Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/452

Wake Channel Islands (ib. p. 190). He was one of the many ‘disinherited’ whose Scottish lands had been forfeited by the Bruces, and King David was now called upon to restore them agreeably with the provisions of the treaty of independence (Cal. Close Rolls, 1330–4, p. 174). The repetition of the demand showed that the request was disregarded (ib. pp. 294, 562). Accordingly Wake took some share in Edward Baliol's attempts to wrest Scotland from David Bruce (, i. 462). He was also engaged in disputes with his Lincolnshire neighbours, with the tenants of Crowland, the prior of Spalding, and the prior of Pontefract (cf. Cal. Patent Rolls, 1330–4 pp. 292, 297–8, 346–7, 1334–8 p. 271; Rot. Parl. ii. 84).

On 18 July 1335 Wake was associated with the bishop of Norwich and others on an embassy to treat of all matters in dispute with the king of France, and about the projected crusade (Fœdera, ii. 914, 915; Cal. Patent Rolls, 1334–8, p. 157). On 14 July he had already received protection till All Souls' for himself and followers on going beyond sea (ib. p. 155). In September 1337 he led from Carlisle a twelve days' foray into Scotland (Chron. de Lanercost, pp. 291–2). In July 1338 he was one of two commissioners appointed to array the musters of Lincoln and four neighbouring shires to repel a threatened French invasion (ib. 1338–40, p. 134), and received a similar commission for three shires in August (ib. p. 142). In April 1340 he was pardoned his debts to the crown, and appointed with five others to assess and levy the parliamentary grant of a ninth within the city of London (ib. pp. 471, 505). On 28 May he was appointed with Archbishop John de Stratford [q. v.] and four others to form a continued council to Edward, duke of Cornwall, who acted as regent during his father's absence abroad (ib. p. 528). On Edward III's return in November Wake shared the disgrace into which Stratford and the judges fell. He was for a time imprisoned, but soon afterwards honourably released (Chron. Angliæ, 1328–88, p. 10). He was called on by Edward III to help him in Brittany in 1342 (Fœdera, ii. 1215). His castle of Liddell, after warding off a siege in the early part of 1346 (, p. 202), succumbed to a six days' assault of King David, just before the battle of Neville's Cross, in 1346. Wake was not present, but the defender, Sir Walter de Selby, was put to death by the captors (, p. 376;, p. 86).

Wake was a conspicuous friend of the religious. He was a benefactor of the Franciscans of Ware, to whom he had license on 25 June 1338 to alienate seven acres of land and a house in Ware as the site of their convent (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1338–40, p. 14). He also, in 1347–8, granted a toft and ten acres of land in Farndale, near Kirkby Moorside, to the Crutched friars to build an oratory and other habitations in that moorland solitude (, Baronage, i. 547; cf., Notitia Monastica, ‘Yorkshire,’ No. cxxix.: ‘what settlement they obtained I know not’). He projected the establishment of a religious house at Great Harrowden in Northamptonshire (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1330–4, p. 179), but apparently abandoned the design. About 1345 he had license to import from Brabant nuns of the Dominican order, and to found a house for them in England (, Not. Mon. ‘Yorkshire,’ No. xlix.). His chief interest gradually centred in the foundation of a priory of Austin canons in his East Riding estate. This was first established at Newton, near his castle of Cottingham, whither he transferred some canons of Bourne, the ancient family foundation. He obtained license to alienate lands for this purpose on 26 June 1322 (Monasticon, v. 519–20), and the local ‘Meaux Chronicle’ dates the foundation on St. Magdalen day in the same year (Chron. de Melsa, ii. 347). However, he discovered that he could not give the canons an absolute title to the site, and in 1325 obtained a bull from John XXII allowing him to transfer the house to any convenient spot in the neighbourhood (Monasticon, v. 520). The spot chosen was at Haltemprice, hard by. The charter of foundation, dated January 1326, is given in the ‘Monasticon.’

Wake died on 31 May 1349, leaving no issue. His wife Blanche survived until 1357. The possessions of which he was then seised are given in the ‘Calendarium Inquisitionum post mortem,’ ii. 152–3. Of all these his sister Margaret, widow of Edmund, earl of Kent, became the heiress. She died a few months later, on 27 Sept. 1349, whereupon the Wake estates and barony passed first to John, earl of Kent (d. 1352), her surviving son, and next to her daughter and ultimate heiress, Joan, the ‘Fair Maid of Kent’ (afterwards Princess of Wales) [q. v.], from whom they passed to Joan's children by Sir Thomas Holland [see, first ]. The Wake estates and barony remained with the Hollands until the extinction of the Kent branch of that house, whereupon the estates became divided among coheiresses; the barony of Wake fell into abeyance (, Complete Peerage, iv. 351–2).