. His election to the 1660 Convention, for Yarmouth, was overturned on 18 May 1660. Corbet fled to Holland but he was arrested by agents of the restored Charles II on 11 March 1662. He was executed in London on 19 April 1662 as a regicide. What purported to be his speech and prayer from the scaffold, together with remarks made during his last days in the Tower, were published soon after his death as The speeches, discourses and prayers of Colonel John Barkstead . . . and Miles Corbett . . . (London, 1662). He was survived by his wife, Mary, and two sons.