Thomas Wake, 2nd Baron Wake

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Only earth walls are left of Wake's Liddel Castle

Thomas Wake, 2nd Baron Wake (* around March 20, 1298 ; † May 30 or 31, 1349 ) was an English nobleman and military man.

Origin and childhood

Thomas Wake was a son of John Wake, 1st Baron Wake and his wife Joan , who was probably a daughter of Sir John Fitzbernard from Kingsdown in Kent , according to other information his mother is said to be a daughter of William de Fiennes and Blanche de Brienne , Dame de La Loupelande . His father died in April 1300, his mother before 1309. He became Baron Wake , of Liddell as heir to his father , but until he came of age his inheritance fell to the Crown, which was administered to Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln , then to Piers Gaveston, and finally to Queen Isabella .

Baron under King Edward II.

Wake married before October 9, 1316, without the permission of King Blanche of Lancaster , the eldest daughter of Henry of Lancaster and Maud de Chaworth . The king was initially angry about Wake's arbitrariness, as he wanted to marry Wake to Joan, the daughter of his murdered friend Gaveston. He therefore fined him £ 1000. Through the mediation of his father-in-law, the king finally forgave him on June 6, 1317 and gave him his inheritance, even though he was still a minor. His legacy included Bourne and estates in Lincolnshire , Cottingham in Yorkshire and Liddel Strength with estates in Westmorland and Cumberland . In addition, he had claims to possessions in Dumfriesshire and Liddesdale , which had been declared forfeited by Scottish parliaments during the First Scottish War of Independence .

As a major northern English landowner, Wake took part in campaigns against Scotland between 1318 and 1323. In the campaign of 1318 he took part with 40 henchmen, also in the siege of Berwick in 1319 henchmen of his were involved, although he was not present himself. In April 1323 he served as one of the English hostages who guaranteed the safety of the Scottish ambassador Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray in Scotland during the armistice negotiations.

In early 1321 he was initially close to the Marcher Lords , who rose in the Despenser War against the influence of the royal favorite Hugh le Despenser , and who joined Thomas of Lancaster , an uncle of his wife. In the ensuing civil war, which ended with the defeat and execution of Lancaster, Wake probably remained loyal to the king. He enjoyed the king's favor for the next several years, and his sister Margaret's marriage to Edmund of Woodstock , the king's youngest half-brother, strengthened that relationship in 1325. During the War of Saint-Sardos was he in December 1324, the army of John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey mobilized, which in the Gascogne departed.

Participation in the rebellions against Edward II and Roger Mortimer

Nevertheless, his political dissatisfaction showed in March 1326 when he did not follow an invitation to take part in the royal council. The reasons for this are unclear, perhaps he was influenced by his father-in-law, who stood in opposition to the king after the execution of his brother Thomas of Lancaster, or perhaps he was dissatisfied with the results of the negotiations with the Scots, through which he had lost properties in southern Scotland, or in the end he no longer agreed to the tyrannical rule of the king and his favorite Despenser. In any case, he openly supported the landing of Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer in September 1326 . He joined them at Gloucester and was one of the barons who supported the appointment of Edward , the eldest, but still underage, son of King Edward II, as keeper of the empire in Bristol on October 25th . The new rulers rewarded his support on November 10, 1326 with the office of forest judge for the royal forests south of the Trent and on December 9 with the office of Constable of the Tower , and on December 9, he was also Constable of Hertford Castle . In January 1327 he was appointed a member of the Privy Council by Parliament in Westminster , which was to exercise the reign during the minority of the new king.

On April 5, 1327 Wake was called to the Mortimer campaign against Scotland. This campaign failed completely, however, and Wake served as one of the English negotiators in the peace negotiations that followed. The peace negotiated in Edinburgh, which was confirmed by Parliament in Northampton in 1328 , meant that, like many other barons, the so-called disinherited ones, he received no compensation for his lost Scottish lands, although he was initially one of the few barons whose claims the Government wanted to defend. This and Mortimer's rapid increase in power led Wake to support his father-in-law Lancaster, who rejected Mortimer's increase in power. In April 1328 Wake lost his office as Constable of the Tower and in May the office of forest judge. Like his father-in-law, Wake refused to attend Parliament in Salisbury in October 1328 . He was one of his father-in-law's spokesmen during the December meeting of the disaffected barons in London. On December 29, Mortimer had the king announce that the king would take action against the growing opposition, but promised his pardon to all who would submit to the king before January 7, 1329. Wake, like Lancaster and others, declared that he would not act against the king, but that was not enough. On January 16, the king ordered the rebel lands to be confiscated. Lancaster and his followers then had to surrender at Bedford . Wake was allowed to keep his lands against the payment of an enormously high fine of 15,000 marks . He had not yet paid the fine when he was suspected a year later of being involved in the suspected conspiracy of his brother-in-law, Thomas of Woodstock. His lands were again confiscated and Wake fled to France.

Participation in the war against Scotland

Wake remained in exile until Mortimer was overthrown by the young king in October 1330. King Edward III called him back to England, formally pardoned him and ordered the return of his lands on December 9th and the remission of the unpaid sentence on December 12th. Ultimately, on December 20th, the king tried to persuade the Scottish King David II to return his possessions in Scotland to Wake. However, this was unsuccessful despite further attempts by the king in February 1331 and April 1332. For this, the king appointed Wake administrator of the Channel Islands on October 18, 1331 , this office he held until February 3, 1333. In the summer of 1332 he apparently wanted to participate in the attempt of the disinherited to invade Scotland with an army and Edward Balliol the Scottish To procure a crown. He pawned some of his property to raise money for the campaign. In the summer of 1332, however, in a long-standing dispute with the abbot of Croyland Abbey in Lincolnshire, he was ready to use force of arms against the abbey. Only the intervention of the sheriff prevented a violent feud, but because of this dispute, Wake did not take part in the campaign of the disinherited to Scotland. After the attempt by the disinherited had initially failed, Wake took part in the campaigns of the English king in Scotland in 1333 and 1334 , with which he wanted to support Edward Balliol's claim to the throne. In June 1334 in Newcastle Wake testified to the agreement in which Balliol ceded large parts of southern Scotland to England in return. In September 1337, Wake launched an attack on Scotland from Carlisle .

Further service as advisor and envoy for Eduard III.

In 1335 he was one of the ambassadors who traveled to France with Bishop William Airmyn of Norwich to negotiate with France in the run-up to the Hundred Years War . However, he did not take part in the king's campaign in northern France in 1338, but stayed in northern England to defend the Scottish Marches . After the king's brief return to England in the spring of 1340, he was one of the committees that Parliament set up to investigate the tight royal finances and to receive petitions. In April all his debts to the Crown were canceled and he was one of the tax estimators used by Parliament for the taxation of the City of London . When the king returned to the Netherlands, he was appointed to the council on May 28th, which was to advise the regent, the young heir to the throne, Edward of Woodstock .

After the king's unexpected return to England, on December 12, 1340, Wake was appointed to collect complaints against the government and was part of a commission investigating corruption allegations against royal officials in eastern England. The king's wrath was directed primarily against Archbishop John Stratford of Canterbury, and Wake was part of a delegation of barons who heard the king's complaints against the archbishop in 1341. He also examined petitions during the parliaments of 1341, 1344, 1346 and January 1346. From 1341 to 1342 he probably made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela .

During the ongoing war with Scotland, his Liddel Castle was besieged by the Scots in February 1346 and finally captured in October. Because of his poor health, Wake could no longer take part in the fighting in the Scottish Marches himself. The exact cause of his death is unknown, presumably he died of the plague during its first outbreak in England. He was buried in the Haltemprice Priory , which he donated .

Legacy and aftermath

Wake was often indebted, yet he was a generous patron of monasteries and the religious orders. In 1322 he founded with the help of the Augustinian priory of Bourne in Cottingham a branch of the Augustinian canons , which he moved to the nearby Haltemprice in 1326 . In addition, he founded a Franciscan settlement in Ware in 1338 . In addition to other foundations, he planned before his death to establish a branch of the Order of the Cross of Bologna in Kirkymoorside in Yorkshire, which he could no longer realize, as well as other foundations.

His marriage to Blanche of Lancaster had been childless. After his death, his sister Margaret inherited the title of Baron Wake and his possessions, after her death the title passed to her children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Wake, 2nd Lord Wake on thepeerage.com , accessed September 10, 2016.
  2. ↑ Michael Penman: Robert the Bruce. King of the Scots . Yale University Press, New Haven 2014, ISBN 978-0-300-14872-5 , p. 280.
  3. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 58.
  4. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 68.
  5. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 77.
  6. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 80.
  7. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 161.
predecessor Office successor
John Wake Baron Wake
1300-1349 		Margaret Wake
personal data
SURNAME Wake, Thomas, 2nd Baron Wake
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and military
DATE OF BIRTH on March 20, 1298
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1349 or May 31, 1349