MARTHA Lane Fox, it turns out, could be a chip off the old chopping block on which the venomous Sockburn Worm was killed nine centuries ago; verily a microchip in a story that runs from chain-mail to e-mail, from a dotty deed to a dot.com.

The lastminute.com millionaire may be a twig on a family tree which has banyanned lustily since its sapling days when Sir John Conyers swung a falchion at County Durham's southernmost dragon. This I deduce from a new book whose starting point is the Sockburn legend and which, via much intrigue and titillation, comes in 1892 to the 13th Baroness Conyers, Marcia Amelia Lane-Fox.

Not for the nobs to be promiscuous with their Christian names, to bring in Sharons, Kevins and Kylies on fashionable whim; they stick to what they know. There have been Marcias in the family since the first of them married into chatelaineship of Bramham Park, near Wetherby. And there was a naughty Amelia, 9th Baroness Conyers, whose adventures are worth a diversion.

After inheriting the title in 1778 - and Hornby Castle, near Bedale, a family seat for five centuries until 70 years ago - she soon left her husband, the Marquess of Carmarthen, for a Captain Byron. There was her trial for adultery, divorce, marriage to the captain, then early death and burial at Hornby.

The captain's son by his second wife was mad, bad and dangerous to know Lord Byron. Notoriously, he had an incestuous affair with Lady Amelia's daughter by his father, his half-sister Augusta. The name game continues: the child of his ill-fated marriage to Arabella Milbanke (their unhappy honeymoon began on her father's estate at Croft near Darlington) was christened Augusta.

Who was Lord Conyers? is a self-published book by Geoff Nuttall, whose interest was sparked by his membership of a morris dance team, drinkers at the Lord Conyers Arms in the Sheffield village of Wales.

The answer which emerges from the myriad blood and matrimonial lines trawled by the author is: very many things. For there were 14 incarnations of his lordship after enoblement in 1509 and, for centuries before then as a mere knight (of Norman descent), he was mainly a soldier and a feuder whose jobs in times of royal favour included constable of Durham, Richmond and Middleham castles.

Let's get the worm thing out of the way. Some legendeers say it was a Sir John who returned to his Bishopton and Sockburn lands in 1146 to find the latter terrorised by the monster; 1063 and 1180 are other dates cited. Others say the tale is only symbolic, of Sir Roger Conyers ridding the palatinate of a Scottish usurper in 1143; still others claim it was a Saxon story heard by 9th-century Viking colonisers who, enjoyers of dragon myths of their own, encouraged its revival to gain empathy with the locals.

There was the Sir Robert, 12th-century lord of Hutton Conyers, near Ripon, said to have been killed by his brother; another Sir Robert distinguished himself in the Wars of the Roses and was the "Robin of Redesdale" Robin Hood figure who led a Yorkshire uprising against Edward IV; and there were marriages which linked the Conyers to the dynasties of Scrope (Bolton Castle, Wensleydale), Fauconberg (Skelton Castle, Cleveland) and Nevill (Raby and Middleham castles). Norton Conyers, the stately home near Ripon, is also in the family history.

And there was the Sir Thomas Conyers of a branch of the family which, centuries later, must have forgotten that the ancient surname - early versions included Coiniers - meant minters of money. He ended up in the workhouse at Chester-le-Street, the inheritor of the apparently worthless manor of Hutton Bonville.

If dot.com Martha does have a few millilitres of Conyers blood in her veins, however, it is evidently still working for her.

THE 1st Lord Conyers earned royal favour by fighting the Scots at Flodden Field; the second was a ringleader of the northern lords' Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion against Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries but died in his bed and is buried at Skelton; the third, the last with the surname Conyers, also distinguished himself against the Scots at Leith in 1544.

Subsequent holders of the barony quietly went about their politicking, landowning and advantageously marrying ways - one such union meant that for more than half the 19th century a Lord Conyers/Duke of Leeds, one and the same, had Hornby Castle - but one of the best stories is about George Osborne, 10th Lord Conyers.

He it was who became 6th Duke of Leeds in 1801. From birth he had enjoyed royal patronage, with George III a sponsor at his baptism in 1775, and he was in favour at George IV's court at the time of his daughter Charlotte's marriage to Sackville Walter Lane-Fox.

"My Dear Duke," began a letter to him from the king which went on to express concern at the girl's choice.

The king thought she had married below her station. He refers to this "rash and thoughtless step which Lady Charlotte has unfortunately taken", before signing himself "your very sincere friend". The prime minister, Robert Peel, was later to reject the duke's request that his son-in-law be given an appointment in the office of the king's household: it would be against protocol, said Peel, because the young man was a commoner.

Well, yes, but only relatively common, with an 18th-century Lord Bingley as distant kin. And, anyway, the Lane-Foxes were working on it: with the acquisition of Bramham (still owned by the family today), they had changed their name from Fox-Lane, which to the aristocracy must have sounded like a scruffy back-alley.

In the event, some of the King George's forebodings were realised. Sackville Walter turned out to be a man who would get £500 in debt with his fishmonger. He squandered the fortune inherited from Charlotte's daddy in 1838, went bankrupt and passed on his fecklessness with money to his son, the cricketing and litigious Sackville George Lane-Fox, 12th Lord Conyers.

'THAT baby politician", "that formal piece of dullness", "an unthinking and unparliamentary minister"....no, this is not Yesterday in Parliament. The insults are those of Horace Walpole directed at the Lord Conyers who held high office in Parliament in the mid-18th century.

He was Robert Darcy, the 8th baronet, who was to inherit Aske Hall, Richmond, from an uncle and was for many years lord lieutenant of the North Riding. He was ambassador to Venice and The Hague for two years apiece before Henry Pelham made him Secretary of State for the South in 1751; later, he was switched to the similar appointment for the North, with William Pitt the elder taking the South job.

Both were dismissed in 1761 and George III said: "I had two Secretaries, one of whom could do nothing and one who would do nothing ..." Pitt was presumably the latter.

Actually, these poor opinions of this Lord Conyers should probably be seen as simply part of the cruel cut and thrust of political life. There was a glowing testimonial from Pelham to accompany the 1751 appointment at the age of 33: "He has a solid understanding and will come out as prudent as any young man in the country."

Before entering politics he made his name as a director of operas in London and was prominent in the Dilettanti Society, whose art collection has a portrait of him depicted as a young Venetian gondolier. Another portrait of him is on show at Temple Newsam, Leeds, a Darcy family home in centuries long past - indeed, at a time when the Darcys and the Conyers first become joined by marriage.

The 8th baronet lavished care on his several fine homes in London and the country. He sold Aske in 1763 but undertook extensive rebuilding of Hornby Castle, with John Carr of York his architect. Capability Brown re-landscaped the grounds, enclosing the medieval deer park and constructing three linked lakes. Lord Conyers was a noted agriculturist and three model farms were built.

It was his surviving child, Amelia, who inherited the Conyers title and became embroiled with the libidinous Byrons. The 14th and possibly last Lord Conyers, Sackville George Pelham (no direct line from premier Pelham), was a First World War hero who died in 1948; his two daughters, now in their 80s, have not applied for the title, or his barony, to be lifted out of "abeyance".

l Who was Lord Conyers? is available from the author, Geoff Nuttall, of 3 Broad Dyke Close, Kiveton Park, Sheffield S26 6LF, (tel 01909 771874, e-mail geoff