Wake’s father was described by Walker as ‘one of the most noted Old Royalists in England’, having been made a prisoner 18 times and condemned to death twice. After his military service he became a clothier and then a farmer of the aulnage.
Early career, 1682-9
Early in his career, Wake had come under the patronage of John Fell, bishop of Oxford, who secured both his first clerical appointment and a chaplaincy in Paris through his recommendation to Richard Graham‡, Viscount Preston [S]. Preston told Bishop Fell that no man could ‘give a better example or more content to all’ than Wake, and he recommended him to the favour of Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke, as a ‘very good and worthy young man’.
Wake was employed as secretary to the discussions set on foot by William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, for a revision of the liturgy in the summer of 1688 and involving the most prominent Anglican divines including Tenison, John Sharp, the future archbishop of York, and John Moore, the future bishop of Ely.
In 1688-9 Wake would become a key apologist for the new regime, and was marked out for preferment. Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, proved to be an early champion, suggesting that should John Tillotson, the future archbishop of Canterbury, become archbishop of York (which was vacant until mid-November), then Wake should succeed to his stall in St Paul’s.
Clerical career and Convocation, 1689-1705
By April 1691, he had become so prominent as a royal chaplain and, from 1689, a canon at Oxford, that it was rumoured that the vacancy caused by the refusal of Bishop Ken to take the oaths had been offered to Wake. However, Wake refused all positions vacated by the non-jurors, falling out with Archbishop Tillotson as a consequence and experiencing ‘an entire coldness’ from him, which saw him miss out on the deaneries of St Paul’s and Canterbury.
In 1697 Wake’s talent for polemic was employed by Tenison, who had succeeded Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury in 1694, to combat the new and more virulent forms of clerical and anti-erastian ideology emerging from the Tory highfliers, chief amongst them Francis Atterbury, the future bishop of Rochester. Atterbury opened the debate with A Letter to a Convocation-Man, written in collaboration with Sir Bartholomew Shower‡,, a defence of the lower clergy’s rights in Convocation that undermined the royal supremacy.
On the death of Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester on 27 Mar. 1699, Narcissus Luttrell‡ reported that Wake ‘stands fair for a bishopric’. By 5 Apr. Maurice Wheeler, Wake’s former tutor at Christ Church and now master of the cathedral school at Gloucester, had written to Wake that ‘the public newsletters’ in Gloucester had ‘already placed the mitre on your head’. Wheeler seemed to think that Wake would be made bishop of Oxford, and Wake agreed that this was likely when he wrote to Arthur Charlett, the master of University College, Oxford, on 31 Mar., expecting William Lloyd, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to be translated to Worcester and John Hough, bishop of Oxford, to be translated to Lichfield and Coventry. Wake, who claimed to have no evidence of his imminent translation to Oxford, wrote that ‘Oxford is the bishopric of all England that I should the least desire to fix upon’, and duly refused it. Tenison wrote to him on 9 Apr. that although ‘no hurt is done, no friendship shall be broken’ by his refusal, it did have implications as ‘this, I think, is a common rule, not to offer a greater thing, after refusal of a less of the same kind, if that be a good subsistence to the person. I speak my whole mind to yourself without any threatening or harsh words’. Although, in September 1701, Wake was mentioned as a possible candidate for the see of Hereford, nothing came of it.
Appointment to Lincoln, 1705
Wake’s political sympathies ensured that in the context of 1705 he would be a candidate for the episcopate should the court wish to show favour towards the Whigs. There were, however, other Whig pretenders, possibly encouraged by Wake’s previous tergiversation and demurs over being raised to the episcopal bench. Indeed, on the death of James Gardiner, bishop of Lincoln, on 1 Mar. 1705, Tenison seemed to favour the elevation of the dean, Richard Willis†, the future bishop of Gloucester. Archbishop Sharp for the Tories backed his protégé Sir William Dawes, the future archbishop of York.
your friends hope that you will let them know by me with plainness and without loss of time, whether you would accept of the bishopric of Lincoln with the living [St James’s] in commendam for one year if they can procure it. For they will, this day, make some effort relating to that matter. They will not propose the bishopric without commendam for that time. I am in pain till I hear from you, because I [am] pressed by them. I hope you will not say nolo ep[iscopari].
On 29 Mar. Tenison wrote again to tell Wake that ‘I went over on Sunday [25 Mar.] and was with the good queen. I found nothing declared, but had expectation given that something would be said to me in few days. I have heard nothing since’.
Wake was offered, and accepted, the bishopric in July 1705, but there was further delay before it was confirmed: the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, informed Tenison on 29 July that ‘I was very sorry to hear yesterday from Lord Halifax that Dr Wake had not then any notice of his being made bishop of Lincoln, though the queen had signed the warrant to the congé d’élire this day fortnight’.
I have some hopes that my lord treasurer will procure me the Michaelmas half year of the bishopric, which made me desirous to known how I must proceed to secure myself of a right to it. A privy seal is a very chargeable way, after the excessive fees... which I shall otherwise pay and I now hope that it may be done without me. The Lady Day rents will I conceive, be given to the last bishop’s children. His Lordship dying within a month of that time, I cannot except against such a favour, tho’ God be praised, as he managed matters, his family is far from being in want of it.’Glos. Archives D3549/2/1/18, pp. 129-30.
Wake was consecrated on 21 Oct. 1705 at Lambeth with John Williams, bishop of Chichester, and Bishops Compton, Burnet and Moore attending on the archbishop. After dinner he went with Bishop Burnet to Kensington to pay homage to the queen, noting that Godolphin ‘spoke kindly to me concerning the restitution of my temporalities, which I afterwards discovered to be owing to the kind interposition’ of Halifax and John Somers, Baron Somers, ‘to whom his Lordship promised to procure me the rents of the bishopric from the death of the late bishop.’ However, on the 23rd Wake recorded that Godolphin ‘(or at least his officers) were so far from granting me the temporalities from the death of the late bishop, that they broke in upon the last half-year, and ordered them to be dated from 1 May’. In response Wake wrote to Halifax and Somers, who ‘both promised me their good offices to my lord treasurer, being very confident that this change did not proceed from him’. On the 25th he informed Tenison of his predicament. On the 28th Godolphin ‘ordered the restitution of my temporalities, dated from Lady Day’, thereby overriding the actions of William Lowndes‡, secretary to the treasury, who had altered the date of the restitution to May, having ‘another friend of a different kind to gratify’. ‘That he succeeded not I chiefly owe to my Lord Somers; next to my Lord Halifax and the Bishop of Worcester [Lloyd].’ Even then he met delay, being told that the secretary of state, Sir Charles Hedges‡, would not countersign the queen’s warrant for his temporalities without a further order from the lord treasurer. To Wake the ‘very indifferent usage in that office’ could only be explained by ‘no other reason than this, that I was not a man to their mind’.
Bishop of Lincoln, 1705-7
In his first parliamentary session, Wake was present on 67 days, 71 per cent of the total number of sitting days, and was named to 35 committees. On 12 Nov. 1705 he recorded in his diary ‘a long session’ at the Lords, including ‘a debate about addressing to the queen upon the Scots affairs’, after which he got home between four and five in the evening. Three days later he noted ‘the great debate’ over ‘an address to the queen to invite over the presumptive heir of the crown to come and reside here’, which was ‘argued till about 5 a clock and then carried in the negative.’ He took the oaths and the Test in King’s Bench on 19 November.
At the same time Wake was preoccupied with the partisan rivalries in Convocation. On 1 Dec. he was named to a Convocation committee on the differences between the houses of the clergy and the bishops over the proposed address to the queen on ‘the Church in danger’.
On 8 Jan. 1706 Wake attended the Lords, where the ‘the cause of St Bride’s parish was heard which kept us till after 4 o’clock,’ a reference to Wilson et al v. Towneley. From thence he went to baptize a child of Scroop Egerton, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater. The following day Wake attended the appeal brought ‘against the bishop of Ely’ (actually Tooke v. Dolben et al.), before returning home at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Wake recorded a visit from Mr Clavering on 16 Jan. to thank him for attending upon the cause of Clavering v. Clavering, where the Lords affirmed the judgment given below in Chancery. Wake attended the House late on 28 Jan. over the cause of Hamilton v. Mohun.
On 1 Mar. 1706 Wake attended the prorogation of Convocation, which was met with some defiance by the lower house. He then journeyed to Parliament in Bishop Moore’s coach, where ‘we gave in our returns of papists; but a cause [Seagrave v. Eustace] coming in, and lasting long, nothing more was done that day’. That day Dr Benjamin Woodroffe was with Wake three times, pursuing the bishopric of Llandaff; in the evening Wake went with him to the home of another of his backers, Bishop Lloyd. On 2 Mar. Wake ‘was sent for by my Lord Sunderland to the House’, with the coach of John Evans, bishop of Bangor, being sent to collect him. He ‘found the Lords warm in their debates about the Carolina business’, which concluded with a resolution to hear counsel for John Granville, Baron Granville, in his own and the proprietors’ behalf the following Wednesday (6 Mar.); ‘it is’, he wrote, ‘a very foul business’. On 4 Mar. Wake recorded attending the House at about 1 o’clock, when the bill against popery was read; about an hour later news came that the Commons had cast out the bill in their House by a great majority on its third reading. Five days later Wake reported ‘a long session, till after 6, chiefly about the business of Carolina’.
Wake may have left London after the prorogation on 19 Mar. 1706 for on 8 Apr. Charles Bruce, the future Baron Bruce of Whorlton (and 3rd earl of Ailesbury), referred to the imminence of Wake’s ‘intended time’ of coming to town. He was in London on 19 Apr., and expected to dine with Tenison on one of the next two days.
On 1 June 1706 Somers wrote to Wake, ‘you may easily apprehend how well your paper was approved when your Lordship considers the Gazette without my making any observation’, a reference to the address from the bishop, dean and chapter, and clergy of Lincoln congratulating the queen on the victory of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, which was presented on 28 May and printed in the London Gazette. Trimnell wrote on 15 June that the reason the address ‘was not verbatim in the Gazette’ was because ‘it happened to be presented together with that from the City [of London], the wording of which was not liked well enough to be put in there, which occasioned the suppression of yours’. Somers wrote to Wake on 2 July about another address arising out of his visitation, that ‘it is thought that to defer what you have so successfully brought to pass, will be to lose the grace of it, and therefore the sooner it is presented the more acceptable it will be’, and assured him that ‘I find all your Lordship has done is as well accepted as you could imagine.’ On 23 July Kennett wrote that the Lincoln address presented in May ‘had the honour to be a copy and a standard to most other dioceses’: elsewhere, including Hereford, several of the bishops had experienced greater opposition.
During the autumn, Wake was consulted on an enclosure scheme. On 26 Oct. 1706 he wrote
to satisfy everybody, I think the right method would be to get a commission from my Lord Bishop of Oxford to some of the neighbouring clergy to take a view of the exchange proposed; and upon their report to obtain his Lordship’s confirmation of it. With this I should readily join my consent. And both those being had, what remains to be done will go more easily on. But I should think the easiest and best way of settling all would be by an act of Parliament, if Sir Edmund Denton‡ would be at the charge of one.Wake mss 1, f. 79.
Wake attended the prorogations of 22 Oct. and 21 Nov. 1706, and on 23 Nov., shortly before the commencement of the new parliamentary session, Wheeler wrote about alterations to Wake’s residence in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, congratulating him on having ‘seen an end of the trouble of fitting up your new habitation, which (being your own) affords this satisfaction, that tis done once for all; and being so conveniently situated too in respect to the Church, Parliament-house, and (I think) the best neighbourhood also, will ever be preferable to a change’.
Wake was present when the 1706-7 session commenced on 3 December and attended on 28 days of the session, 33 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 4 Dec. he noted that ‘our Address agreed to, [the] Lord Chamberlain [Kent], sent to the queen, who will receive it from the House tomorrow,’ whereupon he duly attended the queen the following day. On 6 Dec. it was the turn of Convocation, with Wake recording that he went to the Jerusalem Chamber, where, ‘our address being agreed, at the desire of the Board (and particularly the Bishop of Norwich [Moore] who presided) I copied it fair.’ He was dubious when the lower house agreed to it without any amendment: ‘what is the meaning of this procedure?’ he worried. On 9 Dec. when Wake joined those attending the queen with the address from Convocation, he noted the presence of the deans of Christ Church (Dr Henry Aldrich), and Carlisle (Atterbury): ‘God forgive either their past perverseness, or their present hypocrisy.’ On 26 Dec. Wake went with Bishop Moore to the Lords (which was not sitting) and thence to Lambeth to dine with Archbishop Tenison. On 30 Dec. Wake noted that ‘we sat long while the new Lords were received into the House’.
On 8 Jan. 1707 Wake dined at Judge Dormer’s with Burnet and William Talbot, bishop of Oxford. Six days later he noted that ‘the affair the Lord Nottingham summoned the House for was to have the treaty of Union laid before it. After several debates the House adjourned and came to no resolution.’ He noted for 15 Jan. ‘I dined and went to the House. The cause being put off no business done’, a reference to the cause Lewes v. Fielding. On 17 Jan. he heard the cause of Randolph v. Brockman and five days later Wake recorded being at the House to hear ‘Mr Fielding’s cause’.
On 1 Feb. 1707 Wake attended the Lords noting that ‘Mr Ward’s case was heard and carried for him’, the affirmation of the decree in Clerke v. Ward. Ward, a clergyman, thanked Wake in person on the 4th. Later that day in the Lords Wake recorded that he got the judges’ report read in Mr Lee’s case, ‘but it not being full was again referred back to them’. On 5 Feb. he added that he got the judges’ additional report in Mr Lee’s case read, and a bill ordered to be brought in upon it (the Journal states that leave was given for a bill on 4 Feb., and it was introduced on the 7th). Wake attended the House for the last time that session on 7 February. He was indisposed for some considerable time, as after the 12th his diary was silent until 6 Mar. and on 1 Mar. he had been reported as still dangerously ill.
Whig ministry, 1708-10
Wake was not present when the 1707-8 session began on 23 Oct. 1707. He was in the capital on 15 Nov., when he waited on the queen, ‘who spake to me in a very affectionate manner about the prince [Prince George, duke of Cumberland], and to be tender in the business of the fleet.’ Two days later Wake went to the Lords, took the oaths and ‘spoke with’ Archbishop Tenison, Sunderland and others. Overall he attended 43 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. After dinner on his first day Archbishop Sharp paid him a visit, whereupon Wake ‘communicated to him what had passed between the queen and me, and what were my resolutions with relation to the next Wednesday’s [19th] business in the House,’ which was the debate on the state of the fleet. On the 19th he attended, recording that the debate lasted until four: ‘I came home very cold.’ Two days later he noted that ‘the affair of the eldest sons of the Scots Lords came; and it was agreed, that the heirs apparent of the 16 who should sit from time to time in the British Parliament, should have the same privileges, as those of our English peers were wont to have’.
On 13 Jan. 1708 Wake recorded that the business of Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough ‘came on’, and the House sat until nearly seven. On the 27th Wake remarked that the Lords were still reading the papers relating to Peterborough and the war in Spain.
Wake was supportive of Nicolson in his conflict with his dean, Francis Atterbury, and other members of the chapter. To resolve the dispute a bill for avoiding doubts and questions touching the statutes of cathedral and collegiate churches was introduced to the Lords on 3 Feb. 1708. On the 14th, Nicolson ‘secured’ Wake for the committee on the bill that day, but it was subsequently adjourned.
Following the dissolution of Parliament on 15 Apr. 1708, Wake returned to London on 30 April. On 7 May he met Tenison, Bishops Moore and Trimnell, and Deans Willis and Kennett (recently made dean of Peterborough) at the Cockpit to agree ‘several matters’ relating to Convocation.
On 30 Aug. 1708 Tenison told Wake that ‘we often wish you here’ and hoped that the bishop would use the ecclesiastical courts to prosecute John Barnard, a Catholic convert of the reign of James II, who had subsequently been reconciled to the Church of England, and was now a Lincolnshire vicar who was threatening to publicly justify the Latin mass and transubstantiation. If he was not prosecuted, Tenison warned, ‘the clamour of our lukewarmness in relation to popery which is now begun, will grow into an insupportable outcry’. By September, Wake had instigated proceedings, but was warned by Tenison that the ‘spirit of the party... appears as hot as ever; and if we had not in view a good Parliament, they would create trouble enough’. On 17 Sept. Tenison sought Wake’s opinion on Atterbury’s latest pamphlet and the likelihood that George Smalridge, later bishop of Bristol, would be elected prolocutor.
On 16 Nov. 1708 Wake attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament. He was present on 46 days, 49 per cent of the total, and was named to 17 committees. On 28 Nov. the mayor of Boston wrote to him with a draft bill, and on 30 Nov. he had a visitor about the ‘bill for Boston, which I have agreed to, a clause being added to secure the ecclesiastical jurisdiction’, a reference to the bill for the repair of Boston Church which failed in the Commons. On 1 Dec. ‘Mr Long came to me about a cause he has now depending in the exchequer, and which he supposes will come before the House of Lords’. Wake travelled on 28 Dec. to Lambeth for the traditional dinner with Archbishop Tenison; 13 were in attendance, where ‘many things of moment were proposed and debated before dinner’.
On 21 Jan. 1709 Wake voted against the motion that a Scots peer with a British title had the right to vote in the election of representative peers. As he recorded, in a ‘long session’, this was ‘agreeably to the Scots’ acts [the Act of Union] which say that they shall be chosen by the peers whom they represent: which we are assured were put in purposely to exclude all others’. The main argument used for allowing British peers vote for the representative peers, he wrote, ‘was that this was allowed by the last winter’s Act to such as were peers of Scotland and England’, which was answered that this was done to indulge Marlborough (as Baron Eyemouth in the Scots peerage) and John Campbell, duke of Agyll (as earl of Greenwich in the English peerage). Nevertheless, Wake thought that this had been ‘plainly against the Scots act: and done only in consideration of the small number of such Lords (but five in all) and with a known intention not to extend it to any who should afterwards be made a peer of Great Britain.’ On 26 Jan., his birthday, Wake ‘was sent from table to the House: and tho’ very unwilling, and out of order with my left shoulder and arm I went thither. The Scots business came on, I tarried till near six; when the point of minors was settled. The House went on to new points, but I durst not stay any longer.’ The following day, ‘the weather still being very sharp’, Wake ‘durst not venture to the Parliament House.’ On 28 Jan. Wake wrote that ‘the Scots business coming on I was at the House; but came away before the debates ended’. On 4 Feb. Wake went to the House, and ‘sat out Sir John Wolstenholme’s‡ cause, which went unanimously for him’, a reference to the cause of Carteret v. Chapman, Chapman being a lessee of Wolstenholme’s. Two weeks later Wake attended the House, where the Lords ‘tarried late on a cause, and yet did not end it,’ a reference to Lady Falkland and Lady Russell v. Lytton. On 23 Feb. Wake heard the 12 judges ‘upon a plea of quare impedit: seven were of one opinion, four of another: and one of both sides’. This referred to the cause of Shireburne v. Hitch, the judgment on which was upheld, but it was then ordered that the judges consider the laws of advowsons and prepare heads for a bill for the making it easier to plead in actions brought for recovering of presentations to livings. On 25 Feb. Wake attended Convocation for a further prorogation.
Wake was an investor in the Company of Mine Adventurers and in 1708 he owned sufficient shares to be eligible for election to the general court.
On 1 Mar. 1709 Wake was visited by Mr Fitch and Dr John Waugh†, the future bishop of Carlisle, about Mr Hayden’s bill, ‘which I promised to farther all I could’. On 2 Mar. Wake attended the committee on the bill for vesting the Devon estate of Gideon Haydon in trustees. After attending at court on 8 Mar. 1709, Wake’s visitors after dinner included the dean of Windsor, Dr Thomas Manningham, soon to become bishop of Chichester, with whom he talked about settling the rectory of Hasely on the deanery of Windsor, and Mr Stafford, who discussed a bill ‘he has now lying before the Lords’: Wake promised ‘to give him all the help I can in it.’ Before Wake attended the House on 11 Mar. he was again visited by Manningham, and drew up a bill for settling Hasely on the deanery of Windsor, which was introduced on 16 March, and passed that session. At the House Wake attended the committee on the bill to enable Anthony Stafford to sell or mortgage some part of his lands in Derbyshire and Cheshire, for the payment of his own and his father’s debts.
Significantly, on 14 Mar. 1709 Wake recorded that when at the House he spoke to the archbishop and bishops about the general naturalization bill.
On 25 Mar. 1709 in committee of the whole House debating the bill for the improvement of the Union, Wake voted with Cowper, Godolphin, and Bishop Burnet, but against Somers, Sunderland and Bishop Trimnell to postpone consideration of the validity of Scottish marriage settlements under the new treason law to the following day, since the Scots Lords wanted further time to consider it. On 28 Mar. he recorded that the ‘treason bill’ had passed the House, ‘where I had a good deal of discourse with the archbishop’.
The 1709-10 Session and the Trial of Sacheverell
The duchess of Marlborough thought Wake ‘an honest bishop’ to preach on Thanksgiving Day [22 Nov.] and Tenison also told him that if a bishop was required to preach on that day before the Lords, ‘you, I’m sure, will be agreeable to all’.
Wake was an active participant in the trial of Dr Sacheverell. On 24 Jan. 1710, he visited Sunderland where, with William Cavendish, 2nd duke of Devonshire, Wharton, Orford, Somers, and Bishops Hough, Moore and Trimnell, they discussed the following day’s business in the House when Sacheverell was due to answer the impeachment charges.
In the House on 17 Mar. 1710, Wake ‘opened the debate’ by delivering a lengthy speech - the published version, The Bishop of Lincoln his speech in the House of Lords, March the 17th, ran to 20 pages—which dissected Sacheverell’s offending sermon and supported the Commons’ second article of impeachment.
made a very long speech and gave us the history of the comprehension, as ’twas designed at the Revolution, told the Lords Archbishop Sancroft and my Lord of London and himself were concerned in it. ’Twas only to alter things in their own nature alterable and to add several very necessary offices to the Common Prayer and he showed how far and to what persons the Toleration Act extended and said all were not heterodox that did not subscribe all our 39 Articles, nor all false brethren who indulged the dissenters in the several articles excepted in the Act; picked out all the passages in the doctor’s sermon, which he could any ways make to reflect upon the toleration and left out the alleviating passages, which made on the doctor’s behalf. In short, he said several things which, in my poor opinion, might have much better have become the mouth of a lay Whig Lord, than one with an episcopal character.Add. 72494, ff. 169-70.
Wake’s speech evoked some bitter responses, one claiming that to fall under the ‘resentment’ of ‘our modern bishops’ was worse than falling ‘into the gripping clutches of a Mazarin or a Richelieu’.
On 22 Mar. 1710 Wake was with William Fleetwood, bishop of St Asaph, when he was sent for to read prayers at the House. While at the House he spoke with Cowper and Sunderland. After attending the Lords on 24 Mar. he dined at Cowper’s along with Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough, Bishops Moore and Trimnell, John Ker, duke of Roxburghe, Thomas Pelham, Baron Pelham and lord chief justice Sir Thomas Parker†, the future earl of Macclesfield. On 26 Mar. Wake recorded that ‘the governors of the hospital came to desire me to help on their bill’, presumably the bill for vesting the estate of Thomas Arnway, in the Green-coat and Grey-coat hospitals in Westminster, which received its first reading on the 28th. Dr Gee also visited: ‘he wants me at the committee for a private bill tomorrow, but I dare not go to the House,’ presumably for the committee on Emerton’s bill which met that day.
On 8 Apr. 1710 Wheeler, now a prebendary of Lincoln, wrote that Wake had become ill attending the Sacheverell trial.
The Parliament of 1710
The summer of 1710 was busy in anticipation of the imminent general election in which the Sacheverell trial was a key factor. On 2 Oct. 1710 Wake had two hours of private discussions with Manchester, one of the dominant magnates in Huntingdonshire.
Wake was reckoned by Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, as a certain opponent of the Tory ministry in his analysis of 3 Oct. 1710. On 10 Oct. Tenison hoped that Wake would ‘come up before the ways become too bad. We want persons to confer with in this critical juncture’.
On 25 Nov. 1710, the first day of the parliamentary session, Wake attended Convocation at St Paul’s, rather than the Lords. When Atterbury rather than Willis was elected prolocutor, Wake drew up a formal petition to Tenison asking that he void the election as Atterbury was ‘not only a disturber of the peace of the Church but indeed the principal enemy of our order and authority’.
Wake attended the Lords for the first time on the third day of the session, 27 Nov. 1710, but soon came out and sat in the lobby, because of the heat and the crowd. He was present on 35 days, 31 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. He attended for only three days before the New Year, because of the importance of his presence in Convocation. On 6 Dec. Wake recorded that he went to the Convocation, where Dr Smalridge presented Prolocutor Atterbury and ‘made a noble panegyric upon him’, though, he wrote, the subject matter was such that it was not clear whether he really intended to ‘praise or abuse him’.
On 8 Jan. 1711 Wake was late at the House as the Lords were occupied with debating the failures of the war in Spain. On 9 Jan. he voted against the ministry in the division on whether Peterborough had given a ‘just’ account of the council of war at Valencia before the battle of Almanza, the House sitting until after 9 o’clock. Two days later, he signed a protest against the Lords’ vote to reject petitions from Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], over their conduct during the campaign and, later in the day, again protested against the committee’s resolution that the defeat at Almanza could be blamed on Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope†, the future earl Stanhope. On the 12th, the House sitting until 10 o’clock, he signed a protest against the censure of the previous ministry for sanctioning an offensive strategy in Spain.
On 15 Jan. 1711 Wake was at the House, and on that and the following day had encounters with Bishops Fleetwood, Moore, Hough, Evans and Trimnell, Dean Willis and Dr Gibson. Wake went on 17 Jan. to Convocation ‘where I received the Archbishop’s commission, and prorogued the Convocation to this day sevennight’, and then went to the House after dinner.
On 26 Feb. 1711 Bishops Nicolson and Evans visited Wake ‘where’, in Nicolson’s account, ‘we hoped to have concerted the matter of the Scotch case with him’, that is, James Greenshield’s appeal against the judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates. The following day Wake attended another meeting with Somers, Cowper and Bishops Nicolson, Evans and Trimnell to discuss how to deal with the Greenshields case, so that it remained a civil cause and did not touch the authority of the Kirk. On 1 Mar. Wake went to the House, where he ‘heard Mr Greenshield’s cause’, and ‘came late back’.
Wake found time to deal with other matters. As early as 4 Dec. 1710 he had recorded in his diary that he had met ‘Mr Williams’ at the House of Lords, and had given him ‘the act for setting Stepney parish’, the bill for confirming the purchase by Brasenose College of the advowsons of Stepney and other churches. On 26 Jan. 1711 the college principal visited Wake, perhaps in regard to the petition introduced on 12 February. On 20 Feb. he paid Wake another visit in the morning, and later that day the judges reported on the college’s petition for a bill, which was ordered to be introduced. On 9 Mar., when the bill was before the House, Wake went to the Lords ‘where I spoke to Mr Principal of Brasenose, and had before engaged divers Lords to attend their committee tomorrow morning’. The bill was reported from committee on the 10th. On 17 Dec. 1710 Wake had been visited by George Mordaunt, the precursor of another visit on 8 Feb. 1711 ‘about his trial tomorrow’. On 13 Feb. Wake visited Bishop Trimnell ‘about Mr Mordaunt’s cause’ (probably the clandestine marriage case of Mordaunt v. Mordaunt, affecting George Mordaunt). Wake was called from the House of Lords by Mordaunt and his brother: ‘it being the Lord Chief Justice’s opinion that our testimony would be proper, we went into Westminster Hall, and declared what each of us knows of his conduct in the change of his religion.’
After 7 Mar. 1711 Wake did not attend the Lords again until 15 Mar., but in the interim he did attend the committee of Convocation on the 8th and 12th. On 17 Mar. ‘the committee of bishops upon Mr [William] Whiston’s case’—Bishops Hough, Moore, Evans, Hooper, Tyler, Trimnell, and Bisse—met at Wake’s in the morning. Wake was at the committee of Convocation and then the House on 26 March. He did not attend again until 14 May, visiting Dorset between 2 Apr. and 10 May; he registered his proxy in favour of Trimnell on 23 Apr.; it was vacated with his return on 14 May. On 18 May, Wake went with Bishop Evans to the Convocation, and after dinner went to the Lords for his last attendance this session, where he ‘tarried out the bishop of London’s cause’ which ended with a decree confirmed in favour of the bishop against the inhabitants of Hammersmith. He then took his leave of the queen at Kensington. On 19 May Wake was visited by Trotman about the bill for the relief of the creditors and proprietors of the Company of Mine Adventurers, which had been committed to a committee of the whole House two days previously (Wake claimed that he was owed £345 by the Mine Adventurers). On this occasion the bill made it on to the statute book, but Wake was not much help on this occasion as he set off for his diocese on 20 May.
On 24 Oct. 1711 Wake arrived safely in London. His youngest daughter died on the 26th. On 12 Nov. he received visits from Bishops Talbot, Hough and Trimnell, and from Kennett, who had come from Lambeth ‘and desired me to meet them at the House of Lords tomorrow’. On the following day Wake prorogued Convocation and then went to the Lords for the prorogation, where he also ‘treated’ with Wharton about a Mr Kost’s affair.
unhappy divisions amongst us, and not only as to the open Dissenters, but with those of our own communion; the controversies between the presbyters and their bishops; the harsh charges brought by many against those who not only entirely communicate with us, but love and support our church as much as any that uncharitably censure them.Wake mss 1, f. 287.
On 26 Nov. Wake met Bishops Evans, Talbot, Nicolson and Trimnell ‘about the business tomorrow’ and on that day Wake prorogued Convocation again and attended another prorogation of Parliament, where he ‘met many friends’. On 1 Dec. Wake was given an account of the present state of the Episcopal congregations in Scotland by Greenshields.
On 7 Dec. 1711 Wake accompanied Bishops Evans and Trimnell to Convocation, where he was named to a committee to examine the minutes of the previous session. After dinner he went to the House for the first day of the new parliamentary session and the ‘great question about the peace’: he presumably voted for the addition to the address that no peace was safe or honourable while Spain remained in Bourbon hands. On the 8th he was listed as voting for retaining the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause of the address in the abandoned division of that day, in which Oxford (as Robert Harley had become) sought to reverse the vote of the previous day. Wake attended on 32 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. He was forecast on 19 Dec. as likely to oppose the right of James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon, and the following day he voted accordingly. On 26 Dec. he took Bishop Cumberland to Lambeth for the Boxing Day dinner.
After attending the adjournment on 2 Jan. 1712, Wake attended the next sitting on the 14th. His diary for January and February generally merely noted attendance at the Lords or Convocation, but provided few details. On 6 Feb., after dinner, Bishops Tyler, Evans, Trimnell and Fleetwood ‘met here upon Convocation business’.
On 26 Feb. 1712, Wake and Evans appear to have cajoled Nicolson into voting against the Commons’ amendments to the episcopal communion in Scotland bill, contrary to his own convictions.
On 11 May 1712 Sir Streynsham Master and his wife came to see Wake about their cause before the Lords: two days later Wake was in the Lords for Master’s appeal, which was dismissed. He attended a meeting on 15 May at Sunderland’s home in the company of Bishops Fleetwood, Evans and Talbot, where they met Somers, Townshend and Halifax, and agreed that nothing had been done in Convocation on 14 May that could fall within the statute of Henry VIII relating to the royal supremacy in the Church, which might have been infringed by the bishops seeking to clarify lay baptism. On 16 May Wake went to Bishop Fleetwood’s and met Bishops Tyler, Burnet and Evans, possibly on the same matter. Wake continued to work on this politically provocative issue and in the autumn presented the results of the latest historical scholarship on baptism. On 19 May he attended the Lords for the last time that session, and on the following day he registered his proxy in favour of Trimnell and took his leave of the queen, departing from London on 22 May.
Wake now embarked on his triennial visitation, beginning with confirmations at Hertford on 22 May 1712 and ending at Spalding on 24 July. In his charge to the clergy Wake made reference to a clause to prevent clandestine marriage which was tacked onto the act to levy duties on soap and paper. He was subsequently involved in correspondence with his ‘official’, John Crawley, over the interpretation of the clause. On 26 Sept., John Chamberlayne wrote to Wake about a bill that was planned to be brought into Parliament as soon as it sat concerning the augmentation of poor livings, though the initiative seems to have lost urgency in the long interval before the session began.
Before the 1713 session began, Wake was considered by Swift (on a list amended by Oxford) as expected to oppose the ministry in the forthcoming session. He was present in the House on 9 Apr. for the start of business, reporting ‘I prorogued Convocation till next Wednesday [15 Apr.]. I went to the House’. He attended on only 11 days of the session, 17 per cent of sittings, and was named to three committees. On 14 Apr. Bishop Trimnell and Dean Willis met with Wake in the afternoon, when ‘they agreed upon an address for tomorrow’ in Convocation. On 15 Apr. Wake duly went to Convocation as he did again a week later. After dinner on the latter day, he went on to the Lords (though he was not listed as attending in the Journal). On 28 Apr he was put off by the cold from taking his leave at Lambeth before attending the Lords. On the following day he met Bishops Moore, Hough, Trimnell and Fleetwood, before attending Convocation and on the 30th he left for Dorset, where he remained for part of May.
The Parliament of 1713 and after
On 26 Jan. 1714 Wake recorded the arrival of his parliamentary writ. On 29 Jan., well before the start of the session, Bishop Trimnell seems to have assigned his proxy to him. On 8 Feb. Archbishop Tenison, who had been seriously ill, thanked Wake for his ‘assistance at this needful time’ regarding Convocation and the important question of the number of commissioners to be named in his absence.
On 13 May 1714 he noted that Bishop Smalridge had sent his secretary to him ‘with the act about excommunication’, in other words the schism bill. Wake recorded on 2 June that he was involved in at least one meeting about the bill. On 3 June he was at the House and then at Lambeth with Bishop Fleetwood; the following day he went to Convocation and Parliament. He was forecast by Nottingham at the end of May or beginning of June as an opponent of the schism bill. On 9 June he went to Convocation, dined, and went to the House where he ‘tarried’ till seven o’clock. He voted on 11 June against extending the schism bill to Ireland. The following day he received Nicolson’s proxy and on the 14th that of Bishop Cumberland for use in the Lords. On the same day he received the proxies of Bishops Cumberland and Fowler for use in Convocation.
Wake set out for his diocese on 16 July 1714, and was thus at Buckden when he heard of the queen’s death. He returned to London on 18 Aug. and so was able to attend the last two days of the session convened upon the queen’s demise, qualifying himself by taking the oaths on the 20th and attending the giving of royal assent to the money bills on the 21st. He attended the queen’s burial on 24 Aug. and six days later went to Lambeth. On 31 Aug. he met Stamford, Manchester and Sir Peter King†, later Baron King. He set off for Shapwick on 2 Sept. and then returned to London on 16 Oct., one of his daughters having married on the 6th. On 18 Oct. Bishop Burnet called on him and together they went to court ‘and waited on the King, Prince and Princess of Wales and the young princesses’. Two days later Kennett accompanied Wake to the Lords from where they attended the coronation, Wake returning home at between four and five o’clock. On 26 Oct. Wake waited on Halifax, Somers, and Sunderland, but saw none of them. Wake reportedly then went to Dorset ‘by no means satisfied with the conduct of Lord Townshend’ over the recent appointment of John Wynne†, as bishop of St Asaph.
Wake preached before the new king on 30 Jan. 1715, and clearly stood in an ideal position for translation to a more prestigious bishopric. In March, upon the death of Bishop Burnet, he asked Cowper to recommend his translation to Salisbury:
the burden of a large diocese which I have endeavoured to bear as well as I could for almost ten years past; and have more than once endangered my life by the fatigue of it; joined to the great convenience of the bishopric of Sarum to my small estate and family, which is just in the neighbourhood of it; have at last constrained me, contrary to my natural temper, and to the whole conduct of my past life, to become an humble petitioner to your lordship for your favour to procure such a translation for me.Herts. ALS , DE/P/F62, Wake to Cowper, 18 Mar. 1715.
Later in the month, the newspapers wrote confidently of his translation, but Cowper had already backed Bishop Talbot, who was translated to Salisbury in April. By May, the coffee houses were equally sure that Wake would succeed Tenison at Lambeth, as he did when Tenison died in December 1715.
Wake, preaching a faith that relied on a fashionable appeal to reason more than religious enthusiasm, engaged Tory highfliers in heated published exchanges and contributed to the polarization of the Church into rival political parties of ‘low’ and ‘high’ churchmen. His elevation to the episcopate in 1705 was a result of growing Whig ascendancy in the queen’s councils. His extensive diary shows his range of social and political contacts: a political ally of Somers, Sunderland and Cowper among the lay peers, he was particularly close with the Whig bishops in the second half of Anne’s reign. After 1710 he rarely socialised with high churchmen except on formal occasions.